Sexual Trauma Transference
“At one point, Supervisor Matt Dorsey mentioned the New York Times’ two-month investigation into how Hamas weaponized sexual violence against Israeli women on Oct. 7, and Palestinian supporters started yelling, ‘Lies!,’” writes Natalie Weinstein in the January 25, 2024 edition of the Jewish News of Northern California (‘A trauma upon a trauma’: Denial of Oct. 7 sexual violence haunts local survivors, by Natalie Weinstein; January 25, 2024) It was very rude of people to interrupt and yell, “Lies” but what if the NYT report is lies? That still doesn’t excuse the rudeness of people shouting out and interrupting but it does mean we need to take a closer look.
Ms. Weinstein states, “Despite reams of evidence — video footage released by Hamas, confessions of captured terrorists and testimony from direct witnesses, first responders, soldiers, doctors and rape counselors — international women’s and human rights groups have reacted with silence, denial or justification after the horrors of Oct. 7, particularly to the evidence of mass rape by Hamas terrorists” But where is this evidence? Why is none of it provided by Ms. Weinstein? We only hear about the “…reams of evidence.”
“… the veracity of the New York Times story was undermined almost as soon as it was published, including from the Abdush family itself who says there is no proof Gal Abdush was raped and that the New York Times interviewed them under false pretenses.” — Family of key case in New York Times October 7 sexual violence report renounces story, says reporters manipulated them. On December 29, the Israeli website ‘YNET’ published an interview with Etti Brakha, Gal Abdush’s mother. In the interview, the mother says that the family knew nothing about the sexual assault issue until the piece in the Times was published: “We didn’t know about the rape at all. We only knew after a New York Times journalist contacted us. They said they matched evidence and concluded that she had been sexually assaulted.” — A New York Times story claiming a pattern of gender-based violence on October 7 hinged on the story of Gal Abdush. But the Abdush family says there is no proof she was raped, and that Times reporters interviewed them under false pretenses; Mondoweiss, January 3, 2024.
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Last week, billionaire former Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg released Screams Before Silence, which is being promoted as “a documentary film on the sexual violence committed by Hamas” on 7 October 2023. But it is a total fraud. Seven months after that day, Israel has still not identified a single survivor of the alleged mass rapes on 7 October, nor a single credible eyewitness. While Israel claims that many Israeli women and even some men were raped and sexually tortured in horrific ways on 7 October, before being killed, not one deceased victim has been identified either.
There is no forensic evidence to support the rape claims nor does Israel say it has a single video showing the allegedly systematic, widespread and pre-planned sexual attacks actually taking place — even though Israel says it has retrieved tens or even hundreds of thousands of videos and photos from that day. Israel is “falsifying claims” of Palestinian rape against Israelis on 7 October 2023 to “to justify a further genocide” in Gaza, a groundbreaking new report says.
Published by the Sexual Violence Prevention Association this week, the report documents how Israel is deploying “wartime rape propaganda” and the “weaponization of sexual violence as a tool of war” in Palestine. The report deploys a framework the group has dubbed SORVO — Systemic Oppression, Reverse Victim and Offender: “a tactic employed by oppressive groups to weaponize sexual violence, and accusations thereof, to justify their oppression.”
Omny Miranda Martone, the report’s lead author, said, “I am seeing SORVO employed against Palestinians every single day. We cannot allow Israel and the US government to use sexual violence to justify genocide.” — Debunking “Screams Before Silence,” Sheryl Sandberg’s 7 Oct. “mass rape” film, Ali Abunimah Media Watch, 4 May 2024
I get no pleasure in writing about this. It is painful, anguishing. I don’t get paid for debunking misinformation. There are many other things I could be doing; playing golf, practicing Tai Chi, going for a walk with my wife, reading a good book but I am compelled to write because, unlike the “good” Jews of our nation, I must do what I can to prevent the Holocaust that is happening now in Gaza. The Jews who survived the Nazis thought it important to document those events, to bear witness. I want to bear witness here to the lies and propaganda that are enabling this modern day Holocaust.
My maternal grandparents came to New York city in the early years of the 20th Century, as children. Their parents were Jews,escaping the First World War, the pogroms, the life of poverty and state oppression. My Grandma Dora, was born on an island in the river between Buda and Pest. Her father had a general store and she remembers having to hide in the cellar when Gypsies were nearby because her parents thought that they stole children. She was six when she arrived in New York and lived her whole life in Brooklyn, where my mother and father and I were born. In short, I am Jewish by birth and culture.
No one denies the horrors of Oct. 7, but to fabricate lies about widespread sexual violence deserves the strongest condemnation. It is exploiting what happened on that day to serve the dark purposes of bigotry and propaganda.
“Chaim Otmazgin had tended to dozens of shot, burned or mutilated bodies before he reached the home that would put him at the center of a global clash. Working in a kibbutz that was ravaged by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, Otmazgin — a volunteer commander with ZAKA, an Israeli search and rescue organization — saw the body of a teenager, shot dead and separated from her family in a different room. Her pants had been pulled down below her waist. He thought that was evidence of sexual violence. He alerted journalists to what he’d seen. He tearfully recounted the details in a nationally televised appearance in the Israeli Parliament. In the frantic hours, days and weeks that followed the Hamas attack, his testimony ricocheted across the world. But it turns out that what Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.
‘It’s not that I invented a story,’ Otmazgin told The Associated Press in an interview, detailing the origins of his initial explosive claim — one of two by ZAKA volunteers about sexual violence that turned out to be unfounded. ‘I couldn’t think of any other option” other than the teen having been sexually assaulted, he said. “At the end, it turned out to be different, so I corrected myself.’ But it was too late. Still, it took ZAKA months to acknowledge the accounts were wrong, allowing them to proliferate. And the fallout from the debunked accounts shows how the topic of sexual violence has been used to further political agendas.
Israel points to sexual violence on Oct. 7 to highlight what it says is Hamas’ savagery and to justify its wartime goal of neutralizing any repeated threat coming from Gaza. A U.N. fact-finding team found “reasonable grounds” to believe that some of those who stormed southern Israel on Oct. 7 had committed sexual violence, including rape and gang rape. But the U.N. investigators also said that in the absence of forensic evidence and survivor testimony, it would be impossible to determine the scope of such violence. Hamas has denied its forces committed sexual violence.” — How 2 debunked accounts of sexual violence on Oct. 7 fueled a global dispute over Israel-Hamas war, PBS News, May 22, 2024
Jews have been asking since World War II how the Nazi death camps could have been allowed to happen. How was it that the persecution of Jews and other minorities was not known, recognized and opposed by the German people at the time. If you look at Israel and the United States today you can see exactly how this can happen. The genocide of the Palestinian people is live streamed daily. Orthodox Rabbis are being arrested at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, protesters are beaten and jailed but nothing stops Israel continuing to bomb homes, hospitals, refugee camps, schools and clinics with the full complicity of the US even though most Americans, and a large segment of the Israeli population, are opposed to it. False narratives about sexual violence on Oct. 7th help fuel the warmongering and hatred.
“Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit (I-Unit) has carried out a forensic analysis of the events of October 7, when Hamas fighters launched an incursion into Israel that has transformed the politics of the Middle East. But the investigation by the I-Unit, which examined hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones and headcams of killed Hamas fighters, has also found that many of the stories that came out in the days following the attack were false. These include claims of atrocities such as the mass killing and beheading of babies as well as allegations of widespread and systematic rape — stories that were used repeatedly by politicians in Israel and the West to justify the ferocity of the subsequent bombardment of the Gaza Strip, which has so far killed nearly 32,000 people.
After a thorough analysis of all available data, the I-Unit concluded that claims by the Israeli army that it found eight burned babies at a house in Kibbutz Be’eri were untrue. The analysis found that there were no babies in the house, and the 12 people inside were almost certainly killed by Israeli forces when they stormed the building. This was one of a number of incidents where the police and army appear to have killed Israeli citizens. The I-Unit identified 19 such victims, but the true figure is likely to be higher. It also identified 27 captives who died between their homes and the Gaza fence in circumstances that have not been explained. Gun camera footage from Israeli Apache helicopters shows numerous strikes on vehicles and individuals making their way back to Gaza.
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My concern with this footage is we cannot tell whether they are Hamas gunmen or …. hostages. And I don’t believe the helicopter pilot, or the machine gun operator would be able to tell either,” said Chris Cobb-Smith, a British army veteran and human rights researcher. The film features an interview with Yossi Landau, the southern commander of Zaka, a volunteer organisation tasked with collecting bodies after the October 7 violence. The I-Unit confronts Landau with evidence that many of the stories of atrocities Zaka relayed to the media were highly questionable. The I-Unit also examined claims that widespread sexual violence had occurred on October 7. It concluded that while isolated rapes may have taken place, there was insufficient evidence to support allegations that rape had been “widespread and systematic”. — October 7: Forensic analysis shows Hamas abuses, many false Israeli claims, by Richard Sanders and Al Jazeera Investigative Unit, 21 Mar 2024
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“An Israeli man who claimed to have heroically rescued hundreds of people from Hamas fighters on 7 October 2023 has been exposed as an outright liar who made up stories “from beginning to end.” The debunking of Rami Davidian’s fabrications by a high-profile mainstream Israeli journalist is highly significant.
Davidian, who was a star witness in Sheryl Sandberg’s 7 October atrocity propaganda film Screams Before Silence, also claimed to have seen dozens of dead victims of alleged rapes on that day, some with objects inserted into their genitals. Raviv Drucker, a journalist with Israel’s Channel 13, revealed that his network was set to air an exposé of Davidian’s lies in the coming days. The broadcast was, however, canceled after a promo trailing the report caused a public backlash…Clearly upset at the suppression of his team’s work, Drucker went on to describe how meticulously the report was prepared and to characterize what it reveals about Davidian’s claims.
“These are not slight exaggerations, mildly inflating the number of those rescued, absolutely not,” Drucker wrote. “These are stories made up from beginning to end. Hair-raising stories that never, ever occurred.” Ever since 7 October 2023, according to Channel 13’s Drucker, Davidian “has turned his stories into an industry,” taking part in paid lecture tours in Israel and abroad, as well as fundraising campaigns. In perhaps hundreds of interviews, Drucker wrote, Davidian “repeats over and over again, stories that simply never happened.” — Key 7 “October “mass rapes” witness denounced as liar by Israeli reporter,” by Ali Abunimah, Media Watch, 4 April 2025.
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The article (‘A trauma upon a trauma’: Denial of Oct. 7 sexual violence haunts local survivors, by Natalie Weinstein; January 25, 2024) in the Jewish Times features the stories of two Bay Area Jewish women and deliberately conflates their experience of rape with the alleged mass rapes on Oct.7. The caption on the photo of Jan Reicher, headlining the article, reads, “Jan Reicher is the president of JCRC Bay Area, a former Shalom Bayit board member and a survivor of sexual violence. She wears a “Bring Them Home” dog tag as a necklace and a piece of masking tape with “108” written on it, marking how long the hostages had been in Gaza as of Jan. 22.” Of course, you immediately think this poor woman was raped on Oct. 7 but then you find out her rape actually occurred four decades ago.
From the article: “Naomi Tucker, founding executive director of the Bay Area Jewish domestic-violence prevention nonprofit Shalom Bayit, said that “survivors of all kinds of abuse are being retraumatized” by Oct. 7 and by the waves of hatred against Israel and Jews that have followed.” Again, the unproven, in fact, non-existent, mass rapes are being weaponized to blame Hamas (and the Palestinians, by extension) for all the domestic abuse suffered by Jewish women.
From the article: “The ongoing denials led Reicher and Dyanna Loeb, local Jewish survivors of intimate-partner violence, to speak with J. (Jewish News) about Oct. 7 and its aftermath. Whether someone supports Israel’s war against Hamas or not, they said, people need to understand that the silence and denials about violence against Israeli women are not just political. They are personal and painful. For Loeb, the denials feel very familiar. “That gaslighting, the victim blaming — all of these things I have personal experience with — are happening to Jews on a global level,” said Loeb, a survivor of domestic and sexual violence who serves on the board of Shalom Bayit.” Again, the personal experiences of abused Jewish women in the Bay Area are conflated with the events of Oct.7.
Where were these Jewish women while Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem have, for decades, been subject to harassment, arbitrary arrest, assaults, displacement, had their homes bulldozed and restrictions imposed on their movements?
“Senior human rights investigators reporting to the UN Human Rights Council alleged on Thursday that sexual and gender-based violence by Israeli security forces against Palestinians — including children — have been increasingly used “as a method of war” following the 7 October 2023 attacks that sparked the Gaza war. “Israel has increasingly employed sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinians as part of a broader effort to undermine their right to self-determination,” maintained Chris Sidoti from the Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). Speaking in Geneva, the human rights lawyer said that “the frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated across the OPT leads the Commission to conclude that sexual and gender-based violence is increasingly used as a method of war by Israel to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”. — UN News,13 March 2025
Perhaps the Jewish women could spare some of their outrage for this:
“Documents obtained by Haaretz, as well as testimonies of soldiers, mid-level and senior IDF officers, reveal a host of orders and procedures laid down by the Gaza Division, Southern Command and the IDF General Staff up to the afternoon hours of that day, showing how widespread this procedure was, from the first hours following the attack and at various points along the border. Haaretz does not know whether or how many civilians and soldiers were hit due to these procedures, but the cumulative data indicates that many of the kidnapped people were at risk, exposed to Israeli gunfire, even if they were not the target.”— IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive by Yaniv Kubovich, Haaretz, July 07, 2024
Or this:
Haaretz Exposé | Killing of Gaza Aid Workers: IDF Troops Fired Indiscriminately for Over Three Minutes, Some at Point-blank Range. IDF materials show that soldiers reloaded their magazines multiple times while shooting at 12 aid workers who tried to identify themselves. Before the shooting, the force was alerted to increased ambulance traffic in the area. The aid vehicles were on a permitted route that didn’t require coordination. The commander decided on his own to deviate from his assigned mission. — Yaniv Kubovich, Haaretz, April 23, 2025
Or this:
“…, in 2023 alone prior to 7th October, 240 Palestinians, including more than 40 children, had been killed. Between 2008 and 6th October 2023 alone, 6,343 Palestinians had been killed, including 1,416 children. And since 1967, an estimated 1 million Palestinians have been “arrested” by the Israeli state. That doesn’t just include those put through kangaroo military courts, with trials headed by judges who are also Israeli soldiers, with those trials lasting minutes and being conducted in Hebrew, including with confessions signed under pressure and indeed often after torture and sexual abuse, with a conviction rate over 99%.” — Owen Jones; Battlelines, April 23, 2025.
Or this:
A powerful new documentary produced by Fault Lines on Al Jazeera English tells the story of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the Palestinian pediatrician and director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza whom Israel has detained with virtually no contact to the outside world for almost nine months. He became known to millions of people around the world for his regular video dispatches from inside the hospital describing the toll of Israel’s brutal military assault on Gaza and on the hospital itself. In late December 2024, Israel raided Kamal Adwan Hospital and forcibly evicted its staff and patients. Dr. Abu Safiya was arrested by Israeli soldiers and has been held without charge in harsh conditions ever since. — “The Disappearance of Dr. Abu Safiya”: Al Jazeera Film on Israel’s Abduction & Torture of Gaza Doctor, Democracy Now with Amy Goodman,September 18, 2025
