content warning: involving discussion of rape/sexual assault although as the title implies, there is no convincing evidence that any of this has actually occurred.
note: and I promise you person about to link something, it’s not convincing evidence, I read a lot of news including mainstream news, there is none as of the time I am posting this and if you believe some of the lurid, unsubstantiated (and frankly racist) atrocity propaganda fantasies spun up then propogated by the BBC among other outlers, I have a bridge to sell you.
The lack of any evidence of “mass rape” perpetrated by Hamas members on October 7 hasn’t stopped Israel from weaponizing these accusations to legitimize its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
and the closing paragraph
But it extends further than that. The reliance on lazy Orientalist caricatures of Arab men as savage sexual predators is both cunning and destructive. The implication that brutality and sexual depravity are intrinsic characteristics of Arab men and Arab people suggests that Palestinians are, inherently and irredeemably, an evil race, and their total annihilation, therefore, is justifiable. Manufacturing consent for a genocide works only when the genocide of a people is not regarded as a loss, and the eradication of their culture, their history, and their humanity is an act that renders the world a better place. The stigmatization and dehumanization of indigenous men and men of color is not new. It is an agenda that is all too familiar, and we must resist it.
Rape is always used in war, and always used as an excuse for escalation, and never really cared about by the men in power.
The question shouldn’t be whether rape is happening; it should be what kind of scum cynically uses that as an excuse to bomb shit harder when they don’t give a fuck about actual rape victims?
Excuse me? We absolutely SHOULD question whether rape is happening.
This "that’s just how war is
" kind of narrative needs to go, there is no laws of physics that force armies to commit rape or any voluntary attack against civilians for that matter.
That’s not useful, that’s not helpful, that’s not smart, that’s not having a “nuanced understanding”, that’s cynical minimization of unwarranted violence and horrible crimes against civilians.
It shift the blame of warcrimes on a cynical and frankly halfassed “that’s just how it is” kind of “explanation” and minimise the responsibility of the culprit.
You can’t just say that both sides of a conflict always do this and handwave it as if it was some kind of universal law, if you want to claim that, you need to prove it.