(Courtesy - 'Times of Israel')
"Why deafening silence of feminists to horrific sexual violence against women in Israel by Hamas terrorists" ??
"The International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women is upon us on 25th November, but it feels lonely to be a Jewish feminist.
The Australian Jewish and Israeli Film Festival screened Erica Jong’s documentary this week, in which we see a 1985 interview about pay inequality and sexual freedom. Pay inequality is still a conversation almost 40 years later. And what of sexual freedom? What should we make of the internationally deafening silence of feminist people in response to the publicly broadcast scenes of horrific sexual violence against women in Israel by Hamas terrorist men on October 7th?," writes Adele Stowe-Lindner.
She sits on the board of the Zionist Federation of Australia and is Vice-President of Kehilat Nitzan Masorti Synagogue in Melbourne, Australia.
"Grassroots movements, such as the Israeli organization, Women Wage Peace, bring women together across cultures — Israelis and Palestinians — using feminism and sisterhood to share pain and build one another up rather than try to deplete their neighbors. It is powerful to say: I hear you, I see you. Feminists in other democracies could learn from that.
Jewish feminists including Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Phyllis Chesler, Judy Chicago, Robin Morgan, Shulamith Firestone, questioned sexual politics, pay inequity and systematic inequality for decades, enabling all of us, women and men, to benefit today. All of us benefit, including those who close their eyes to the frightening sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th.
Rape is not resistance," says she.
"....we cannot hear a feminist peep outside of the global Jewish community and Israel. Is it possible that, despite Hamas terrorists filming their own sexual violence and rape of women who were both alive and murdered, photos of which are readily available across the internet, feminists still do not believe the women?
The feminist world witnessed the psychological terrorism of footage shared by terrorists showing women who had been physically violated being paraded in the street. How can any person who calls themselves a feminist look themselves in the mirror without wondering about the physical welfare of women and girls who have been abducted and held in Gaza?
"An enormous number of the over 240 hostages are women and girls. A woman gave birth after being kidnapped and held hostage. When a feminist person reads that, what does it mean to them? Is there a context in which this, or rape, is an appropriate feminist tool of resistance? If not, where are the feminist people speaking up?
There is no need to choose between mourning the death of innocent Palestinian people or decrying the targeted murder of Israeli people in their homes.
Each photo communicates the searing pain of a human losing a loved one. But when a woman uses her feminist identity to make public comments about the death of those in Gaza this month without acknowledging the violent attacks on women and girls in Israel, her hypocrisy undermines her so-called feminism.
The recent “pro Palestinian” school student demonstrations in Australia were of particular note because school students were interviewed, and they explained at length that they know exactly what’s going on in Gaza so claim to have made an informed choice to be demonstrating.
An Israeli military officer's version:
Faster, more opinionated and ultimately 'less substantiated' publication of news is a reality but it can be disastrous :: Lessons for Journalism from Gaza
This is evident in the war Israel is fighting against Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip. In one example, on October 17th, 2023, reports emerged of an explosion at the Al-Ahli Hospital. Within minutes, trigger-happy newsrooms reported that the explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike on the building. Demonstrators poured into the streets across the Middle East, writes
Richard Hecht in 'Times of Israel'.
The rush to report is always at odds with the imperative to get the story right and the Israel Hamas war is no exception, he says in the piece entitled: "The high-stakes dilemma of conflict-zone journalism"
"In today’s media landscape, the rush to break news is pitted against the need for accurate, reliable storytelling. This tension is by no means new. In a 2015 paper on this topic, Reiko Saisho, a Reuters Institute Fellow at the University of Oxford said that “the test is whether journalists have made appropriate efforts and taken reasonable steps to verify and triangulate the pieces of information available at that time.”
This takes time. Nowhere is this tension as pronounced or mistakes as costly as in conflict zones, where reporters need to satisfy the increased appetite of an accelerated news cycle. Some publications have found workarounds when facts are still emerging, publishing breaking news under the guise of opinion pieces. As the RAND Corporation pointed out in 2019, “News coverage has shifted from a more traditional style characterized by complex, detailed reporting…toward a more personal, subjective form of reporting that emphasizes anecdotes, argumentation, advocacy, and emotion.”
The truth (about the hospital incident) emerged a few hours later.
The IDF presented evidence showing that the strike was caused by a misfired rocket launched from Gaza by the Palestinian terrorist group, Islamic Jihad. But corrections at the bottom of articles can’t send demonstrators home.
Other examples require days before the truth emerges. Take the IDF’s activity against Hamas in the Shifa Hospital complex in Gaza. On October 27th, the IDF published intelligence about Hamas’s decades-long exploitation of the hospital. The IDF issued public warnings and facilitated an evacuation process. This wasn’t just about following protocols; it was doing our best to protect lives at a massive cost – losing the element of surprise among other tactical implications.
Hamas took advantage of the warning, spending weeks burying evidence, redeploying forces, and moving hostages. The IDF began to uncover the evidence, slowly and methodically, to protect the hospital’s patients and the soldiers involved.
Yet, the hunger for on-demand evidence doesn’t always align with the ground realities. Verifying facts takes time. A terrorist organization can release false information about a hospital blast in seconds but the military in a liberal democracy needs hours – at the very least – to show the facts.
Terrorists can entrench under a hospital, bury evidence, and categorically deny all. A Western democracy must live up to the burden of proof – tunnels, weapons and more – even if it takes time.
"....But complex reality doesn’t always fit into 24-hour news cycles. In situations like Shifa Hospital, there’s a clear right or wrong. Either there are weapons and terrorist infrastructure or there isn’t. Until then, the cost of hasty reporting is misinformation, its impact on both public perception and operational strategies, and lives that are in heightened danger as a result.
Of course, there is infrastructure there. Yesterday we took journalists behind the blast-proof door, showing them dozens of meters of tunnels and another tunnel shaft right against the Qatari building in the Shifa complex. We showed them how deep under the hospital was a bathroom, a kitchenette, an air-conditioned barracks and more. The evidence that this was terrorist infrastructure is irrefutable. But, notably, not instantaneous," he writes.
I’m on the frontline of military communications. I understand the pressure media outlets face to keep the public informed. But some stories, especially those in conflict zones, demand patience. It’s not just about losing a few clicks; it’s about ensuring that reporting doesn’t unwittingly play into the hands of those who use civilians and hospitals as shields.
The media must balance the urgency of reporting with context-rich, accurate narratives. In a world of breaking news and TikTok headlines, the world needs patient conflict reporting more than ever.
The world needs the prompt revelation of truth but never at the cost of depth and accuracy. Such an approach not only serves public knowledge better but is a moral imperative in the high-stakes world of military operations and conflict journalism.
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| These images released by the IDF on November 21, 2023, show the inside of a Hamas tunnel found under Gaza’s Shifa Hospital. (Israel Defense Forces) |
(Lt Col Richard Hecht is the Head of the International Branch at the Israel Defense Forces. He can be followed via his regularly published newsletter or on Twitter/X.)
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