The silence from so-called women’s groups on the atrocities committed against women in Israel Oct. 7 is deafening.
Three months later, few if any have given a full-throated condemnation of what Hamas did despite the clear evidence its shocking crimes were deliberate and widespread.
Reporters for the major media also approached the issue with skepticism, though videos and photographs of victims showed bloody genitals and broken legs that were obvious signs of violent murder and rapes done in ghastly ways.
They’ve finally confirmed the horrific details.
The New York Times said Dec. 28 that its investigation showed “a pattern of rape, mutilation and extreme brutality,” “establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence.”
The Wall Street Journal’s reporters similarly investigated and concluded Dec. 31 that rape was a part of the Hamas battle plan.
One wonders why these publications and others took months to conclude what was obvious from the original accounts and the bodies, including women dragged through the streets.
“This is about the most documented set of horrors humanity has known. There are innumerable videos that have already been released — just go into the Hamas Telegram groups,” as Cochav Elkayam-Levy, Civil Commission on October 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children chief, told Haaretz.
These are the same publications that immediately issued false headlines about Israel bombing a hospital, killing 500, when it was in fact a rocket fired by Hamas allies that landed in a parking lot.
They took their time but at last came to the conclusion that shocking atrocities against women were committed not by soldiers operating on their own but on direct orders and as part of the battle plan: to humiliate, desecrate and sexually destroy and then usually kill women after putting them through torture that included driving nails into their genitals — acts so beastly they wouldn’t even have been done in the Middle Ages.
So what about the groups supposedly set up to protect and empower women?
They were so silent that finally former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg spoke out about the lack of condemnation from both the United Nations, including UN Women, and women’s groups.
“Silence is complicity,” Sandberg declared, joined by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Hillary Clinton.
Based on the Sandberg standard, there is a lot of complicity.
Emily’s List, an organization set up to elect Democratic women, has many litmus tests for those it would support, such as their position on abortion.
Condemning Hamas’ use of rape as a weapon of war is not one of those criteria.
This is so Emily’s List can continue to back Squad members and others supporting Hamas over Israel and still claim it is advancing the cause of women.
It is revealed as a group whose purpose is not to advance women at all costs but to advance pro-choice Democrats at all costs.
The National Organization for Women issued a statement Nov. 30 condemning the “use of rape as a weapon of war.”
It says we must “bear witness” to these crimes but fails even to mention Hamas or the Oct. 7 atrocities.
When statements are issued, they quickly turn into “all lives matter”-type remarks equating Hamas’ horrors with actions by Israel or Islamophobia.
They are not unequivocal and unencumbered statements that such acts are disqualifying and those who commit them forfeit their standing.
These groups’ game is to continue to back women who support Hamas and stand for the destruction of Israel.
That’s why they are bobbing and weaving here.
An Intercept piece by Judith Levine also makes clear one reason these horrors were buried is that they’re seen as a diversion from condemning Israel and its actions.
But of course, they are — and they should be.
These were genuine genocidal acts, not fabricated ones, and Hamas supporters should question whether they’re backing a legitimate resistance movement or an Islamic fundamentalist sect bolstered by Iran whose purpose is the destruction of Israel, Jews, Americans, gays and all nonbelievers.
Covering up and downplaying these acts lets people believe they are supporting the Palestinian people when Hamas is operating not at all to the benefit of Palestinians.
Imagine the economic progress that could have been achieved in Gaza if the funds that went to build hundreds of miles of tunnels and manufacture tens of thousands of rockets had gone to their intended purposes.
The crimes against women were crimes against humanity.
As Hillary Clinton once famously said, “Women’s rights are human rights, and human rights are women’s rights.”
There is no legitimacy to a movement that could sanction such crimes.
All groups and institutions should be condemning them without hesitation — otherwise they’re contributing to antisemitism by turning their backs on horrors because the victims were non-believing Jews and as such classified and treated as human trash.
As the presidents of our elite universities found out, there is no hedging when it comes to genocide — and there can be no “context” when it comes to these heinous crimes and the criminals who committed them.
Mark Penn, chairman of the Harris Poll and CEO of Stagwell, was a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1995-2008. Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.
