[skinster]

To understand wat0n's incessant rape fantasies where there was none, another leak of hasbara - the word Israelis use in place of 'propaganda' - manuals have been leaked showing Israel shills must keep talking about rape in an attempt to deflect from the genocide, which by the way is something I accused wat0n of in the main thread about the genocide, because to me, he is acting like a textbook hasbara troll, in that, he is very likely getting paid to spend hours each day defending the indefensible or attempting to deflect and distract from it.

The propaganda slides can be seen within the articles:

Leaked Israel lobby presentation urges US officials to justify war on Gaza with ‘Hamas rape’ claims
The Grayzone has obtained slides from a confidential Israel lobby presentation based on data from Republican pollster Frank Luntz. They contain talking points for politicians and public figures seeking to justify Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip.

Two prominent pro-Israel lobby groups are holding private briefings in New York City to coach elected officials and well-known figures on how to influence public opinion in favor of the Israeli military’s rampage in Gaza, The Grayzone can reveal. These PR sessions, convened by the UJA-Federation and Jewish Community Relations Council, rely on data collected by Frank Luntz, a veteran Republican pollster and pundit.

A source who was present during several meetings provided Luntz’s slides to The Grayzone. Participants were informed that the presentations and data contained in the slides were strictly confidential, the source said.

“This is NOT helpful,” Luntz stated in response to an email from The Grayzone requesting his comment on the private meetings.

The Luntz-tested presentations on the war in Gaza urge politicians to avoid trumpeting America’s supposedly shared democratic values with Israel, and focus instead on deploying “The Language of War with Hamas.” According to this framing, they must deploy incendiary language painting Hamas as a “brutal and savage…organization of hate” which has “raped women,” while insisting Israel is engaged in “a war for humanity.”

On his personal website, Luntz markets himself as “one of the most honored communications professionals in America today.” He has earned a small fortune crafting talking points for Republican Party heavyweights and scandal-stained corporate clients like Enron, the energy company which collapsed after engineering California’s energy crisis. Following the financial crash of 2008-09, Luntz advised the GOP on shielding the party’s big business donors from scrutiny. At around the same time, he furnished the Republican Governor’s Association with advice on undermining Occupy Wall Street, the movement demanding accountability for the banking industry’s malfeasance.

The celebrity GOP pollster has moonlighted as a consultant for the Israel lobby, producing a “Global Language Dictionary” for the now-defunct Israel Project in the aftermath of the brutal 2008-09 attack on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. In his propaganda handbook, Luntz counseled “leaders who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel” to shy from debates related to the illegal occupation of Palestine.

“Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967,” he advised, “because it only serves to remind Americans of Israel’s military history. Particularly on the left, this does you harm.”

Luntz’s Gaza war presentation puts his poll-tested tactics back in the Israel lobby’s hands, urging pro-Israel public figures to stay on the attack with incendiary language and shocking allegations against their enemies.

In one focus group, Luntz asked participants to state which alleged act by Hamas on October 7 “bothers you more.” After being presented with a laundry list of alleged atrocities, a majority declared that they were most upset by the claim that Hamas “raped civilians” – 19 percent than those who expressed outrage that Hamas supposedly “exterminated civilians.”

Data like this apparently influenced the Israeli government to launch an obsessive but still unsuccessful campaign to prove that Hamas carried out sexual assault on a systematic basis on October 7. Initiated at Israel’s United Nations mission in December 2023 with speeches by neoliberal tech oligarch Sheryl Sandberg and former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and speaking fees from Israel lobby organizations, Tel Aviv’s propaganda blitz has yet to produce a single self-identified victim of sexual assault by Hamas. A March 5 report by UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence Pramila Patten did not contain one direct testimony of sexual assault on October 7. What’s more, Patten’s team said they found “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence.”

To further the demonization of Palestinians, the Luntz-crafted slides advise that “Israel’s best response is the brainwashed children of Hamas spewing hatred towards Jews (even more than condemning Israelis) with words they don’t know the meaning of and can’t even pronounce.”

The portrayal of the youth of Gaza as ignorant tools of Hamas is clearly intended to deflect from Israel’s industrial-scale slaughter of some 15,000 children in the Gaza Strip since October 7, as well as the wounding, orphaning and starving of countless more in the besieged territory.

To make their arguments stick, Luntz recommends pro-Israel forces avoid the exterminationist language favored by Israeli officials who have called, for example, to “erase” the population of Gaza, and to instead advocate for “an efficient, effective approach” to eliminating Hamas.

At the same time, veteran pollster acknowledges that Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like “eradicate” and “obliterate,” while sanitized terms like “neutralize” appeal more to Democrats. Republican presidential candidates Nikki Haley and Donald Trump have showcased similar focus-grouped rhetoric with their calls to “finish them” and “finish the problem” in Gaza.

As in past Israel-lobby seminars, Luntz has urged pro-Israel forces to divert from arguments about Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian territory by deploying banal slogans like, “Israelis have a right to defend themselves.”

“This is about Israelis,” a Luntz-crafted slide declares, “not about territory.”

According to the pollster’s research, pro-Israel politicians should avoid references to “Israel” entirely and instead discuss “Israelis” when “setting the context” for a debate over the war in Gaza.

The recommended tweak hints at the PR crisis Israel lobby forces have encountered since Israel’s military invaded and besieged Gaza, leaving most of its residents homeless, placing its entire public health and sanitation system out of service, and exterminating over 2% of the overall population, according to conservative death toll estimates.

One slide demonstrates that only a small sliver of those polled by Luntz buy into the Israeli government’s mantra that “Hamas is ISIS.” The same visual aid counsels pro-Israel officials to shy from the phrases “genuine accuracy” and “hard evidence,” and allude more generally to “the truth” when discussing Israel’s actions.

Luntz acknowledges Israel’s mounting PR problems in a slide identifying the most powerful tactics employed by Palestine solidarity activists. “Israelis attacking Israel is the second most potent weapon against Israel,” the visual display reads beside a photo of a protest by Jewish Voices for Peace, a US-based Jewish organization dedicated to ending Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

“The most potent” tactic in mobilizing opposition to Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Luntz, “is the visual destruction of Gaza and the human toll.” The slide inadvertently acknowledges the cruelty of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, displaying a bombed out apartment building with clearly anguished women and children fleeing in the foreground.

But Luntz assures his audience, “It ‘looks like a genocide’ even though the damage has nothing to do with the definition.”

According to this logic, the American public can become more tolerant of copiously documented crimes against humanity if they are simply told not to believe their lying eyes.
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/03/06/leak ... mass-rape/

This is not the first Israeli propaganda manual by Frank Luntz to be leaked. Almost a decade ago, a 116-page document, commissioned by The Israeli Project and marked “not for distribution or publication”, was leaked to Newsweek and reported on in The Independent:

The secret report that helps Israel hide facts
Israeli spokesmen have their work cut out explaining how they have killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, compared with just three civilians killed in Israel by Hamas rocket and mortar fire. But on television and radio and in newspapers, Israeli government spokesmen such as Mark Regev appear slicker and less aggressive than their predecessors, who were often visibly indifferent to how many Palestinians were killed.

There is a reason for this enhancement of the PR skills of Israeli spokesmen. Going by what they say, the playbook they are using is a professional, well-researched and confidential study on how to influence the media and public opinion in America and Europe. Written by the expert Republican pollster and political strategist Dr Frank Luntz, the study was commissioned five years ago by a group called The Israel Project, with offices in the US and Israel, for use by those "who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel".

Every one of the 112 pages in the booklet is marked "not for distribution or publication" and it is easy to see why. The Luntz report, officially entitled "The Israel project's 2009 Global Language Dictionary, was leaked almost immediately to Newsweek Online, but its true importance has seldom been appreciated. It should be required reading for everybody, especially journalists, interested in any aspect of Israeli policy because of its "dos and don'ts" for Israeli spokesmen.

These are highly illuminating about the gap between what Israeli officials and politicians really believe, and what they say, the latter shaped in minute detail by polling to determine what Americans want to hear. Certainly, no journalist interviewing an Israeli spokesman should do so without reading this preview of many of the themes and phrases employed by Mr Regev and his colleagues.

The booklet is full of meaty advice about how they should shape their answers for different audiences. For example, the study says that "Americans agree that Israel 'has a right to defensible borders'. But it does you no good to define exactly what those borders should be. Avoid talking about borders in terms of pre- or post-1967, because it only serves to remind Americans of Israel's military history. Particularly on the left this does you harm. For instance, support for Israel's right to defensible borders drops from a heady 89 per cent to under 60 per cent when you talk about it in terms of 1967."

How about the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled or fled in 1948 and in the following years, and who are not allowed to go back to their homes? Here Dr Luntz has subtle advice for spokesmen, saying that "the right of return is a tough issue for Israelis to communicate effectively because much of Israeli language sounds like the 'separate but equal' words of the 1950s segregationists and the 1980s advocates of Apartheid. The fact is, Americans don't like, don't believe and don't accept the concept of 'separate but equal'."

So how should spokesmen deal with what the booklet admits is a tough question? They should call it a "demand", on the grounds that Americans don't like people who make demands. "Then say 'Palestinians aren't content with their own state. Now they're demanding territory inside Israel'." Other suggestions for an effective Israeli response include saying that the right of return might become part of a final settlement "at some point in the future".

Dr Luntz notes that Americans as a whole are fearful of mass immigration into the US, so mention of "mass Palestinian immigration" into Israel will not go down well with them. If nothing else works, say that the return of Palestinians would "derail the effort to achieve peace".

The Luntz report was written in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 and January 2009, when 1,387 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed.

There is a whole chapter on "isolating Iran-backed Hamas as an obstacle to peace". Unfortunately, come the current Operation Protective Edge, which began on 6 July, there was a problem for Israeli propagandists because Hamas had quarrelled with Iran over the war in Syria and had no contact with Tehran. Friendly relations have been resumed only in the past few days – thanks to the Israeli invasion.

Much of Dr Luntz's advice is about the tone and presentation of the Israeli case. He says it is absolutely crucial to exude empathy for Palestinians: "Persuadables [sic] won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Show Empathy for BOTH sides!" This may explain why a number of Israeli spokesman are almost lachrymose about the plight of Palestinians being pounded by Israeli bombs and shells.

In a sentence in bold type, underlined and with capitalisation, Dr Luntz says that Israeli spokesmen or political leaders must never, ever justify "the deliberate slaughter of innocent women and children" and they must aggressively challenge those who accuse Israel of such a crime. Israeli spokesmen struggled to be true to this prescription when 16 Palestinians were killed in a UN shelter in Gaza last Thursday.

There is a list of words and phrases to be used and a list of those to be avoided. Schmaltz is at a premium: "The best way, the only way, to achieve lasting peace is to achieve mutual respect." Above all, Israel's desire for peace with the Palestinians should be emphasised at all times because this what Americans overwhelmingly want to happen. But any pressure on Israel to actually make peace can be reduced by saying "one step at a time, one day at a time", which will be accepted as "a commonsense approach to the land-for-peace equation".

Dr Luntz cites as an example of an "effective Israeli sound bite" one which reads: "I particularly want to reach out to Palestinian mothers who have lost their children. No parent should have to bury their child."

The study admits that the Israeli government does not really want a two-state solution, but says this should be masked because 78 per cent of Americans do. Hopes for the economic betterment of Palestinians should be emphasised.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is quoted with approval for saying that it is "time for someone to ask Hamas: what exactly are YOU doing to bring prosperity to your people". The hypocrisy of this beggars belief: it is the seven-year-old Israeli economic siege that has reduced the Gaza to poverty and misery.

On every occasion, the presentation of events by Israeli spokesmen is geared to giving Americans and Europeans the impression that Israel wants peace with the Palestinians and is prepared to compromise to achieve this, when all the evidence is that it does not. Though it was not intended as such, few more revealing studies have been written about modern Israel in times of war and peace.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/co ... 30765.html

For anyone who wants to see the earlier document that was leaked, here is the PDF:
The Israel Project’s 2009 GLOBAL LANGUAGE DICTIONARY

^ I have a hard copy of it which I printed out at a crap job in NYC. I may take a gander at it again...

About wat0n's silly rape fantasies:

[wat0n]

It's so nice I make you so mad and butthurt that I have the honor of having a thread made in my name.

I also find it hilarious how you and other pro-Palestine propagandists are going from "mass rape didn't happen" to "mass rape happened but Patten didn't say who the rapists were because that was not part of her mandate".

Stay mad.

[skinster]

You're the only one with rape fantasies and keep yammering on about them, so this report is about people like you because...as you can read, it fits you like a glove.

Don't shoot the messenger!

No "mass rape" happened. No rape, in fact, has been proven. There are no victim testimonies. There is no forensic evidence. Nothing! Just the rape fantasies of Zionist..

And now the UN woman who you guys were hedging your bets on is destroying your rape fantasies in real time on Israeli media.

[wat0n]

It is not a good argument to cite the Patten report that found the allegations of mass rape and necrophilia "credible" and at the same time say it shows "rape didn't happen".

I am happy to live rent-free in your head

[skinster]

Mainstream media sources are changing their headlines too

[skinster]

UN report launders Israel’s fraudulent “mass rape” propaganda
Just as Israel’s long running propaganda campaign alleging a strategy of “mass rape” by Palestinians on 7 October was unraveling at high speed, a United Nations official stepped in this week to try to stick it back together.

The Israeli government is grateful to the official, Pramila Patten, who released a high-profile report on alleged sexual violence at a press conference in New York on Tuesday.

It came after a two-week visit to Israel between January and February by Patten and her team.

This is key timing for Israel. Since December, the most important proponent of the propaganda narrative has been The New York Times.

But as The Electronic Intifada has been reporting, the Times is embroiled in a growing scandal over the veracity of its reporting on the issue.

A now infamous article – “’Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7” – has been completely debunked by a small group of independent journalists: The Electronic Intifada, The Grayzone and Mondoweiss and the Twitter user @zei_squirrel.

And despite several of its writers giving credence to the false claims of mass rape, The Intercept has done additional reporting further discrediting the Israeli claims.

In their latest piece on Monday, The Intercept’s Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim identified and talked to family members related to two of the three alleged victims of sexual violence singled out in the Times piece.

The family insisted: “It’s not true. They were not sexually abused.”

The family of the third supposed rape victim – Gal Abdush – had already disowned the Times article back in January.

The Times is facing a growing internal rebellion among its staff over the article.

An episode of The Daily, the widely heard podcast produced by the newspaper, was canceled in January after failing a fact check. Times whistleblowers – as well as staff of Arab and Muslim heritage – are facing a witch hunt by the paper’s management, who are desperate to stem the leaks about the internal turmoil.

Pramila Patten’s report, then, seems almost as if it was timed to save the Times and, by extension, the Israeli government and its US government accomplices.

But contrary to media spin, the Patten report further exposes the claims of systematic sexual violence as a fraud.

“Solidarity” with Israel
Whatever motive she has, Patten is not the unbiased UN official seeking to combat sexual violence during conflict that she claims to be.

Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth reported last month that during her visit to Israeli settlements near the Gaza boundary, “In each meeting she attended, Patten consistently expressed her solidarity, empathy and sympathy towards Israel.”

Patten’s visit was not a formal UN investigation, and the resulting report presents no new evidence. It is conspicuously vague on specifics and admits to being based almost entirely on Israeli government and military sources.

A key conclusion buried in the report concedes that the UN team “was unable to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations would require a fully-fledged investigation.”

As Patten’s report itself notes, Israel has consistently refused to cooperate with independent UN investigators.

Crucially, Patten and her team were unable to locate a single victim and did not speak to any alleged survivors of sexual violence or rape – despite making a public appeal for such survivors to come forward and speak confidentially and with assurances of safety and privacy.

Notwithstanding all these limitations, Patten’s report claims that there are “reasonable grounds” to believe rape took place during the 7 October events. She bases this conclusion on “circumstantial” information which she claims “may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”

The report alleges that Patten’s team saw “clear and convincing information that some hostages taken to Gaza have been subjected to various forms of conflict-related sexual violence.”

Smearing ceasefire campaigners
It also asserts that there is “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual violence against Israeli prisoners in Palestinian custody “may be ongoing.”

Again, the report does not explain what these “reasonable grounds” are.

Nor does it explain what this “convincing information” is or where it comes from.

Patten’s report does say her team spoke to returned “hostages” – the Israeli prisoners released by Palestinian armed groups since 7 October – but, crucially, does not say that any of them claimed to have been sexually assaulted.

The claim that Israeli captives are being raped does serve a key Israeli narrative about the need to continue the genocidal war against Gaza.

In a statement on Tuesday Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan made clear one of the motives for Israel’s intense misinformation campaign seeking to portray Palestinians as rapists: “The meaning of a ceasefire is to lengthen the suffering of the hostages. Any call for a ceasefire is blatant support for Hamas to continue their sexual violence!”

In other words, Israel is trying to smear those calling for an end to its genocide in Gaza as rape apologists.

Notably, the Patten report repeatedly speaks of “clear and convincing information,” as opposed to evidence.

Considering Patten’s apparently preconceived “solidarity” with Israel, it is perhaps not surprising that she seems determined to launder the debunked “mass rape” atrocity propaganda through the UN system.

During Patten’s visit to the Israeli frontier settlements and army bases that were the target of the Hamas-led military assault on 7 October, she was accompanied by controversial Israeli figures.

Photos released by Israel’s foreign ministry show that Patten was accompanied by Yossi Landau, the regional head of ZAKA, a Jewish extremist group which has been responsible for fabricating some of Israel’s most lurid debunked atrocity stories since 7 October.

These have included the disproven claim that 40 babies were beheaded by Hamas.

As The Grayzone has revealed, Landau was also personally responsible for fabricating the claim that an Israeli baby was killed after being ripped out of its mother’s womb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with ZAKA members in November and emphasized their important role in Israeli propaganda.

“We need to buy time, which we also buy by turning to world leaders and to public opinion,” he told the group. “You have an important role in influencing public opinion, which also influences leaders. We are at war; it will continue.”

Landau has described his work as a “holy mission.”

Anti-UN campaign
According to a second Yedioth Ahronoth article on Wednesday, ambassador Erdan is quite pleased with the Patten report.

“Finally, there is someone within the UN who is willing to listen to Israel and take these concerns seriously, rather than brushing them off and focusing almost exclusively on the situation in Gaza,” the paper’s diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner, summarized.

He wrote that “Israeli officials are cautious about openly embracing and praising Patten for her report,” however “behind closed doors there is great admiration for her professionalism, advocacy and attentiveness to the Israeli perspective.”

Patten’s report even admits that it was based on information that was “in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions.”

These “institutions,” the report explains, included the Israeli military, the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet and the Israeli national police.

In other words, the UN is taking the word of the same Israeli armed forces and spies carrying out the genocide in Gaza, even while Israel uses provably false allegations about “mass rape” to justify its actions.

These are the same state forces shown to have lied repeatedly, that have killed more than 150 UN personnel – the largest number of the world body’s staff to be killed in any conflict – and that have leveled accusations of “terrorism” against UN workers without producing a shred of evidence.

“No tangible indications of rape”
Although widely reported in the corporate press as bolstering Israel’s claims about a Hamas campaign of sexual violence, the Patten report is a deeply flawed document that makes very vague accusations and recycles already debunked Israeli propaganda talking points.

But at the same time, it contains multiple admissions about how weak Israel’s claims are and how some of them are demonstrably false.

The bottom line is that – despite months of intense Israeli propaganda parroted by a compliant Western press – the report admits that “in the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos,” undertaken by the UN team, “no tangible indications of rape could be identified.”

It also concedes that the UN team saw “no digital evidence specifically depicting acts of sexual violence” in their own “open source” investigation, despite reviewing “extensive digital material.”

Not a single specific victim of sexual assault has been positively identified, living or dead.

In other words, although the common refrain when it comes to allegations of rape is to “believe women,” in this case, there are still no women to believe.

The report decries that Patten’s team had a “lack of access to first-hand testimonies of survivors/victims of sexual violence.” It says that “despite concerted efforts to encourage them to come forward, the mission team was not able to interview any of these survivors/victims.”

It asserts – without evidence or details – that “a small number of those [victims] who are undergoing treatment are reportedly experiencing severe mental distress and trauma” but does not explain how UN officials know that such victims really exist.

These vague claims that a handful of victims exist, hidden away, are reminiscent of those contained in the debunked New York Times article, based on Israeli government sources.

The Patten report concedes that the number of such alleged survivors “remains unknown.”

Rather than “evidence,” which Patten’s team did not have the mandate to collect, the report makes the distinction that they “received information.” It does refer to “circumstantial evidence,” including the claim that Patten’s team found that there were “naked or partially naked bodies.”

But the report does concede that “at least two allegations of sexual violence widely repeated in the media, were unfounded.”

It disturbingly ignores how atrocity propaganda has been weaponized by Israeli officials, instead treating their claims with unwarranted credulity.

For example, the report recounts that “claims were made in the public domain” that Hamas had issued pamphlets to its fighters “with instructions on pronouncing phrases in Hebrew such as ‘Open your legs’ or ‘Take off your pants.’”

The report concludes that “the mission team was not able to substantiate” these claims, but ignores the role of the Israeli army in disseminating this atrocity propaganda.

Israel’s threats to the UN
Patten’s visit to the Gaza-area settlements came after an unprecedented Israeli government assault on the UN, accusing the body of not taking the claims of sexual violence seriously.

But if sending Patten to Israel was Secretary-General António Guterres’ effort to appease Tel Aviv, it predictably has not worked.

Unsatiated by Patten’s report, this week Israeli ambassador Erdan escalated his country’s threats against the UN.

Speaking on Israel’s Channel 12 he threatened “severe action” against the UN, including closing its Jerusalem headquarters and deporting UN officials, if the secretary-general does not now invoke Article 99 of the UN Charter.


Guterres invoked the article in December – a rare move aimed at formally warning the Security Council of the global threat from Israel’s war on Gaza.

Israel clearly now wants Guterres to invoke the same measure against the Palestinians.

Pramila Patten’s report has done nothing to uncover any evidence to back up Israel’s claims. It has only handed Israel more deceitful propaganda to further its genocide against Palestinians and its attack on the UN.
https://electronicintifada.net/content/ ... anda/45021

[skinster]

Maybe this'll satiate your rape fantasies, @wat0n:

[wat0n]

@skinster I am happy to keep living rent-free in your head.

And that you accept the UN report finding the Palestinian armed groups committed mass rape and even necrophilia on October 7.

[ingliz]

@wat0n

Do you accept the UN report that Israel is weaponizing sexual assault against Palestinians?

[wat0n]

@ingliz where can I read it?

[ingliz]

@wat0n

UN experts* today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

[...]

"We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

— Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls, OHCHR press release 19 February 2024


* The experts:

Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences;

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967;

Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls.

[Rich]

Who cares how many rapes there were? Who cares if dead bodies got used for sexual purposes?

I'm damm sure the Israelis don't care. Even if there wasn't a single rape, even if there wasn't a single case of disrespect towards a dead body, even if not a single Palestinian fighter used bad language against a Jewish woman, even if not a single Palestinian fighter migendered anyone, so what? Do you think Israelis would have been OK with Palestinians rampaging through what they considered their territory. The Palestinian attack would have been totally unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Jews and even non Jewish loyal citizens. Do you think they would have said that was a fair fight fought under the rules of law.

And as to the people who support Hamas's resistance, why in God's name should they care if there were a few rapes. Unless you're living in some pathetic fantasy world, where you thought these young men and older boys were going to behave like the Arthurian Knights of myth. Does anyone really imagine that anti Nazi French, Ukrainian, Polish and Dutch resistance fighters wouldn't have raped German women and under age girls if they had got the chance.

[wat0n]

@wat0n

UN experts* today expressed alarm over credible allegations of egregious human rights violations to which Palestinian women and girls continue to be subjected in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

[...]

"We are particularly distressed by reports that Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped while others were reportedly threatened with rape and sexual violence,” the experts said. They also noted that photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances were also reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online.

— Israel/oPt: UN experts appalled by reported human rights violations against Palestinian women and girls, OHCHR press release 19 February 2024


* The experts:

Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences;

Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967;

Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, Haina Lu, and Laura Nyirinkindi, Working group on discrimination against women and girls.

Where can I read their report?

This does not fit the claims in the Patten report, which did not make any allegations of rape of Palestinian prisoners. It says explicitly nobody accused Israel of doing that, but that they were indeed threatened with sexual abuse - bad, but not bad as actual gang rape, rape and murder or necrophilia.

IV. Visit to the occupied West Bank

79. In the occupied Palestinian Territory and in line with the agreed parameters for the visit, the team visited Ramallah on 1 and 7 February 2024 to engage with the Palestinian Authority and civil society organizations, to hear their views concerning the situation, including allegations of conflict-related sexual violence by the Israeli security forces and settlers, with a view to raising relevant concerns with the Israeli Authorities. Considering ongoing hostilities, the mission team did not visit Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, the mission team engaged with the Palestinian Authority, including the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Detainees and Ex-Detainee Affairs, Women’s Affairs, Social Development, and Labor. The mission team also met with the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights, conducted four meetings with civil society representatives and non-governmental organizations. It also met with and interviewed four recently released detainees. The mission team did not seek to gather information and/or to verify allegations in the context of the occupied Palestinian Territory in order not to duplicate the ongoing work of other UN entities in this regard, which will inform the forthcoming annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. The scope of the mission did not encompass a visit to Gaza, where several other UN entities are present and operating, including some that monitor and address sexual violence.

80. During meetings, stakeholders in the occupied West Bank described a dramatic deterioration of the human rights situation following the 7 October attacks, with the launch of law enforcement operations by the Israeli government being accompanied by mass arrests and a spike in settler violence. As of February 2024, according to the Israel Prison Service, there are nearly 9,000 Palestinians in Israeli custody, including 3,484 administrative detainees (39 per cent) held without trial.15

81. Stakeholders indicated that the detention of Palestinian men and women has been compounded by alleged instances of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including increased instances of various forms of sexual violence in the form of invasive body searches of [detainees which include unwanted touching of intimate areas and forced unveiling of women wearing Hijab; beatings, including in the genital areas; threats of rape against women and threats of rape against female family members (wives, sisters, daughters) in the case of men; and inappropriate strip search and prolonged forced nudity of detainees, including during interrogation and during transfer to other detention facilities. Other concerns raised included the taking and circulating of pictures of women detainees on personal phones of soldiers and investigators and depriving women of menstruation products. These interlocutors also reported sexual harassment and threats of rape, during house raids – including at night – and at checkpoints. They also highlighted intimidation, including threats of rape, if conditions of detention were reported or publicly disclosed after liberation. While no instances of rape were reported, Palestinian women’s organizations consistently stressed that in addition to intimidation and insecurity, the high level of stigmatization, conservative cultural norms and the power imbalance in the context of occupation impedes reporting of sexual violence.

82. Both Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations reported to the mission team that since 7 October 2023, the detaining authorities have severely limited the access of independent humanitarian bodies to detention facilities to monitor the conditions of detention and address any abuses. They also stressed that information regarding the whereabouts of Palestinians from Gaza detained in Israel was difficult to obtain and raised concerns that, due to ongoing hostilities and humanitarian crisis, there is very limited information on whether sexual violence may be occurring in Gaza.

83. The mission team raised the allegations it had heard in the occupied West Bank of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment and sexual violence in Israeli detention facilities, with the Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Military Advocate General. In response, they explained the existing mechanisms for complaints, which are available for prisoners, as well as the protocols for the treatment of prisoners that prohibit sexual violence, including threats of rape. They stressed that to date, no complaints of sexual violence by members of the Israeli Defense Forces have been received. Information received from various human rights organizations and public sources indicates that since 2001, out of 1,400 complaints filed with the Ministry of Justice for alleged acts of torture (including, but not limited to, sexual violence and sexual harassment), only three criminal investigations have been opened, with no indictments resulting. On 23 February 2024, the Office of the SRSG-SVC received a letter from the Government of Israel on its policies and oversight mechanisms during arrests and detention.

And two of these experts initially doubted the conclusions of the Patten report too.



So yes, I totally want to read their report. I want to understand why are they making different claims here.

[late]

Who cares how many rapes there were? Who cares if dead bodies got used for sexual purposes?

I'm damm sure the Israelis don't care. Even if there wasn't a single rape, even if there wasn't a single case of disrespect towards a dead body, even if not a single Palestinian fighter used bad language against a Jewish woman, even if not a single Palestinian fighter migendered anyone, so what? Do you think Israelis would have been OK with Palestinians rampaging through what they considered their territory. The Palestinian attack would have been totally unacceptable to the overwhelming majority of Jews and even non Jewish loyal citizens. Do you think they would have said that was a fair fight fought under the rules of law.

And as to the people who support Hamas's resistance, why in God's name should they care if there were a few rapes. Unless you're living in some pathetic fantasy world, where you thought these young men and older boys were going to behave like the Arthurian Knights of myth. Does anyone really imagine that anti Nazi French, Ukrainian, Polish and Dutch resistance fighters wouldn't have raped German women and under age girls if they had got the chance.

It's Whataboutism..

They want to distract attention away from their mass murder, don't let them do that.

[wat0n]

It's Whataboutism..

They want to distract attention away from their mass murder, don't let them do that.

I think this is the typical rape apologist argument to deny victims any form of justice.

[late]

I think this is the typical rape apologist argument to deny victims any form of justice.

Thanks for proving my point so promptly, and effectively.

[wat0n]

Thanks for proving my point so promptly, and effectively.

It is not whataboutism to point out mass rape was committed on October 7.

Stop seeking impunity for mass rapists.

[Rich]

I think this is the typical rape apologist argument to deny victims any form of justice.

Oh dear, oh dear, Oh dear. This is a century old ethnic conflict that's involved multiple wars, that have cost the lives of tens if not hundreds of thousands of people, have destroyed the homes and livelihoods of uncounted thousands and have uprooted hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people and you start talking about justice.

When Tony Blair went to Belfast to get the Good Friday Agreement signed, he spat on justice, he pissed on justice, he flushed justice down the toilet and rightly so. This is war, yet you talk about this like its an issue of policing. once you have an insurgency, you can forget about justice as we normally expect it in a peaceful liberal democracy. Once you have a serious insurgency, regardless of the virtue or "evil" of the insurgents, regardless of the virtue or "evil" of the status quo government or power.

This is the problem that bedevils every conflict, both sides treat it like its like a matter of the rule of law. Wars can not be fought within a rules based system. War is not lawn tennis.

[ingliz]

@Rich

Stop being a spoilsport.

'Rules of War' are always good to beat the other side around the head.

Article this, clause that, sub-clause whatever.

It's a game everyone plays for points.

[wat0n]

Should war have rules?

Even though they are imperfect since war is inherently brutal, I do think they are useful at least to some extent. But they can be harmful too, if prevailing rules provide incentives to use civilians (e.g. shielding).