‘They failed us,’ one distinguished scholar says of international women’s rights groups who have refused to call out the atrocities. ‘They failed us.’

By Caroline McCaughey, NY Sun,  November 16, 2023:

One of the first videos uploaded to social media of the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7 showed the kidnapping of a 26-year-old Israeli, Noa Argamani, on the back of a motorcycle as she reaches out and screams, “Don’t kill me!”

Another was of 23-year-old German national, Shani Louk, whose partially clothed, contorted body in the back of a pickup truck led to speculation she was already dead. The Israeli government later confirmed she was beheaded. A third video showed Hamas terrorists dragging  a 19-year-old Israeli, Na’ama Levy, out of a Jeep in Gaza, her arms tied behind her back, blood pooling between the legs of her gray sweatpants.

The targeting of civilians — and women in particular — was clear from day one of this war. Hamas members posted their savagery online for the world to see. Yet those first videos were only the tip of the iceberg. In the weeks since the October 7 attacks, more evidence has come to light that Hamas intentionally used rape and sexual violence as a weapon of war. Rape is a war crime and a violation of international human rights law. So where are the major international women’s rights organizations in condemning it?

UN Women, the United Nations’s leading organization for the protection of women’s rights internationally, issued its first statement on the Hamas attacks on October 13. There is no mention of Hamas in the statement. There is no mention of sexual violence. It does call for the “immediate release of the hostages,” but the majority of the text is devoted to the “dire” situation in Gaza.

“Within a month following the Russian invasion to Ukraine, UN Women expressed grave concern over evidence of rapes and other conflict related sexual violence and called for an investigation into these allegations. Likewise, they reacted immediately to the reports of rapes of Yazidi women by ISIS, which was referred to as a terrorist group,” the academic director of the Rackman Center for the Advancement of Women at Bar-Ilan University, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, tells the Sun. “Their failure to acknowledge what actually took place on October 7 adds fuel to the propaganda, to the campaign of denial, in which we find ourselves now.”

A UN Women statement released on October 20 calls for a ceasefire and again doesn’t name Hamas. The statement, though, does address “depression levels” from “a deep sense of hopelessness” in Gaza.

Another of the leading United Nations women’s rights organizations, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, issued a similarly equivocating statement on October 27, condemning “the escalating violence in the Middle East” and calling “upon all parties to systematically address the gender dimension of the conflict.” Hamas is not mentioned. Neither is rape. Like UN Women, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women calls for “peace talks” and a ceasefire.

Ms. Halperin-Kaddari is a former vice president of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. At a Harvard Medical School symposium over the weekend, a group of Israeli panelists, including Ms. Halperin-Kaddari, called out these international women’s rights organizations for their failure to recognize and condemn gender-based war crimes committed by Hamas.

“I could never understand how Holocaust denial could actually take place. And what we are now experiencing is a denial of the most atrocious events that took place only a month ago, and were filmed in real time and broadcast in real time,” Ms. Halperin-Kaddari said at the Harvard event.

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