“Feminism” Is Silencing the Voices of Jewish Women
After Hamas started a war with Israel in October of 2023, horrific accounts of brutal sexual crimes committed against Israeli women and girls began to surface. Then came the deafening silence.
Intersectional feminism is betraying Jewish women. Once Jewish women were determined to be part of the oppressing class, now anything that happens to them is seemingly deserved and part of the resistance. In 2023, Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Virginia said the attack on Israel was “a step towards a free Palestine“. Such morally bankrupt thinking has reared its ugly head in the form of justifying sexual violence.
UN women were silent for 55 days after the October 7 attacks before they finally condemned the rapes. Where was the rage of the celebrities that were so vocal during the #MeToo movement? Where was the National Organization of Women (NOW)? Where were Oprah and Michelle Obama? And where are they now, when there are still women being held hostage, and new footage has been released showing Hamas terrorists shouting “sabaya” (slang that means ‘sex slave’) at young Israeli women they were kidnapping?
“Squad” Representative Rashida Tlaib was silent and simply declined to vote for a resolution in the United States House of Representatives condemning the rape and sexual violence that Hamas leaders ordered members of the terror group to carry out. The resolution, which passed in the House by 418-0-1 (because she voted “present”), calls on other nations to unequivocally criminalize rape and sexual assault. Yet when asked to condemn and criminalize sexual assault, Representative Tlaib remained silent. Is there an instance in which rape is justified?
It didn’t take long for the silence to end. The uber-hypocritical attempt to justify these crimes against humanity is being heard loud and clear. It is shameful, and it is ignorant.
Former National Press Secretary for Bernie Sanders, Briahna Joy Gray, quoted journalist Abby Martin on X/Twitter, “It’s dehumanizing propaganda that Hamas resistance fighters used rape as a weapon and as a tool.” Recently, Gray was fired from the Hill after she rolled her eyes during an interview with the family member of an Israeli hostage who was pleading with Gray to believe that women were being raped and abused by Hamas.
In addition, Buzzfeed Contributor Natalie Shure tweeted in response to a video of Hillary Clinton discussing Hamas, “The evidence that Hamas used mass rape as a weapon of war is paper thin. Her (Hillary Clinton) claim here that anyone testified to experiencing it is false: there are zero direct survivor testimonies – only ~2-3 from people who claim to have witnessed rapes that get recycled in every story.”
Stories of gang rape and more were documented by witnesses, survivors, and medical professionals who examined the mutilated bodies of deceased victims. Hamas individuals also posted videos of themselves kidnapping distraught young women. One of them, Naama Levy, was shown being pulled out of the back of a jeep by her hair, hands zip-tied, and the back of her pants bloodied. The details of the sickening images and horrifying stories continue to emerge weekly, if not daily.
Is it possible to undo actions simply by saying they never happened? Is it possible to deny what has been seen and proven and make it disappear?
One former hostage, Aviva Siegel, testified in front of the Knesset, saying she witnessed “the terrorists bringing [the female hostages] inappropriate clothing, dolls’ clothes… We’ll soon reach four months [since they were kidnapped]. We were there for 51 days, and there wasn’t a minute that we didn’t experience abuse – and they are still there.”
During that same hearing, Siegel’s daughter cried, “The girls are being raped there, and nobody reports. At this very moment, there is somebody sitting in a cave being raped.” It is believed that about 80 hostages remain in Gaza.
Silence from women’s organizations in response to this sexual violence is a perfect example of antisemitic hypocrisy. There are men treating women like objects to be used, which has long been an idea the feminist movement has fought against. Yet because they are Israeli Jewish women, being treated as an object is justified as an act of Palestinian resistance.
In 2014, when 276 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped, world leaders like Michelle Obama took to social media to demand their return. Celebrities held signs on red carpets reading, “Bring back our girls.”
Why isn’t there a similar movement amongst the DC and Hollywood elite for the Jewish girls who have been in Hamas captivity and kept as sex slaves for more than eight months?
Now, Jewish and Israeli women are left wondering if what the “solidarity” social justice warriors promised them was a lie. For people who wonder if they would have said something during the Holocaust, this is your answer.