The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25 found women’s organizations worldwide silent and indifferent regarding the organized sexual assaults against women in Israel on October 7.
All year round, these women’s groups from all corners of the globe tell us how important it is to be involved and take a stand in each and every case of gender violence.
But in the face of Hamas’s mass sexual offenses against Israeli women, these women’s groups prefer to remain silent.
The last week in November is, traditionally, a week of global solidarity for everyone committed to combating gender-based violence. It is a week when we, together with our friends around the world, join hands in a common message and light “candles of awareness and consciousness” around the globe.
This year, however, Israel, which typically plays a significant role in this struggle, was let down by our partners. For example, Samantha Pearson, the director of the Center for Sexual Assault at the University of Alberta in Canada signed an open letter casting doubt on the sexual violence experienced by Israeli women during the Hamas attacks.
Believe women, unless they're Israeli?
The documented visual and narrative testimonies are horrifying, and the IDF spokesman’s summaries are so shocking that they are unwatchable. Yet these are not enough to convince Pearson. How can someone who insists we must believe every woman who complains of sexual assault, refuse to believe Israeli women attacked by organized terrorist forces? Is there a connection between this and the detached and antisemitic statement of the UN Secretary-General, who explained that the horrors “did not happen in a vacuum” – meaning they are somehow justified?
Like Pearson, who openly doubted the credibility of the facts, women’s organizations worldwide adopted a policy of silence and indifference. These are the same organizations that, together with us, explain to the average person that they must intervene and take a stand in any case where they are exposed to gender-based violence.
These are the same organizations that conduct worldwide campaigns emphasizing the critical role of the ostensibly uninvolved third party, who has the power to stand with good against evil and join hands against the attacker. Now, all those organizations that advocate so emphatically about involvement, are demonstrating how to systematically avoid it. All those who had lined up with us took a step back, and left us betrayed by our colleagues and partners in the world, while legitimizing rape as a form of struggle.
In Israel 2023, there was a moment – a moment when they, the women of the world, were needed. It was a moment that gave them the opportunity to draw red lines, to create a global, female, and ethical front against crimes, in the spirit of the messages of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
But at that moment, our friends around the world disappeared. They chose silence and neutrality instead of siding with the leaders of the United States and Germany who courageously led the free world.
The writer is chairperson of WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Organization.