It is terrifying to read about this young woman Israeli lawyer who became an initial hostage, but who was released late last year.
However, this is NOT proof of what the Israelis and US legacy corporate media have trumpeted. There are, in fact, Palestinian women's interviews and testimonies of having suffered sexual assault and even rape from individual IDF guards over the years, according to that recent UN group, which some pro-Israel supporters like to suddenly cite. The story of this criminally violated woman is about what individual men do with power over women who are from the other side in a war or conflict. What we men can also never forget is that individual men do this to women of their own ethnicity, national origin, or religion, too. Men don't need an actual war to hurt women in their (our) continuing war against women.
Israel's (and US legacy corporate media's) argument continues to be that Hamas had a SYSTEMIC policy to commit rape--and that it was "widespread" by Hamas soldiers. Again, this is not at all proven with this awful story. We really need to not be misled by the propagandists for Israel. That position of systemic rape is on par with the British government's lies about Germany's rape of Belgium during WWI. Were German soldiers committing atrocities in Belgium, including rape of Belgian women? Absolutely. German soldiers did engage in such conduct. However, this was not systemic or a matter of German military or political policy.
We really need to stop weaponizing sexual assault against women. We must have far more focus on holding mostly men accountable for rape and torture in war situations. It is why I so fully support the international women's groups who do brave and dangerous work to protect women around the globe. However, the context of the particular horrific act this Israeli woman describes is Israel's occupation and repression. I know that's hard to hear, but the occupation is what led to the woman being attacked and held hostage.
As I keep saying, to talk about October 7 in the way we do is to NOT learn the lessons of US history concerning the genocide of Native Americans. Focusing on Hamas' atrocities on October 7 is the equivalent of Americans saying, after a Comanche raid where torture and rape of white settlers occurred, "The Comanches deserve everything coming to them! We're gonna wipe them out!" Don't believe Comanche raids did not have instances of rape and torture? Start here and here.
Yet, no person of good will today would ever say a particularly horrible Comanche raid justified the removal and killing of the Comanche people. It would be supporting a racist policy against Comanches and a genocide in the form of collective punishment. It would also be an insult to our own nation's best values. Yet, many 19th Century Americans cried for the removal and even "extermination" of Comanches after the first major Comanche raid event of March 19, 1840.
The Comanches in the US historical period of the 1840s through 1880s were akin to Sparta in terms of military discipline, and, despite brutalities Comanche warriors may have committed in their war against the settlers, had a strength of cultural cohesiveness and character. What led them to be so hard on white settlers going through the mid and southwest? Think about the year 1840. The Comanches were not ignorant. They had people in their leadership who specifically saw and understood how Cherokees, and other tribes, had, in the 1820s and 1830s, tried to assimilate and use US Constitutional law to protect their rights. The Comanches saw how the US promises made to Comanches and others were broken in a way that was effectively a lie. Worse, not only were the Cherokees deprived of the property in Georgia and elsewhere in which they had lived in peace. The Cherokees and others were forcibly removed, resulting in starvation and disease and death. The Comanches therefore chose violent resistance rather than assimilation. Any of this sound familiar?
For me, this historical lens is a far more comprehensible way to understand what occurred on October 7, 2023. It does not minimize what occurred on October 7, 2023. Instead, it provides the context in which the events of October 7, 2023 occurred. This lens also helps us begin to recognize our common humanity. If we, as Americans, and human beings, truly want to learn from our nation's own19th Century US actions, then, today, regardless of our politics, religion, ethnic/national origin/religious background, we Americans must stand up for the Palestinian people as a whole. This is not about supporting Hamas, though propagandists for Israel keep wanting us to believe that.
IT IS GOOD POLITICS TO END AID TO ISRAEL FOR CONTINUING ITS BRUTAL ASSAULT ON GAZA AND OCCUPATION OF THE WEST BANK
It is also now good politics to be for lasting peace. The majority of Americans do not want to support Israel's brutal occupation and conduct any longer. The Dems are the one party of the duopoly of Republicans and Democrats which really has to effectuate a change on this important foreign policy and indirectly domestic issue. Of the two parties, only the Democrats' constituencies will be able to right the policy wrong of enabling Israel's conduct and its occupation of Palestinians. Otherwise, they will not come out when they know they speak for the majority of Americans and yet their voices are silenced.
If you think those who are threatening to not vote for Dems this fall are "purists," that is ironic for liberal Zionists and liberal supporters of Israel. It is they who need to understand the majority of Americans are not on Israel's side in what they are doing. If Trump is the existential threat corporate libs and Israel supporters continually claim (I agree with them, I must say), then Biden's policies on Israel must change. They must get to at least Bernie's Sanders' position, which is to end aid to Israel while they continue to engage in the behaviors they have before and after October 7. Time for liberal Zionists not to be purists. This election, they themselves say, is about US democracy or our republic. If so, then don't put the nation at risk for a country occupying another people and committing horrible acts on a daily basis. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) is starting to see it, and he is the self-proclaimed "shomer" for Israel. Israel needs its leash tugged. And tugged hard in the form of no more military aid.
