Women’s organisations and feminists have brought shame upon themselves through their silence.

WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT

By Rolene Marks

The 25^th of November was the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and ushered in the 16 days of activism against violence against women. This is a critical campaign that highlights the horrific gender-based violence that affects women and young girls around the world.

Around the world – except for Israeli victims. 

Since the atrocities of 7 October where Israeli women and girls of all ages were humiliated, brutally tortured, raped, murdered and taken hostage by Hamas terrorists, there has been a deafening silence from women’s organisations, NGO’s, activists and celebrities.

The sisters have gone silent!

I am a Jewish woman. An Israeli woman. The message I hear loud and clear from UN Women, the International Alliance of Women and many others is that my life and my safety and that of my sisters in Israel and around the world, do not count. Our lives, our suffering is worthless. My message to them is that we will NOT suffer in silence. We will not be silent.

When the horrific images of Shany Louk, clothes ripped, legs broken and lying on the back of a truck was paraded through the streets of Gaza while she was spat on and kicked by Palestinian men, crowing over the war trophy they had, we should have heard an outraged and angry condemnation.

When we saw footage of Naama Levi, now held hostage in Gaza, pulled by her hair, arms bound and bleeding from her crotch into a Jeep by an armed terrorist, which confirmed our worst fears, immediate condemnation should have resulted.

They had names like Naama and Shany. They had lives. They had dignity. They deserve to be heard – and we will speak for them.

As the weeks following the attacks of 7 October unfold, we have heard the accounts of the barbarism and depravity inflicted on Israelis on 7 October and they are worse than our most frightening nightmares. We have heard consistently from first responders, soldiers, eyewitnesses, forensic pathologists and Chevrah Kadisha volunteers preparing bodies for burial how rape was used as a weapon of war. The accounts are excruciating of how women, children, and the elderly were not only raped; but they had limbs or body parts cut off. Hamas terrorists have admitted to it in interrogation interviews for the world to see, without a single expression of remorse. In fact, they enjoyed it.

One terrorist was asked during his interrogation, “And why take the kids and babies?”

He replied, “To rape them.”

They admitted to receiving orders to “dirty the women and children”.

The sisters remained silent.

Women’s organisations in Israel, including the Women’s International Zionist Organisation (WIZO), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, activists and many more have and continue to write letters, op-eds, address forums and media, pressure the United Nations and their agencies like UN Women and have launched campaigns like “#Me Too – unless you’re a Jew” and “Believe Israeli” women. When the #MeToo movement took off around the world, women felt that finally we are heard and gender-based violence and rape is on the agenda.

Our First Lady, Mrs Michal Herzog penned an op-ed for Newsweek magazine.

There have been demonstrations in Israel and outside of UN headquarters and a variety of experts gathered at the UN on 4 December to testify at an event called “Hear our Voices”. The accounts of barbarity and rape were devastating.

The evidence is overwhelming. The global media, even those that are traditionally hostile to Israel have given widespread coverage and are appalled and outraged. But the sisters? Silent.

It took a campaign of tremendous pressure for UN Women – 50 days after the attacks – to tweet out of them “remain alarmed by gender-based violence reports on 7 October and call for rigorous investigation, prioritizing the rights, needs and safety of those affected”. They were not disgusted, appalled or outraged but simply alarmed. They have since gone silent. What a failure of their mandate.

The Israel Police’s Lahav 433 National Crime Unit collected the testimony of a young woman who survived the massacre at the Nova music festival in Reim:

“As I am hiding, I see in the corner of my eyes that [a terrorist] is raping her,” she said of another victim while demonstrating the terrorist’s violent grasp with her hands. “She was alive beforehand; she stood on her feet, bleeding from her back. But then the situation was that he was pulling her hair. She had long, brown hair,” she was quoted as saying.

The witness saw the woman bleeding from the back, she said, first bent over, then pulled back up by combatants. One man pulled the woman’s long hair and raped her, the witness said, then passed her onto another man, who also raped her before shooting her in the head.

“He didn’t pick up his pants,” the witness said. “He shot her while inside her.”

We know from testimony from hostages that were released, that at least 10 male and female hostages were sexually assaulted. We are extremely worried about the conditions of the 137 hostages who remain captive – including Naama Levy. A White House official opined that Hamas will not release the remaining captive women because they “will talk”. It is chilling and terrifying.

Women’s organisations, activists and feminists have not only failed their Jewish sisters but future victims as well as they have now established precedent based on identity politics and prejudice.

We, the Israeli women are raising our voices and we will not stop. We will continue to be the voices of our women and children. Most of them have been murdered or taken hostage.

The sisters remain silent.

While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves.  LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).