You have got to be kidding. "Members of Hamas raped Israeli womem, and so, all of Palestine must suffer endlessly to protect the chastity of Israeli women from even the specter of rape." Nothing to say about Hamas killing those women also, and their livestreaming the rapes and killings? Nothing to say about Hamas taking elderly women and children hostage, including a 9 month old baby and his 4 year brother? And then killing them? And then parading their bodies in front of a sign blaming Israel for their deaths, and showing Netanyahu as a vampire? And nothing about Hamas saying they were also returning the body of their mother, but it turned out not to be their mother Shiri Bibas, but a unidentified woman who wasn't related to them, as DNA tests revealed?
Hamas killed 1200 people including women like Shani Nicole Louk whose body was taken to Gaza as a trophy to be spat on. Hamas booby trapped the bodies of some of the women they killed and mutilated so Israelis trying to recover them would be blown up and killed.
Israel is only doing what any other country would do after being invaded and after their citizens were brutally killed. Israel is fighting to free the hostages. Many of the hostages have testified that they were raped and tortured.
I don't understand your reasoning that Israel is wrong for fighting Hamas after Hamas killed and raped thousands and took others hostage- and I don't understand your not supporting any of the women who survived being raped and tortured by Hamas.
"And no matter that the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which is presently in its 78th and deadliest year, yet, resembles nothing so much as American terrorism against Blacks, by lynching, in the Jim Crow south" Gaza wasn't occupied on October 7. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It's self governing, governed by Hamas. Egypt also blockades Gaza, for the same reasons Israel does: to keep weapons out of Gaza and to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks (Hamas has also attacked Egypt and killed Egyptians). Strangely I see few people condemn Egypt for blockading Gaza, for not allowing more Palestinians to enter Egypt through its border crossing at Rafah, and for not sending more aid. Is that because Egyptians are also brown and Muslim? Is that because accusing Egypt of carrying out Jim Crow terrorism and oppression doesn't have the same charge as a comparison, because people don't think of Egyptians as white "Europeans" or "colonizers" who lynch? Actually Hamas lynched on camera a Tanzanian student who they took hostage and forced into Gaza. Where's your outrage about that?
"Protect all women" unless they're Jewish? "Never Again for Everyone" except Israelis?
By the way, if a woman is raped by someone who isn't white do you think it's racist for her to speak out?
Of course it isn't racist for a woman to speak out about being raped by a nonwhite person. The point of this is that rape is a tool of systemic racist violence in the US and Israel. You can twist yourself into whatever logical knots you want to trying to defend genocide as a tool of rape. It doesn't change the reality. I'm quoting the UN investigations and Ida B. Wells, not riffing.
Normally I’m very polite but how did you ever become a professor? You can’t even offer a reasoned response to any of the points I’ve raised. Maybe you should ask yourself why you don’t want to acknowledge Hamas killing Palestinians and raping women. Do you think all Palestinians are innocent totally helpless victims because they’re non Western and not white? Or that Hamas would never rape and kill you if you happened to be in Israel?
If you are interested in how I managed to procure my job, you’re welcome to enroll in one of my courses! I am, meanwhile, not obligated to respond to anything you say. Have a lovely day.
You say rape is a tool of systemic racist violence....then completely ignore the fact that hamas and many Palestinian civilians who followed them across the border.... used mass rape and mutilation on October 7th to terrorize Jews. This isnt a side note....it’s the clearest possible example of the very framework you claim to care about. But you won’t apply it here....because doing so would mean holding Palestinians responsible and your worldview can’t tolerate that.So you erase it instead. You call out systemic violence only when it flatters your narrative...and ignore it when it shatters it. You have a standard until it points in the wrong direction... then it disappears.
It would be great if you actually read anything I wrote or wanted to have a good faith argument about it, but you haven’t, and you don’t, so let’s just be done, okay? Thx.
You're welcome to read my essay, or even enroll in one of my courses, since you are quite concerned with how I managed to procure my job. Best of luck.
You're completely ignoring the author's point. She never minimized the suffering of those Israelis on October 7th at the hands of Hamas but rather she's discussing the reaction sparked by the massacre for some who then advocated that there must be collective punishment inflicted on the entire Palestinian population. If she went down that road, she'd have to basically start discussing the history of the entire conflict which didn't start on October 7th.
Israel never "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005. It instituted a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip controlling the flow of goods in and out of the area and maintaining full air, land and sea control. Israel fully restricted Palestinian movement to and from the strip and had control of its water and electricity supply. The IDF would "mow the lawn" to conduct military operations in Gaza whenever it felt like there was any threat without committing to a political solution. That's not what self governance looks like.
Netanyahu allowed the flow of Qatari money to come into Gaza without restriction so that Hamas could stay in power and that Palestinian leadership could be divided. He just never thought that it would backfire on him like it did on October 7th.
Egypt is the 2nd largest recipient of US military aid specifically so that security guarantees are in place and that Egypt guards the Rafah crossing and doesn't allow Hamas to operate from Egypt proper and that they don't let Palestinians leave Gaza to go to Egypt.
The whole rape analogy you brought up based on race and skin color is gross. You should be ashamed of yourself.
"Israel never "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005. " When I was in school I was taught to look things up and do research before writing about a topic.
Hamas banned Israelis from entering Gaza. There were no Jews in Gaza before they took hostages.
Egypt also blockades Gaza, for the same reasons Israel does: to keep weapons out of Gaza and to protect their civilians from terrorist attacks. Hamas also attacked and killed Egyptians.
What is the author's point? "We call out the systemic use of sexual harassment and rape by the Israeli occupation against all Palestinians as an ongoing tool of colonial occupation and apartheid, one America quite literally wrote the book on" As a previous comment said, the author ignores the fact that Hamas raped and killed people on Oct 7 and has raped and killed hostages. The author ignores the fact that Israel's isn't "apartheid": Palestinians have served in the Knesset. Ahmad Tibi is a former deputy speaker. Mansour Abbas is the leader of the Arab Raam party.
How is Israel fighting to free the hostages "collective punishment inflicted on the entire Palestinian population"? Palestinians also live in Areas A and B of the West Bank and Israel. Hamas has been attacking Israel with rockets from Gaza for over a decade. Hamas has been firing weapons and rockets from civilian areas and humanitarian zones, and as Hamas has not provided Palestinians with bomb shelters or any protection, casualty rates are high. Casualty rates are also high from misfired Palestinian rockets that have blown up in Gaza. Right now Gazans have been killed by Hamas for protesting against them but the author doesn't mention that. The author also doesn't mention Hamas killing Palestinians for trying to get aid.
You say she didn’t minimize October 7th....then spend your entire comment doing exactly that.....burying mass rape, torture and slaughter under a stack of geopolitical justifications. “Context” doesn’t erase atrocity.....it’s a deflection.
Israel did withdraw from Gaza in 2005.......fully, unilaterally and with force against its own citizens to do it. What followed wasn’t occupation.....it was Hamas turning Gaza into a launchpad for terror. If you build tunnels instead of hospitals and fire rockets from schools you don’t get to pretend you were just blockaded into violence.
And your final line? You lecture on morality while excusing the mass rape of civilians because it’s politically inconvenient. This is cowardice dressed as nuance. This shit is so embarrassing .
Yes, Israel forced thousands of Israelis to leave Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Israel has also forced settlers to leave illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
It seems to be used as deflection of Israel's indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilians
A news report will come up about a whole neighbourhood in Palestine getting bombed with children dying because of some suspected terrorists are hiding among them but the knee jerk reaction will be 'What about October the 7th? as if that justifies it all
It seems to be used as deflection of Israel's indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilians
A news report will come up about a whole neighbourhood in Palestine getting bombed with children dying because of some suspected terrorists are hiding among them but the knee jerk reaction will be 'What about October the 7th? as if that justifies it all
Have you ever been trained for combat in the military, or been through a war? Many people don't realize what happens in warfare. I heard this morning that Ukraine attacked Odessa with drones. Where's your outcry over that? Or your outcry over Russia attacking Ukraine?
Saying Israel has "systemic use of sexual harassment and rape by the Israeli occupation against all Palestinians as an ongoing tool of colonial occupation and apartheid" and this stems from American racist violence against African Americans is insane. How can Israel be Apartheid if all citizens have equal rights and Palestinians serve in the Knesset? How is fighting against Hamas to free the hostages "racist"? How is fighting against Hamas after Hamas raped and killed people on October 7 and after Hamas has raped and killed hostages "lynching and burning alive of innocent human beings in the name of white women’s chastity"? Israelis are diverse and the majority of Israeli Jews are from Middle Eastern, Asian and African backgrounds- what does "white women's chastity" have to do with Israel being invaded, attacked and 1200 people being killed by Hamas? What does the conflict in the Middle East have to do with the history of racism and racist violence in the US which is thousands of miles away?
I pointed out that Hamas lynched on camera a Tanzanian student they took hostage and took to Gaza and burned people and entire families alive on October 7. I haven't had any response to this, or to my pointing out Hamas is firing weapons and attacking Israel from civilian areas and humanitarian zones.
October 7th isn’t a deflection. It’s the part you keep skipping. Civilians were butchered in their homes..... women raped, children shot, families burned alive. You bring up bombings but never what triggered them. You're ignoring it because you don't want to deal with what it means.
There's also no mentioning that Hamas has been firing weapons from humanitarian zones and civilian areas including hospitals and schools. No mention that Hamas built a tunnel system longer than the London Underground and is storing weapons in tunnels underneath hospitals, schools, civilian homes and mosques.
I just read an interview with a hostage who was released. He reported he was taken into a tunnel in Gaza and the entrance was in a mosque. He was held in the tunnel for months.
You're not responding to what was said. No one “justified mass bombing campaigns.” What was pointed out....accurately...is that you refuse to acknowledge the brutality of October 7th because it makes your position uncomfortable. Civilians weren’t collateral damage that day....they were the target. Women were raped in front of their children, people were burned alive, families executed in their homes. You don’t mention it because you can’t. It breaks the script.
You throw around words like “deflection” to avoid admitting that those atrocities happened and that they mean something. Not everything is proportional. Not everything is a clean moral exchange. If that level of violence doesn’t register with you...then you’re not having a debate...you’re protecting a narrative.
This is where the modern left has landed: making excuses for Jews being raped and butchered...as long as the people doing it check the right ideological boxes. It guts your entire narrative...because when your outrage depends on who the victim is....everyone sees it for what it is: selective morality dressed up as justice.
Well said. I wanted to like your comment but Substack won't let me.
The Left utterly denounces Israel while ignoring Hamas killing Palestinians and Palestinian children, ignoring Hamas still attacking Israel, firing missiles and weapons from humanitarian zones and civilian areas without giving any protection to Palestinian civilians. When a hospital suffered from a misfired Palestinian rocket, people were quick to blame Israel, and many people like Jeremy Corbyn still claim that Israel exploded the hospital although the BBC and other news media corrected their initial reports.
As you say, many people don't want to admit that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Palestinian groups are violent and have stated that their goal is to kill Jews- not just Israelis, but all Jews. They believe so strongly in the idea that the oppressed are bad- completely, totally bad- and the oppressed are good- even when they kill, rape, and take babies hostage- that they have cognitive dissonance. Judith Butler was heavily criticized for calling Hamas' atrocities "armed resistance" and saying ‘We can have a debate about whether Hamas did the right thing’ (https://fathomjournal.org/we-can-have-a-debate-about-whether-hamas-did-the-right-thing-judith-butlers-moral-relativism/)
What really puzzles me is the LGBTQ people who support Hamas while denying that Hamas has stated openly they hate LGBTQ people and denying that Hamas has persecuted and killed them... while condemning Israel for "pinkwashing". It makes no sense.
Hamas may be evil but that doesn't change the fact that Israel is an ethno-religious state founded by Ashkenazi Jews who are predominantly of European heritage and that a great deal of land in Israel was stolen and is still stolen to this day from the native inhabitants
This is what happens when identity eclipses ethics. You now have far left and LGBTQ activists offering cover to a regime that would flay them in the street.....not out of solidarity but out of sheer ideological compulsion. The modern left’s moral compass is so warped by its obsession with power dynamics that it no longer points to right or wrong.....only to oppressor and oppressed. And once that binary is set..... no fact, no atrocity..not even a pile of corpses will make them flinch.
In this twisted framework hamas isn’t judged by its actions.....murdering civilians, raping women, executing gays....but by its position in the narrative: nonwhite, anti western.. therefore righteous. It’s not just intellectually bankrupt...it’s psychotic. When your worldview leads you to excuse the torture of jews because their state has a functioning airport...or to align with jihadists because they aren't white..you haven’t just lost the plot.......you’ve torched the book and called it liberation.
What we’re witnessing is a death cult of moral relativism.....where if you belong to the wrong group, your suffering isn’t just ignored, it’s deserved.These people should be ridiculed, exposed and remembered not as activists.....but as the useful idiots who cheered for monsters and called it justice.
No one's deflecting on the Left about the massacre on October 7th which was a horrific war crime committed by Hamas. You're focusing on a fringe minority Matt or making this up in your head to avoid dealing with the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people right now.
Lets have an independent investigation of October 7th by organizations outside of Israel. Oh wait Bibi doesn't want that because the whole "mass rape" BS would be debunked. Reports of sexual violence does not equal mass rape.
You're wrong....and worse you're comfortable being wrong. The United Nations’ Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflic.... Pramila Patten led a mission to Israel and the west bank. Her team reported “reasonable grounds to believe” that rape and gang rape occurred across multiple sites on October 7th. These weren’t rumors.....they weren’t headlines crafted by netanyahus office. They were based on direct evidence, survivor testimony and field investigations. You can read the report yourself.....it’s published by the UN not the IDF.
And no...it didn’t stop there. The same UN report confirmed “clear and convincing information” that hostages taken into Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualized torture. These are not claims from a “fringe” or a partisan source. This is the international body you likely reference when it suits your narrative.
Calling it “mass rape bs” doesn’t make you sound skeptical. It makes you sound like someone so ideologically invested in their script that even verified atrocities have to be spun away. This is pure cowardice .. You asked for an independent investigation...there was one. You just didn’t like what it found.
So now you’re stuck. You either accept the evidence or you admit your outrage depends entirely on who the victims are.
1. UN Mission Report – Official Visit of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the West Bank
Starting a war by invading a country and killing people then losing the war isn’t “genocide”. The Allies didn’t commit “genocide” on Japan after Pearl Harbor. Hamas could have stopped the fighting at any time by releasing the hostages. They’re still holding hostages.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67629181 There was mass rape. Hamas livestreamed many of their killings and rapings. The British journalist Owen Jones watched live cam footage from Oct 7 and then tried to argue that that large numbers of women’s bodies lying in blood missing underwear and naked from the waist down wasn’t proof that they were raped and said he needed to see the actual rapes before he believed there was mass rape. He was heavily condemned for the remarks.
It was a brutal and unjustified attack targeting innocent civilians including children, it was horrific and never should have happened
But it becomes deflection when any criticism of Israel's mass killing of Palestinian civilians is re-directed back to what happened on October the 7th even if that was what instigated the current bombing campaign
It is whataboutism to avoid addressing Israel's unjustified actions currently happening towards Palestinian civilians, at best if not deflecting people who invoke October the 7th are either trying to argue that Israeli Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian lives or that retaliation against Palestinian civilians including children is justified, neither of which are morally defensible positions
I’m going to be direct here: I am so sick of people accusing others of believing “Israeli Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian lives”. They say nothing about the Israeli Druze who were killed on October 7 by Hamas, nothing about Hamas killing Thai nationals and taking several hostage, nothing about Hamas killing Tanzanians (they lynched a Tanzanian student on camera, and killed one Thai by cutting his head off with a hoe) nothing about Hamas killing Nepalese for no reason except they happened to be in Israel. And they say NOTHING about Hamas killing Palestinians. NOTHING about Hamas forcing under 18 year olds to fight in combat which is against international law. They don’t give a shit about stopping Hamas from killing people, even from killing Palestinians. They don’t give a stuff about Palestinians. They just want to use them as an excuse to hate Jews. Want to free Palestinians? Free them from Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.Give them free speech, free elections and a free press. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/i-was-helpless-nepali-survivors-of-hamas-attack-in-israel-haunted-by-trauma
The same thing happened in WWII. Dresden was firebombed. All of Warsaw was flattened by the Nazis including civilian men women and children. The whole city was reduced to rubble. Imagine saying about Berlin: "Was it worth bombing Berlin to rubble because some Nazi soldiers were hiding among them?"
That's my point. No army or country is morally perfect. Did any of the Allies in February 1945 say bombing Dresden was wrong? They were trying to stop the Nazis and trying to fight their way to Berlin to defeat the Nazis. The Nazis were killing millions of people in 1945.
You can argue about the morality of the Dresden bombing now (it's the anniversary of VE day coincidentally) 80 years after the Nazis were defeated, now in peacetime, when people's lives aren't being ended or endangered by the Nazi Army, in isolation from the rest of WWII. It's tragic that thousands of civilian lives were lost in Dresden. But at the time the Allies would have pointed out that hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the Nazi bombing of Britain and the Nazi bombing of European countries. Also millions of people were killed by Japan.
And Warsaw would have been saved along with thousands of lives if the Russian Army had intervened and helped the Poles fight the Nazis. The Red Army was camped on the other side of the Vistula River and did nothing for months. The Poles are still very angry and bitter that the Soviets waited until January 1945 to enter Warsaw, when the city was in ruins and after thousands of Poles died fighting the Nazis in the Warsaw Uprising.
Remember Pearl Harbor? The US declared war on Japan after Japan's attack killed 2,403 people. An argument can be made regarding the morality of the US' war on Japan, as 550,000 to 800,000 Japanese civilians were killed, including 150,000 to 246,000 in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
My comments yesterday were emotional (I'm sorry about this, I should have used reasoned argument in a more dispassionate tone) , but I want you to understand that for Americans who lost family and loved ones who were fighting for their country, it is upsetting to read that America uses rape as a tool of war. Especially people of color who lost loved ones and family who served in the armed forces. America fought Japan to free the countries and peoples who were under the oppression of the brutal Japan occupation. Japan forced between 50,000 and 200,000 Korean women into sexual servitude as "comfort women". Imagine Korean American women reading that America uses rape in war which stems from the history of racism against African Americans. They would feel upset that the trauma of Japan's sexually enslaving Koreans was being excluded, the racism of Japanese against Koreans was being erased, and rape was being weaponized to attack Americans. I'm aware that there were instances of American soldiers raping women during WWII and Iraq (I heard about some instances personally talking to relatives who were MPs in WWII). The soldiers who committed them were court-martialed and disciplined. Rape was not official US policy for the armed forces, and cases of American soldiers committing rape were few compared to the massive numbers of rapes carried out by the Soviet Army as the Russians battled Germany.
It is not official policy of the IDF to rape Palestinians. In fact, a published academic paper by Tal Nitzan stated that the Israelis don't rape Palestinian women because they are "racist" (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/124674) A journalist commented, "Such that this situation is unique: An army is found blameworthy of rape, and is also blameworthy of not raping."
I want you to understand how upsetting it is for many people for Israel to be denounced for rape, not only in the light of condemnations of Israel for not raping Palestinian women because they're too racist to see Palestinian women as human, but also in regards to the denial that Hamas raped and killed women on October 7, and raped and killed hostages. It's not only painful for the relatives and families of women who were killed on October 7, and the relatives and families of the hostages, it's distressing when Hamas' rapes and atrocities are simultaneously ignored. Many people are demanding that Hamas be held to account rather than being excused. Many people are furious about Judith Butler and others refusing to condemn Hamas for rape, and accepting rape as method of war when committed by groups they support politically (https://fathomjournal.org/we-can-have-a-debate-about-whether-hamas-did-the-right-thing-judith-butlers-moral-relativism/)
The sign in the picture at the top of this page says "Protect All Women". Imagine being excluded from other women and considered not worth protecting, because of your religion, ethnicity, or politics. Imagine that at the same time people of your religion, ethnicity, or political views are dismissed as rape victims, despite extensive documented evidence of them being raped and murdered, and are incriminated en masse as rapists and murderers. Moreover while your people have been killed by a terrorist group and are being held hostage and tortured by that terrorist groups.
The Jim Crow south analogy does not map well onto Israel/Palestine, it's a completely different situation. Putting aside your rape denial, which I'll just grant you for the sake of argument, thousands of Hamas militia members invaded Israel on October 7 and killed over 1000 people, and they have spent years launching thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. This is war, not Jim Crow. If you want to make the trite, cliched argument that this is just the understandable reaction of oppressed peoples, fine, but don't pretend this is the same thing as southerners lynching black people just for their race.
Palestine is a violently occupied land and Israel is an apartheid state. And if you actually read the piece, you might have noticed the part where I quote, in good faith, the UN report acknowledging that sexual violence occurred on October 7. That’s part of the point of the speech. But anyone unwilling to see the connections between the Jim Crow south and Israeli apartheid is probably not having a good faith argument, so, I’ll just say, have a nice day and I hope you get some clarity, soon.
Gaza was not occupied on Oct 7. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Gaza is self governing, governed by Hamas. Areas A and B of the West Bank are self governing, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Area C is controlled by Israel as per the Oslo Agreements.
I grew up in the South and started school just after the schools were integrated. You're using Jim Crow and the tragedy of Emmett Till to attack both America and Israel, while completely erasing Hamas raping and killing women, livestreaming their rapings and killings and raping, killing and torturing women hostages. The sexual violence by Hamas has been extensively documented (https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/17/questions-and-answers-hamas-led-armed-groups-october-7-2023-assault-israel) I provided a link to a UN report about the rape in my earlier comments which you have not yet responded to.
It's extremely offensive to the memory of the victims of lynching and racist violence to weaponise their deaths to castigate a country that is fighting for its survival and fighting to free hostages, particularly while you ignore the rapings and killings of those hostages by a terrorist group. and then denounce Israel as Jim Crow and evoke Wells: " the lynching and burning alive of innocent human beings in the name of white women’s chastity is more than acceptable, it is just. This is the same argument, a century later, that Israel, and America, make about Palestinians, daily. This is the same argument, a century later, that Israel, and America, make about Palestinians, daily."
No Israelis have said that lynching and burning alive Palestinians in the name of white women's chastity is more than acceptable, it is just. In fact, Hamas burned people alive on Oct 7. Israeli forensics units couldn't identify some victims as DNA couldn't be extracted because their bodies melted into their cars after Hamas members set their cars alight. I mentioned before the Tanzanian student who was taken hostage, taken to Gaza and then lynched on camera by Hamas.
I would like to ask you if you have ever been to Israel or Palestine. I lived there and studied there. Are you aware that the Arab Raam Party is a major party in the Knesset, and Palestinians such as Ahmad Tibi, a former deputy speaker, are represented in the Knesset? That Israel has democratically elected more Muslims than any other country including the US? (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-696212)
There are no Jews represented in Hamas. Hamas bans Jews from entering Gaza. The only Jews there are the hostages. Hamas doesn't hold elections. The PA hasn't held parliamentary or presidental elections for 20 years. Mahmoud Abbas is in his 20th year of his 4 year term as President.
Want to help free Palestinians? Free Gaza from Hamas. I mentioned that Hamas is right now killing Gazans who are trying to protest against them. Nothing to say about the Palestinians protesting that that they want to free from the oppression of Hamas and Hamas' terrorism?
How about supporting an independent Palestinian state, with a free press, free speech and free elections, and secure borders? Israel has actually invested in Gaza's infrastructure so they can have new desalination plants. That's something Hamas should be doing, but they spent all of Gaza's resources on weapons to attack Israel and tunnels. Hamas doesn't give Palestinians bomb shelters either- one reason why so many people have been killed in the conflict, along with Hamas' practice of firing weapons and missiles from civilian and humanitarian zones. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/water-desalination-quietly-returns-to-gaza-after-work-by-israel-and-pa/)
Not being funny but you've been extremely dismissive and flippant. Are you going to respond to any of the points I've raised and to the points others have made?
You compared the actual rape of Israeli women to the Emmet Till story, in which a man was murdered for (maybe) whistling at a woman. That is not good faith. Good day.
Well said. Exploiting the tragic history of racism and lynchings in the US against African Americans to attack Israel is offensive, especially if say Israel is attacking Palestinians out of racism and hatred while ignoring Hamas stating their aim is to kill all Jews. Not just Israelis- all Jews.
This is the textbook example of privileged narcissism masquerading as activism. You wrapped your own trauma around a geopolitical conflict and acted like the two were interchangeable.....they’re not.
You opened by reciting your survival....something solemn, something personal..and you immediately tried to convert that into universal currency. As if your pain could be bartered for moral supremacy on subjects you clearly don’t understand. That is opportunism not strength.
Then you took “Never Again” a phrase that belongs to the dead....the gassed, the incinerated, the buried...and tried to rebrand it like it was yours. You cheapened it....you took the ashes of genocide and smeared them across your activist whiteboard because it fit the cadence of your chant...that is theft.
You quoted Ida B. Wells...invoked Emmett Till and dropped historical trauma like emotional seasoning. But you didn’t honor those names....you used them. You twisted them to fit a narrative where every oppressor is the same and every conflict is just another costume change. This is idealogical cosplay.
When you finally mentioned the October 7th rapes...when you were forced to...you immediately dismissed them as media manipulation. You called the repeated sexual mutilation of women “the playbook.” You wrote it off....Why? Because it didn’t fit. Because the victims weren’t useful to you. Because in your world....it’s “believe all women” unless they’re jews.
“You can’t use the money I make teaching about rape to burn Palestinians alive.” Emily.... that’s not a political argument....it’s a diary entry. The irs didn’t ask for your blessing and raytheon isn’t combing through adjunct payrolls to fund munitions. You’re not defying empire....you’re just moralizing into a mirror.
You called the Israeli/Palestinian conflict a “mass and endless lynching”.....as if collapsing centuries of history into a buzzword makes you profound.....it only makes you unserious.You write that to get a reaction not to enlighten. Like everything else you said... it was designed for applause not understanding.
Your views are THEE very definition of luxury beliefs....comfortable opinions you wear like accessories because they cost you nothing. From your safe perch in academia...you pose as a truth teller while risking absolutely nothing. This is self indulgence dressed as principle.
You set out to look brave.Instead, you revealed exactly what you are: vapid, arrogant, historically shallow and perfectly willing to exploit real suffering if it means staying center stage.
As a side note: I think I speak for many when I say we have grown profoundly weary of privileged liberal white women exploiting tragedy and historical suffering for ideological applause. Moral authority is not granted by identity or victimhood alone but earned through intellectual honesty, humility and genuine empathy...qualities entirely absent from this sanctimonious and morally bankrupt display.
Ah, the battle cry of the intellectually bankrupt. When facts fail and moral grandstanding collapses....all that’s left is profanity. Thanks for confirming there was never a real argument to begin with. Have a good day.
I want to point out that the Nazis hated black people and people of color and slaughtered them, slaughtered North Africans and slaughtered mixed race people. Saying "Never Again means never again for everyone" while swearing that the US and Israel uses the legacy of racist violence and lynching as a weapon of "apartheid" against Palestinians is dishonoring their memory. Especially while ignoring Hamas actually lynching Africans.
How do you even respond to garbage like this? I suppose at least you got your name right?.
Can you explain how "Palestinians" literally complained that Israelis think they're superior to the "PaLIEStinians" because they WON'T rape their women? Israel has never and will never use rape as a weapon of war. Your friends Hamas do that all the time, except c**ts like you always deny it. Good, glad you were raped. You deserve it. Hope it happens again.
PS, Madam Hitler, the Jews have lived in Israel, JUDEA & SAMARIA continuously for over 3000 years. The "Fakestinians" arrived in the mid to late 1800s. Well documented by Mark Twain, John Adams, etc. Just for accuracy's s ake, they weren't "PaLIEStinians" in the mid to late 1800s, as the "Fakestinians" were only invented on 2 December 1964. Prior to that, they were Arabs.
It's important to note that progressive leftist models of antiracism seem to have left out Jews. Anti-Black racism is about 500 years old and has left us with a legacy of systemic racism... but 2000 years of Jew hatred has apparently left no effects at all. Most Americans see Jews as white people because they know no Jews or they only interact with Ashkenazim Jews who may have fair complexions ( Ashkenazi Jews can also have dark skin and features associated with Mediterranean peoples). So these progressives have no inoculation against this movement because they have never examined their systemic hatred of Jews.
As someone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state I wish you could make your argument without stealing from Jewish people. ‘Never Again’ is a specific phrase associated with protecting Jewish life. It’s exceedingly tone deaf to use it in a context against Jewish people in a conflict which had the highest single day death toll for Jews since the Holocaust.
This is the equivalent of saying “Blue Lives Matter” after a Black man killed a cop. It’s based in a belief against violence but its effect is one of harm.
You aren’t wrong in wanting to protect life but bigotry has no place on the left.
Well said. I wanted to like your comment but Substrack won't let me for some reason.
Many people have used "never again" as an accusation against Israel precisely because it refers to the Holocaust (which they affected only Jews. Actually the Nazis also killed 5 million non Jewish groups including the Romani and Poles). It's a weapon to say to Israel "You said Never Again but now you're killing Palestinians" suggesting that the conflict is like the Holocaust, that Israel is killing Palestinians for no reason at all except hatred. Van Duyne does mention Oct 7, but this post makes it sound like Israel is mostly attacking, killing- and raping- Palestinians mostly out of hatred and racism, which is deeply offensive. It's also offensive as she says she's a white woman, yet she's exploiting the horrific history of racist attacks and killings of African Americans as a weapon to attack Israel. She completely ignores the Hamas Charter which openly states their aim to is to kill Jews- not just Israelis but all Jews. Apparently Hamas' hatred and prejudice and violence towards Jews and Israelis is fine, because Palestinians are "oppressed". Palestinians are oppressed- by Hamas and the PA. In Israel all citizens have equal rights including the Arab Raam Party and Palestinians such as Ahmad Tibi, a former deputy speaker of the Knesset.
"These people are toxic participants in the very patriarchal systems of abuse that they demand they are opposed to. They are props for the patriarchy. They are props for terrorism. They are props for Jihad. They are props for the Caliphate." Eve Barlow
This post is a strong example of how Israel is not an actual country for many people. They know nothing about the history of the region and don't know the complexity of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel and Palestine are just mirrors for them and they project whatever they don't like onto Israel. For Americans it's racism and US police brutality towards minorities (Jewish Voice for Peace actually walked back their Deadly Exchange campaign after George Floyd, but many people still swear police in the US learn racist violence from training with Israel. Never mind US police train with countries from all over the world. Never mind US police were racist and violent towards African Americans long before 1948) Note that this post exploits the tragic history of racism in America and lynchings and killings of African Americans as a weapon to attack Israel while ignoring the anti Jewish racism of Hamas (the Hamas charter makes it clear their goal is to kill Jews. Not just Israelis- all Jews). For Australians it's indigenous rights and land back. British people condemn Israel's "imperialism" (ignoring that actually Israel gave back 66,000 square kilometers of land Israel held after 1967, including the Sinai, Gaza and Areas A and B of the West Bank).
I've seen people blame Israel for climate change claiming Israel attacking Gaza has raised global temperatures (ignoring that Hamas has used burning kites and incendiary balloons for years to destroy thousands of acres of the environment). A person in the UK just posted an accusation because they were angry that their local government is now using drones to catch illegal dumping of garbage in the countryside. They swore that the local council learned this from Israel which uses drones to kill Palestinian children. Their tweet was severely criticized and people responded that using drones in the UK is common and common in many countries.
As someone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state I wish you could make your argument without stealing from Jewish people. ‘Never Again’ is a specific phrase associated with protecting Jewish life. It’s exceedingly tone deaf to use it in a context against Jewish people in a conflict which had the highest single day death toll for Jews since the Holocaust.
This is the equivalent of saying “Blue Lives Matter” after a Black man killed a cop. It’s based in a belief against violence but its effect is one of harm.
You aren’t wrong in wanting to protect life but bigotry has no place on the left.
You have got to be kidding. "Members of Hamas raped Israeli womem, and so, all of Palestine must suffer endlessly to protect the chastity of Israeli women from even the specter of rape." Nothing to say about Hamas killing those women also, and their livestreaming the rapes and killings? Nothing to say about Hamas taking elderly women and children hostage, including a 9 month old baby and his 4 year brother? And then killing them? And then parading their bodies in front of a sign blaming Israel for their deaths, and showing Netanyahu as a vampire? And nothing about Hamas saying they were also returning the body of their mother, but it turned out not to be their mother Shiri Bibas, but a unidentified woman who wasn't related to them, as DNA tests revealed?
Hamas killed 1200 people including women like Shani Nicole Louk whose body was taken to Gaza as a trophy to be spat on. Hamas booby trapped the bodies of some of the women they killed and mutilated so Israelis trying to recover them would be blown up and killed.
Israel is only doing what any other country would do after being invaded and after their citizens were brutally killed. Israel is fighting to free the hostages. Many of the hostages have testified that they were raped and tortured.
I don't understand your reasoning that Israel is wrong for fighting Hamas after Hamas killed and raped thousands and took others hostage- and I don't understand your not supporting any of the women who survived being raped and tortured by Hamas.
"And no matter that the Israeli occupation of Palestine, which is presently in its 78th and deadliest year, yet, resembles nothing so much as American terrorism against Blacks, by lynching, in the Jim Crow south" Gaza wasn't occupied on October 7. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. It's self governing, governed by Hamas. Egypt also blockades Gaza, for the same reasons Israel does: to keep weapons out of Gaza and to protect their citizens from terrorist attacks (Hamas has also attacked Egypt and killed Egyptians). Strangely I see few people condemn Egypt for blockading Gaza, for not allowing more Palestinians to enter Egypt through its border crossing at Rafah, and for not sending more aid. Is that because Egyptians are also brown and Muslim? Is that because accusing Egypt of carrying out Jim Crow terrorism and oppression doesn't have the same charge as a comparison, because people don't think of Egyptians as white "Europeans" or "colonizers" who lynch? Actually Hamas lynched on camera a Tanzanian student who they took hostage and forced into Gaza. Where's your outrage about that?
"Protect all women" unless they're Jewish? "Never Again for Everyone" except Israelis?
By the way, if a woman is raped by someone who isn't white do you think it's racist for her to speak out?
Of course it isn't racist for a woman to speak out about being raped by a nonwhite person. The point of this is that rape is a tool of systemic racist violence in the US and Israel. You can twist yourself into whatever logical knots you want to trying to defend genocide as a tool of rape. It doesn't change the reality. I'm quoting the UN investigations and Ida B. Wells, not riffing.
It's very odd that you seem to be saying that Israel fighting against a group that committed rape is "racist."
You still have nothing to say about Hamas using rape as a systematic tool of racist violence?
And nothing to say about the genocide of 1200 people Hamas committed on October 7?
And nothing to say about the hostages Hamas is holding?
Ida B Wells died in 1931. The UN investigators found that sexual violence was used by Hamas. https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15621.doc.htm
Good luck, babe!
Normally I’m very polite but how did you ever become a professor? You can’t even offer a reasoned response to any of the points I’ve raised. Maybe you should ask yourself why you don’t want to acknowledge Hamas killing Palestinians and raping women. Do you think all Palestinians are innocent totally helpless victims because they’re non Western and not white? Or that Hamas would never rape and kill you if you happened to be in Israel?
If you are interested in how I managed to procure my job, you’re welcome to enroll in one of my courses! I am, meanwhile, not obligated to respond to anything you say. Have a lovely day.
You say rape is a tool of systemic racist violence....then completely ignore the fact that hamas and many Palestinian civilians who followed them across the border.... used mass rape and mutilation on October 7th to terrorize Jews. This isnt a side note....it’s the clearest possible example of the very framework you claim to care about. But you won’t apply it here....because doing so would mean holding Palestinians responsible and your worldview can’t tolerate that.So you erase it instead. You call out systemic violence only when it flatters your narrative...and ignore it when it shatters it. You have a standard until it points in the wrong direction... then it disappears.
Well said.
No, I am not kidding. Have a nice day.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147217 So rape is okay when Hamas does it?
Killing people because of their ethnic group- that’s fine when Hamas does it?
It would be great if you actually read anything I wrote or wanted to have a good faith argument about it, but you haven’t, and you don’t, so let’s just be done, okay? Thx.
It would be great if you actually responded to any of the points I’ve raised.
You're welcome to read my essay, or even enroll in one of my courses, since you are quite concerned with how I managed to procure my job. Best of luck.
It would be great if you actually read anything I wrote and responded to the points I raised.
You're completely ignoring the author's point. She never minimized the suffering of those Israelis on October 7th at the hands of Hamas but rather she's discussing the reaction sparked by the massacre for some who then advocated that there must be collective punishment inflicted on the entire Palestinian population. If she went down that road, she'd have to basically start discussing the history of the entire conflict which didn't start on October 7th.
Israel never "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005. It instituted a complete blockade on the Gaza Strip controlling the flow of goods in and out of the area and maintaining full air, land and sea control. Israel fully restricted Palestinian movement to and from the strip and had control of its water and electricity supply. The IDF would "mow the lawn" to conduct military operations in Gaza whenever it felt like there was any threat without committing to a political solution. That's not what self governance looks like.
Netanyahu allowed the flow of Qatari money to come into Gaza without restriction so that Hamas could stay in power and that Palestinian leadership could be divided. He just never thought that it would backfire on him like it did on October 7th.
Egypt is the 2nd largest recipient of US military aid specifically so that security guarantees are in place and that Egypt guards the Rafah crossing and doesn't allow Hamas to operate from Egypt proper and that they don't let Palestinians leave Gaza to go to Egypt.
The whole rape analogy you brought up based on race and skin color is gross. You should be ashamed of yourself.
"Israel never "withdrew" from Gaza in 2005. " When I was in school I was taught to look things up and do research before writing about a topic.
Hamas banned Israelis from entering Gaza. There were no Jews in Gaza before they took hostages.
Egypt also blockades Gaza, for the same reasons Israel does: to keep weapons out of Gaza and to protect their civilians from terrorist attacks. Hamas also attacked and killed Egyptians.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/12/08/10-things-to-know-about-the-history-of-gaza/
https://honestreporting.com/gaza-blockade-explainer/
What is the author's point? "We call out the systemic use of sexual harassment and rape by the Israeli occupation against all Palestinians as an ongoing tool of colonial occupation and apartheid, one America quite literally wrote the book on" As a previous comment said, the author ignores the fact that Hamas raped and killed people on Oct 7 and has raped and killed hostages. The author ignores the fact that Israel's isn't "apartheid": Palestinians have served in the Knesset. Ahmad Tibi is a former deputy speaker. Mansour Abbas is the leader of the Arab Raam party.
How is Israel fighting to free the hostages "collective punishment inflicted on the entire Palestinian population"? Palestinians also live in Areas A and B of the West Bank and Israel. Hamas has been attacking Israel with rockets from Gaza for over a decade. Hamas has been firing weapons and rockets from civilian areas and humanitarian zones, and as Hamas has not provided Palestinians with bomb shelters or any protection, casualty rates are high. Casualty rates are also high from misfired Palestinian rockets that have blown up in Gaza. Right now Gazans have been killed by Hamas for protesting against them but the author doesn't mention that. The author also doesn't mention Hamas killing Palestinians for trying to get aid.
You say she didn’t minimize October 7th....then spend your entire comment doing exactly that.....burying mass rape, torture and slaughter under a stack of geopolitical justifications. “Context” doesn’t erase atrocity.....it’s a deflection.
Israel did withdraw from Gaza in 2005.......fully, unilaterally and with force against its own citizens to do it. What followed wasn’t occupation.....it was Hamas turning Gaza into a launchpad for terror. If you build tunnels instead of hospitals and fire rockets from schools you don’t get to pretend you were just blockaded into violence.
And your final line? You lecture on morality while excusing the mass rape of civilians because it’s politically inconvenient. This is cowardice dressed as nuance. This shit is so embarrassing .
Yes, Israel forced thousands of Israelis to leave Gaza when it withdrew in 2005. Israel has also forced settlers to leave illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
https://reliefweb.int/report/israel/israel-begins-forced-evacuation-gaza-settlers
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-38830103
"The whole rape analogy you brought up based on race and skin color is gross" I was quoting the author.
It seems to be used as deflection of Israel's indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilians
A news report will come up about a whole neighbourhood in Palestine getting bombed with children dying because of some suspected terrorists are hiding among them but the knee jerk reaction will be 'What about October the 7th? as if that justifies it all
It seems to be used as deflection of Israel's indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilians
A news report will come up about a whole neighbourhood in Palestine getting bombed with children dying because of some suspected terrorists are hiding among them but the knee jerk reaction will be 'What about October the 7th? as if that justifies it all
Yes. This is precisely the point.
Have you ever been trained for combat in the military, or been through a war? Many people don't realize what happens in warfare. I heard this morning that Ukraine attacked Odessa with drones. Where's your outcry over that? Or your outcry over Russia attacking Ukraine?
The author can focus on whatever issue she likes. Your whataboutisms are insane. No one can discuss every topic at once in an article.
Saying Israel has "systemic use of sexual harassment and rape by the Israeli occupation against all Palestinians as an ongoing tool of colonial occupation and apartheid" and this stems from American racist violence against African Americans is insane. How can Israel be Apartheid if all citizens have equal rights and Palestinians serve in the Knesset? How is fighting against Hamas to free the hostages "racist"? How is fighting against Hamas after Hamas raped and killed people on October 7 and after Hamas has raped and killed hostages "lynching and burning alive of innocent human beings in the name of white women’s chastity"? Israelis are diverse and the majority of Israeli Jews are from Middle Eastern, Asian and African backgrounds- what does "white women's chastity" have to do with Israel being invaded, attacked and 1200 people being killed by Hamas? What does the conflict in the Middle East have to do with the history of racism and racist violence in the US which is thousands of miles away?
I pointed out that Hamas lynched on camera a Tanzanian student they took hostage and took to Gaza and burned people and entire families alive on October 7. I haven't had any response to this, or to my pointing out Hamas is firing weapons and attacking Israel from civilian areas and humanitarian zones.
October 7th isn’t a deflection. It’s the part you keep skipping. Civilians were butchered in their homes..... women raped, children shot, families burned alive. You bring up bombings but never what triggered them. You're ignoring it because you don't want to deal with what it means.
There's also no mentioning that Hamas has been firing weapons from humanitarian zones and civilian areas including hospitals and schools. No mention that Hamas built a tunnel system longer than the London Underground and is storing weapons in tunnels underneath hospitals, schools, civilian homes and mosques.
I just read an interview with a hostage who was released. He reported he was taken into a tunnel in Gaza and the entrance was in a mosque. He was held in the tunnel for months.
Using that as a justification for carrying out mass bombing campaigns against Palestinian civilians is indeed deflection
You're not responding to what was said. No one “justified mass bombing campaigns.” What was pointed out....accurately...is that you refuse to acknowledge the brutality of October 7th because it makes your position uncomfortable. Civilians weren’t collateral damage that day....they were the target. Women were raped in front of their children, people were burned alive, families executed in their homes. You don’t mention it because you can’t. It breaks the script.
You throw around words like “deflection” to avoid admitting that those atrocities happened and that they mean something. Not everything is proportional. Not everything is a clean moral exchange. If that level of violence doesn’t register with you...then you’re not having a debate...you’re protecting a narrative.
This is where the modern left has landed: making excuses for Jews being raped and butchered...as long as the people doing it check the right ideological boxes. It guts your entire narrative...because when your outrage depends on who the victim is....everyone sees it for what it is: selective morality dressed up as justice.
Well said. I wanted to like your comment but Substack won't let me.
The Left utterly denounces Israel while ignoring Hamas killing Palestinians and Palestinian children, ignoring Hamas still attacking Israel, firing missiles and weapons from humanitarian zones and civilian areas without giving any protection to Palestinian civilians. When a hospital suffered from a misfired Palestinian rocket, people were quick to blame Israel, and many people like Jeremy Corbyn still claim that Israel exploded the hospital although the BBC and other news media corrected their initial reports.
As you say, many people don't want to admit that Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Palestinian groups are violent and have stated that their goal is to kill Jews- not just Israelis, but all Jews. They believe so strongly in the idea that the oppressed are bad- completely, totally bad- and the oppressed are good- even when they kill, rape, and take babies hostage- that they have cognitive dissonance. Judith Butler was heavily criticized for calling Hamas' atrocities "armed resistance" and saying ‘We can have a debate about whether Hamas did the right thing’ (https://fathomjournal.org/we-can-have-a-debate-about-whether-hamas-did-the-right-thing-judith-butlers-moral-relativism/)
What really puzzles me is the LGBTQ people who support Hamas while denying that Hamas has stated openly they hate LGBTQ people and denying that Hamas has persecuted and killed them... while condemning Israel for "pinkwashing". It makes no sense.
Hamas may be evil but that doesn't change the fact that Israel is an ethno-religious state founded by Ashkenazi Jews who are predominantly of European heritage and that a great deal of land in Israel was stolen and is still stolen to this day from the native inhabitants
This is what happens when identity eclipses ethics. You now have far left and LGBTQ activists offering cover to a regime that would flay them in the street.....not out of solidarity but out of sheer ideological compulsion. The modern left’s moral compass is so warped by its obsession with power dynamics that it no longer points to right or wrong.....only to oppressor and oppressed. And once that binary is set..... no fact, no atrocity..not even a pile of corpses will make them flinch.
In this twisted framework hamas isn’t judged by its actions.....murdering civilians, raping women, executing gays....but by its position in the narrative: nonwhite, anti western.. therefore righteous. It’s not just intellectually bankrupt...it’s psychotic. When your worldview leads you to excuse the torture of jews because their state has a functioning airport...or to align with jihadists because they aren't white..you haven’t just lost the plot.......you’ve torched the book and called it liberation.
What we’re witnessing is a death cult of moral relativism.....where if you belong to the wrong group, your suffering isn’t just ignored, it’s deserved.These people should be ridiculed, exposed and remembered not as activists.....but as the useful idiots who cheered for monsters and called it justice.
No one's deflecting on the Left about the massacre on October 7th which was a horrific war crime committed by Hamas. You're focusing on a fringe minority Matt or making this up in your head to avoid dealing with the genocide being inflicted on the Palestinian people right now.
Lets have an independent investigation of October 7th by organizations outside of Israel. Oh wait Bibi doesn't want that because the whole "mass rape" BS would be debunked. Reports of sexual violence does not equal mass rape.
You're wrong....and worse you're comfortable being wrong. The United Nations’ Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflic.... Pramila Patten led a mission to Israel and the west bank. Her team reported “reasonable grounds to believe” that rape and gang rape occurred across multiple sites on October 7th. These weren’t rumors.....they weren’t headlines crafted by netanyahus office. They were based on direct evidence, survivor testimony and field investigations. You can read the report yourself.....it’s published by the UN not the IDF.
And no...it didn’t stop there. The same UN report confirmed “clear and convincing information” that hostages taken into Gaza were subjected to sexual violence, including rape and sexualized torture. These are not claims from a “fringe” or a partisan source. This is the international body you likely reference when it suits your narrative.
Calling it “mass rape bs” doesn’t make you sound skeptical. It makes you sound like someone so ideologically invested in their script that even verified atrocities have to be spun away. This is pure cowardice .. You asked for an independent investigation...there was one. You just didn’t like what it found.
So now you’re stuck. You either accept the evidence or you admit your outrage depends entirely on who the victims are.
1. UN Mission Report – Official Visit of the SRSG-SVC to Israel and the West Bank
🔗 [un.org (PDF)](https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/report/mission-report-official-visit-of-the-office-of-the-srsg-svc-to-israel-and-the-occupied-west-bank-29-january-14-february-2024/20240304-Israel-oWB-CRSV-report.pdf)
2. UN Security Council Briefing Summary – March 4, 2024
🔗 [press.un.org](https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15621.doc.htm)
3. BBC News – UN finds 'clear evidence' of Hamas sexual violence on Oct 7
🔗 [bbc.com](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68472394)
4. Associated Press – UN finds evidence of rape and sexual violence on October 7
🔗 [apnews.com](https://apnews.com/article/un-israel-hamas-rape-sexual-violence-oct-7-attack-b5955b4f6b4b3e1278d3f2344ec40c94)
Starting a war by invading a country and killing people then losing the war isn’t “genocide”. The Allies didn’t commit “genocide” on Japan after Pearl Harbor. Hamas could have stopped the fighting at any time by releasing the hostages. They’re still holding hostages.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67629181 There was mass rape. Hamas livestreamed many of their killings and rapings. The British journalist Owen Jones watched live cam footage from Oct 7 and then tried to argue that that large numbers of women’s bodies lying in blood missing underwear and naked from the waist down wasn’t proof that they were raped and said he needed to see the actual rapes before he believed there was mass rape. He was heavily condemned for the remarks.
It was a brutal and unjustified attack targeting innocent civilians including children, it was horrific and never should have happened
But it becomes deflection when any criticism of Israel's mass killing of Palestinian civilians is re-directed back to what happened on October the 7th even if that was what instigated the current bombing campaign
It is whataboutism to avoid addressing Israel's unjustified actions currently happening towards Palestinian civilians, at best if not deflecting people who invoke October the 7th are either trying to argue that Israeli Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian lives or that retaliation against Palestinian civilians including children is justified, neither of which are morally defensible positions
I’m going to be direct here: I am so sick of people accusing others of believing “Israeli Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian lives”. They say nothing about the Israeli Druze who were killed on October 7 by Hamas, nothing about Hamas killing Thai nationals and taking several hostage, nothing about Hamas killing Tanzanians (they lynched a Tanzanian student on camera, and killed one Thai by cutting his head off with a hoe) nothing about Hamas killing Nepalese for no reason except they happened to be in Israel. And they say NOTHING about Hamas killing Palestinians. NOTHING about Hamas forcing under 18 year olds to fight in combat which is against international law. They don’t give a shit about stopping Hamas from killing people, even from killing Palestinians. They don’t give a stuff about Palestinians. They just want to use them as an excuse to hate Jews. Want to free Palestinians? Free them from Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.Give them free speech, free elections and a free press. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/i-was-helpless-nepali-survivors-of-hamas-attack-in-israel-haunted-by-trauma
The same thing happened in WWII. Dresden was firebombed. All of Warsaw was flattened by the Nazis including civilian men women and children. The whole city was reduced to rubble. Imagine saying about Berlin: "Was it worth bombing Berlin to rubble because some Nazi soldiers were hiding among them?"
Yeah the bombing of Dresden was wrong, please don't tell me you are going to justify that and then cry about Anti Semitism
That's my point. No army or country is morally perfect. Did any of the Allies in February 1945 say bombing Dresden was wrong? They were trying to stop the Nazis and trying to fight their way to Berlin to defeat the Nazis. The Nazis were killing millions of people in 1945.
You can argue about the morality of the Dresden bombing now (it's the anniversary of VE day coincidentally) 80 years after the Nazis were defeated, now in peacetime, when people's lives aren't being ended or endangered by the Nazi Army, in isolation from the rest of WWII. It's tragic that thousands of civilian lives were lost in Dresden. But at the time the Allies would have pointed out that hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed in the Nazi bombing of Britain and the Nazi bombing of European countries. Also millions of people were killed by Japan.
And Warsaw would have been saved along with thousands of lives if the Russian Army had intervened and helped the Poles fight the Nazis. The Red Army was camped on the other side of the Vistula River and did nothing for months. The Poles are still very angry and bitter that the Soviets waited until January 1945 to enter Warsaw, when the city was in ruins and after thousands of Poles died fighting the Nazis in the Warsaw Uprising.
Under Every Single Post a victim is always found.
I am unsure what this means.
Under Every Single Post a victim is always found.
Remember Pearl Harbor? The US declared war on Japan after Japan's attack killed 2,403 people. An argument can be made regarding the morality of the US' war on Japan, as 550,000 to 800,000 Japanese civilians were killed, including 150,000 to 246,000 in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
My comments yesterday were emotional (I'm sorry about this, I should have used reasoned argument in a more dispassionate tone) , but I want you to understand that for Americans who lost family and loved ones who were fighting for their country, it is upsetting to read that America uses rape as a tool of war. Especially people of color who lost loved ones and family who served in the armed forces. America fought Japan to free the countries and peoples who were under the oppression of the brutal Japan occupation. Japan forced between 50,000 and 200,000 Korean women into sexual servitude as "comfort women". Imagine Korean American women reading that America uses rape in war which stems from the history of racism against African Americans. They would feel upset that the trauma of Japan's sexually enslaving Koreans was being excluded, the racism of Japanese against Koreans was being erased, and rape was being weaponized to attack Americans. I'm aware that there were instances of American soldiers raping women during WWII and Iraq (I heard about some instances personally talking to relatives who were MPs in WWII). The soldiers who committed them were court-martialed and disciplined. Rape was not official US policy for the armed forces, and cases of American soldiers committing rape were few compared to the massive numbers of rapes carried out by the Soviet Army as the Russians battled Germany.
It is not official policy of the IDF to rape Palestinians. In fact, a published academic paper by Tal Nitzan stated that the Israelis don't rape Palestinian women because they are "racist" (http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/124674) A journalist commented, "Such that this situation is unique: An army is found blameworthy of rape, and is also blameworthy of not raping."
I want you to understand how upsetting it is for many people for Israel to be denounced for rape, not only in the light of condemnations of Israel for not raping Palestinian women because they're too racist to see Palestinian women as human, but also in regards to the denial that Hamas raped and killed women on October 7, and raped and killed hostages. It's not only painful for the relatives and families of women who were killed on October 7, and the relatives and families of the hostages, it's distressing when Hamas' rapes and atrocities are simultaneously ignored. Many people are demanding that Hamas be held to account rather than being excused. Many people are furious about Judith Butler and others refusing to condemn Hamas for rape, and accepting rape as method of war when committed by groups they support politically (https://fathomjournal.org/we-can-have-a-debate-about-whether-hamas-did-the-right-thing-judith-butlers-moral-relativism/)
The sign in the picture at the top of this page says "Protect All Women". Imagine being excluded from other women and considered not worth protecting, because of your religion, ethnicity, or politics. Imagine that at the same time people of your religion, ethnicity, or political views are dismissed as rape victims, despite extensive documented evidence of them being raped and murdered, and are incriminated en masse as rapists and murderers. Moreover while your people have been killed by a terrorist group and are being held hostage and tortured by that terrorist groups.
The Jim Crow south analogy does not map well onto Israel/Palestine, it's a completely different situation. Putting aside your rape denial, which I'll just grant you for the sake of argument, thousands of Hamas militia members invaded Israel on October 7 and killed over 1000 people, and they have spent years launching thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. This is war, not Jim Crow. If you want to make the trite, cliched argument that this is just the understandable reaction of oppressed peoples, fine, but don't pretend this is the same thing as southerners lynching black people just for their race.
Palestine is a violently occupied land and Israel is an apartheid state. And if you actually read the piece, you might have noticed the part where I quote, in good faith, the UN report acknowledging that sexual violence occurred on October 7. That’s part of the point of the speech. But anyone unwilling to see the connections between the Jim Crow south and Israeli apartheid is probably not having a good faith argument, so, I’ll just say, have a nice day and I hope you get some clarity, soon.
Gaza was not occupied on Oct 7. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Gaza is self governing, governed by Hamas. Areas A and B of the West Bank are self governing, governed by the Palestinian Authority. Area C is controlled by Israel as per the Oslo Agreements.
I grew up in the South and started school just after the schools were integrated. You're using Jim Crow and the tragedy of Emmett Till to attack both America and Israel, while completely erasing Hamas raping and killing women, livestreaming their rapings and killings and raping, killing and torturing women hostages. The sexual violence by Hamas has been extensively documented (https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/17/questions-and-answers-hamas-led-armed-groups-october-7-2023-assault-israel) I provided a link to a UN report about the rape in my earlier comments which you have not yet responded to.
It's extremely offensive to the memory of the victims of lynching and racist violence to weaponise their deaths to castigate a country that is fighting for its survival and fighting to free hostages, particularly while you ignore the rapings and killings of those hostages by a terrorist group. and then denounce Israel as Jim Crow and evoke Wells: " the lynching and burning alive of innocent human beings in the name of white women’s chastity is more than acceptable, it is just. This is the same argument, a century later, that Israel, and America, make about Palestinians, daily. This is the same argument, a century later, that Israel, and America, make about Palestinians, daily."
No Israelis have said that lynching and burning alive Palestinians in the name of white women's chastity is more than acceptable, it is just. In fact, Hamas burned people alive on Oct 7. Israeli forensics units couldn't identify some victims as DNA couldn't be extracted because their bodies melted into their cars after Hamas members set their cars alight. I mentioned before the Tanzanian student who was taken hostage, taken to Gaza and then lynched on camera by Hamas.
I would like to ask you if you have ever been to Israel or Palestine. I lived there and studied there. Are you aware that the Arab Raam Party is a major party in the Knesset, and Palestinians such as Ahmad Tibi, a former deputy speaker, are represented in the Knesset? That Israel has democratically elected more Muslims than any other country including the US? (https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/politics-and-diplomacy/article-696212)
There are no Jews represented in Hamas. Hamas bans Jews from entering Gaza. The only Jews there are the hostages. Hamas doesn't hold elections. The PA hasn't held parliamentary or presidental elections for 20 years. Mahmoud Abbas is in his 20th year of his 4 year term as President.
Want to help free Palestinians? Free Gaza from Hamas. I mentioned that Hamas is right now killing Gazans who are trying to protest against them. Nothing to say about the Palestinians protesting that that they want to free from the oppression of Hamas and Hamas' terrorism?
How about supporting an independent Palestinian state, with a free press, free speech and free elections, and secure borders? Israel has actually invested in Gaza's infrastructure so they can have new desalination plants. That's something Hamas should be doing, but they spent all of Gaza's resources on weapons to attack Israel and tunnels. Hamas doesn't give Palestinians bomb shelters either- one reason why so many people have been killed in the conflict, along with Hamas' practice of firing weapons and missiles from civilian and humanitarian zones. (https://www.timesofisrael.com/water-desalination-quietly-returns-to-gaza-after-work-by-israel-and-pa/)
Oh good, you’re back!
Not being funny but you've been extremely dismissive and flippant. Are you going to respond to any of the points I've raised and to the points others have made?
Someone here said they hoped I get raped again and called me
Hitler, so, no.
Was the poster above the person who did that? Since we both know the answer is no, why are you so comfortable with your intellectual cowardice?
You compared the actual rape of Israeli women to the Emmet Till story, in which a man was murdered for (maybe) whistling at a woman. That is not good faith. Good day.
Well said. Exploiting the tragic history of racism and lynchings in the US against African Americans to attack Israel is offensive, especially if say Israel is attacking Palestinians out of racism and hatred while ignoring Hamas stating their aim is to kill all Jews. Not just Israelis- all Jews.
Thank you for these words, and supporting your students in their activism.
It’s the least I can do! Thank you for reading.
Thank you for your bravery, and this searing speech Emily.
This is the textbook example of privileged narcissism masquerading as activism. You wrapped your own trauma around a geopolitical conflict and acted like the two were interchangeable.....they’re not.
You opened by reciting your survival....something solemn, something personal..and you immediately tried to convert that into universal currency. As if your pain could be bartered for moral supremacy on subjects you clearly don’t understand. That is opportunism not strength.
Then you took “Never Again” a phrase that belongs to the dead....the gassed, the incinerated, the buried...and tried to rebrand it like it was yours. You cheapened it....you took the ashes of genocide and smeared them across your activist whiteboard because it fit the cadence of your chant...that is theft.
You quoted Ida B. Wells...invoked Emmett Till and dropped historical trauma like emotional seasoning. But you didn’t honor those names....you used them. You twisted them to fit a narrative where every oppressor is the same and every conflict is just another costume change. This is idealogical cosplay.
When you finally mentioned the October 7th rapes...when you were forced to...you immediately dismissed them as media manipulation. You called the repeated sexual mutilation of women “the playbook.” You wrote it off....Why? Because it didn’t fit. Because the victims weren’t useful to you. Because in your world....it’s “believe all women” unless they’re jews.
“You can’t use the money I make teaching about rape to burn Palestinians alive.” Emily.... that’s not a political argument....it’s a diary entry. The irs didn’t ask for your blessing and raytheon isn’t combing through adjunct payrolls to fund munitions. You’re not defying empire....you’re just moralizing into a mirror.
You called the Israeli/Palestinian conflict a “mass and endless lynching”.....as if collapsing centuries of history into a buzzword makes you profound.....it only makes you unserious.You write that to get a reaction not to enlighten. Like everything else you said... it was designed for applause not understanding.
Your views are THEE very definition of luxury beliefs....comfortable opinions you wear like accessories because they cost you nothing. From your safe perch in academia...you pose as a truth teller while risking absolutely nothing. This is self indulgence dressed as principle.
You set out to look brave.Instead, you revealed exactly what you are: vapid, arrogant, historically shallow and perfectly willing to exploit real suffering if it means staying center stage.
As a side note: I think I speak for many when I say we have grown profoundly weary of privileged liberal white women exploiting tragedy and historical suffering for ideological applause. Moral authority is not granted by identity or victimhood alone but earned through intellectual honesty, humility and genuine empathy...qualities entirely absent from this sanctimonious and morally bankrupt display.
Fuck off, dude.
Ah, the battle cry of the intellectually bankrupt. When facts fail and moral grandstanding collapses....all that’s left is profanity. Thanks for confirming there was never a real argument to begin with. Have a good day.
I want to point out that the Nazis hated black people and people of color and slaughtered them, slaughtered North Africans and slaughtered mixed race people. Saying "Never Again means never again for everyone" while swearing that the US and Israel uses the legacy of racist violence and lynching as a weapon of "apartheid" against Palestinians is dishonoring their memory. Especially while ignoring Hamas actually lynching Africans.
Thanks Matt.
Yes!!!!!
so much love to you!!!
So much back to you, Sandra!!
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And Australia!
Thank you, Kate!! Hello, Australia!!!
How do you even respond to garbage like this? I suppose at least you got your name right?.
Can you explain how "Palestinians" literally complained that Israelis think they're superior to the "PaLIEStinians" because they WON'T rape their women? Israel has never and will never use rape as a weapon of war. Your friends Hamas do that all the time, except c**ts like you always deny it. Good, glad you were raped. You deserve it. Hope it happens again.
PS, Madam Hitler, the Jews have lived in Israel, JUDEA & SAMARIA continuously for over 3000 years. The "Fakestinians" arrived in the mid to late 1800s. Well documented by Mark Twain, John Adams, etc. Just for accuracy's s ake, they weren't "PaLIEStinians" in the mid to late 1800s, as the "Fakestinians" were only invented on 2 December 1964. Prior to that, they were Arabs.
Have a nice day!
It's important to note that progressive leftist models of antiracism seem to have left out Jews. Anti-Black racism is about 500 years old and has left us with a legacy of systemic racism... but 2000 years of Jew hatred has apparently left no effects at all. Most Americans see Jews as white people because they know no Jews or they only interact with Ashkenazim Jews who may have fair complexions ( Ashkenazi Jews can also have dark skin and features associated with Mediterranean peoples). So these progressives have no inoculation against this movement because they have never examined their systemic hatred of Jews.
As someone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state I wish you could make your argument without stealing from Jewish people. ‘Never Again’ is a specific phrase associated with protecting Jewish life. It’s exceedingly tone deaf to use it in a context against Jewish people in a conflict which had the highest single day death toll for Jews since the Holocaust.
This is the equivalent of saying “Blue Lives Matter” after a Black man killed a cop. It’s based in a belief against violence but its effect is one of harm.
You aren’t wrong in wanting to protect life but bigotry has no place on the left.
Well said. I wanted to like your comment but Substrack won't let me for some reason.
Many people have used "never again" as an accusation against Israel precisely because it refers to the Holocaust (which they affected only Jews. Actually the Nazis also killed 5 million non Jewish groups including the Romani and Poles). It's a weapon to say to Israel "You said Never Again but now you're killing Palestinians" suggesting that the conflict is like the Holocaust, that Israel is killing Palestinians for no reason at all except hatred. Van Duyne does mention Oct 7, but this post makes it sound like Israel is mostly attacking, killing- and raping- Palestinians mostly out of hatred and racism, which is deeply offensive. It's also offensive as she says she's a white woman, yet she's exploiting the horrific history of racist attacks and killings of African Americans as a weapon to attack Israel. She completely ignores the Hamas Charter which openly states their aim to is to kill Jews- not just Israelis but all Jews. Apparently Hamas' hatred and prejudice and violence towards Jews and Israelis is fine, because Palestinians are "oppressed". Palestinians are oppressed- by Hamas and the PA. In Israel all citizens have equal rights including the Arab Raam Party and Palestinians such as Ahmad Tibi, a former deputy speaker of the Knesset.
"These people are toxic participants in the very patriarchal systems of abuse that they demand they are opposed to. They are props for the patriarchy. They are props for terrorism. They are props for Jihad. They are props for the Caliphate." Eve Barlow
visit thisishamas.com then come back with your opinion
This post is a strong example of how Israel is not an actual country for many people. They know nothing about the history of the region and don't know the complexity of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel and Palestine are just mirrors for them and they project whatever they don't like onto Israel. For Americans it's racism and US police brutality towards minorities (Jewish Voice for Peace actually walked back their Deadly Exchange campaign after George Floyd, but many people still swear police in the US learn racist violence from training with Israel. Never mind US police train with countries from all over the world. Never mind US police were racist and violent towards African Americans long before 1948) Note that this post exploits the tragic history of racism in America and lynchings and killings of African Americans as a weapon to attack Israel while ignoring the anti Jewish racism of Hamas (the Hamas charter makes it clear their goal is to kill Jews. Not just Israelis- all Jews). For Australians it's indigenous rights and land back. British people condemn Israel's "imperialism" (ignoring that actually Israel gave back 66,000 square kilometers of land Israel held after 1967, including the Sinai, Gaza and Areas A and B of the West Bank).
I've seen people blame Israel for climate change claiming Israel attacking Gaza has raised global temperatures (ignoring that Hamas has used burning kites and incendiary balloons for years to destroy thousands of acres of the environment). A person in the UK just posted an accusation because they were angry that their local government is now using drones to catch illegal dumping of garbage in the countryside. They swore that the local council learned this from Israel which uses drones to kill Palestinian children. Their tweet was severely criticized and people responded that using drones in the UK is common and common in many countries.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-palestinian-appropriation-of-black-pain/
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/21st_century/hamas.asp
https://www.thejc.com/news/morning-star-publishes-article-linking-george-floyd-killing-to-israel-qkwjqump?reloadTime=1653091200011
As someone who thinks Israel is an apartheid state I wish you could make your argument without stealing from Jewish people. ‘Never Again’ is a specific phrase associated with protecting Jewish life. It’s exceedingly tone deaf to use it in a context against Jewish people in a conflict which had the highest single day death toll for Jews since the Holocaust.
This is the equivalent of saying “Blue Lives Matter” after a Black man killed a cop. It’s based in a belief against violence but its effect is one of harm.
You aren’t wrong in wanting to protect life but bigotry has no place on the left.