Editorials & Other Articles

sl8

(14,058 posts) Mon Apr 29, 2024, 08:59 AM Apr 29

The wartime outrage in Gaza that no one is talking about (WaPo/opinion)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/29/hamas-gaza-rapes-israel-sheryl-sandberg/

The wartime outrage in Gaza that no one is talking about

By Ruth Marcus
Associate editor

April 29, 2024 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

Photos of hostages at the site of the Nova festival, where people were killed and kidnapped during the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas gunmen, in Reim, southern Israel. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)

Trust me, you do not want to watch Sheryl Sandberg’s documentary, “Screams Before Silence,” about sexual violence committed by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and beyond.

Trust me, you should.

You should watch it and speak out, about how rape and gender violence were deployed as weapons of war. About breasts cut from bodies. About nails driven into a woman’s vagina.
About the piercing screams of women being assaulted — and the appalling silence of prominent individuals and organizations, including women and women’s groups, that would ordinarily rush to condemn such atrocities but whose reaction has for some reason been muted when it comes to gender violence deployed against Israeli women.

About the piercing screams of women being assaulted — and the appalling silence of prominent individuals and organizations, including women and women’s groups, that would ordinarily rush to condemn such atrocities but whose reaction has for some reason been muted when it comes to gender violence deployed against Israeli women.

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YouTube link to "Screams Before Silence" (age restricted):

4 replies

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Highlight:

The wartime outrage in Gaza that no one is talking about (WaPo/opinion) (Original Post) sl8 Apr 29 OP

Yes, let's remember this moment of total brutality. Aussie105 Apr 29 #1

Justification Is Not the Point, Sir The Magistrate Apr 29 #2

The total brutality that followed is not a consequence but a premeditated continuation of Beastly Boy Apr 29 #3

The author says it herself. lees1975 Apr 29 #4

Aussie105

(5,503 posts)

1. Yes, let's remember this moment of total brutality.

Reply to sl8 (Original post)

Mon Apr 29, 2024, 09:31 AM

Apr 29

It fully justifies the months of a much larger scale, total brutality that followed it.

(You can decide if that is right or wrong.)

The Magistrate

(95,272 posts)

2. Justification Is Not the Point, Sir

Reply to Aussie105 (Reply #1)

Mon Apr 29, 2024, 11:10 AM

Apr 29

The military aim is to render Hamas incapable of repeating the atrocious spree of sadistic rape and murder documented above. Hamas intended to provoke an extreme response from Israel, and that is just what they have got. One suspects it is a bit more extreme than they bargained for, people who fancy themselves harder and tougher than the rest generally underestimate the capacity for violence of ordinary folks once they make up their minds violence is appropriate.

Beastly Boy

(9,586 posts)

3. The total brutality that followed is not a consequence but a premeditated continuation of

Reply to Aussie105 (Reply #1)

Mon Apr 29, 2024, 11:42 AM

Apr 29

the total brutality that preceded it. It has been anticipated, planned for and facilitated by the same purveyors of total brutality who started it. There is a single continuous spree of brutality that Hamas is perpetrating. It started with the Israelis and it continues with the civilians in Gaza.

The consequences of, but not he causes for latter are being addressed by the media in all of its gruesome detail. The former, including any meaningful coverage of the evil masterminds behind both, is being virtually ignored or, at best, whitewashed.

lees1975

(3,954 posts)

4. The author says it herself.

Reply to sl8 (Original post)

Mon Apr 29, 2024, 03:31 PM

Apr 29

None of this is to diminish the terrible damage inflicted on the civilian population in Gaza, the loss of life, the trauma, the hunger approaching famine proportions. But the violence described in Sandberg’s documentary, directed by Israeli filmmaker Anat Stalinsky, occupies a different plane of calculated cruelty — indeed, of evil.

The world didn't have much time to speak out. Do we really want to engage in a debate about which cruelty and horror is worse, or which cruelty and horror justifies more cruelty and horror?

I think the question worth asking is, how much of the world's attention would now be focused on the atrocities committed in Israel by Hamas if the Israelis hadn't retaliated in the manner which they went after Hamas in Gaza? They had a moment where they owned the high ground. But what needed to be said about it never had a chance to get going on its own.

My question is, where are the real peacemakers? Isn't humanity at a point yet where human intellect can get us past violence, horror and terror as a means of creating bigger problems than they will ever solve?

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