by Joanna Williams, spiked
The true depravity of Hamas’s crimes on October 7 can now never be denied.
That Hamas terrorists raped and sexually assaulted women and girls in Israel on 7 October 2023 was plain for all to see. On the very day of the pogrom, images beamed around the world – filmed by those carrying out the abuse – showed young women being carted off as hostages, either stripped half-naked or with blood stains on the seat of their trousers. But many chose not to see.
Before 2023, feminists insisted that victims of rape and sexual assault never lie. We should #BelieveAllWomen, they told us. But the Israeli pogrom revealed a terrible truth. What many liberal campaigners and well-funded global organisations actually meant was believe all women, but not Jews. When Jewish women claimed that sex had been used as a form of torture, they were told: ‘Prove it.’ When they pointed to pictures of the lifeless bodies of bruised and bleeding women, they were told: ‘We need more evidence.’
And so, in a double insult, Israeli women were not only subjected to depraved sexual abuse, but they have subsequently had to campaign to be believed, too. When, in November 2023, the Israeli government released footage exposing the true horror of the 7 October pogrom, journalists like Owen Jones asked for ‘conclusive evidence’ that such atrocities had been committed ‘intentionally’. It wasn’t until March 2024 that the United Nations acknowledged that rape had been used as a weapon of war. Shockingly, it took more than two years for Amnesty International to reach the same conclusion. Even now, Jewish women have to fight to be taken seriously.