Magdi Jacobs on the Hamas sexual violence on October 7, 2023

Magdi Jacobs on Twitter, on the massive NYTimes report ("'Screams Without Words': How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7") on the rape of women by Hamas on October 7, December 29, 2023 (link to her thread: https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1740815012271149478).

The @nytimes just published the most comprehensive report on the sexual violence of 10/7 that I have seen. It confirms what many have already suspected: that sexual violence against Israeli civilians did not only occur, but was used as a method of war.

Before I continue: This conversation is not about Israeli's military strategy/goals. Or its history. This is a conversation about an event that will have historical ramifications. It is not a conversation about justification, past or present. It is only a conversation about truth.

 Hand-to-hand combat against civilians is a rare kind of "first strike" in warfare. 

Something that has gotten terribly elided--if we care about history or truth--has been the overall nature of the attack by Hamas on 10/7. It was an attack where the primary victims were civilians. Hand-to-hand combat against civilians is a rare kind of "first strike" in warfare.

The swift violence of such an event. . . it is not something seen frequently outside the context of genocide  

This attack also happened very quickly, something people don't seem to have noticed. In the space of a few hours, over a thousand people were butchered. The swift violence of such an event. . .it is not something seen frequently outside the context of genocide.

It is important to sit with all of this--the true nature of 10/7--b/c so much truth has being lost, here. 10/7 was one of the most brutal--and swiftest--attacks on civilians in our modern history. Now, within this context, we must consider the sexual violence that was committed.

The primary question since 10/7 has not been whether or not sexual violence occurred, but whether sexual violence was used as a method of war. The preponderance of evidence has long weighed in favor of the latter. The Times' article makes it even clearer.

Every indicator is that the violence was systematic  

When determining whether sexual violence has been used as a method of war, investigators will look at the scale & scope: was the violence limited to one area & one group of men or was it much broader in its scope? The answer is: every indicator is that the violence was systematic.

The Times interviewed witnesses and reviewed visual evidence--photo and video--from at least 7 sites on 10/7. This entails that Hamas militants, in the space of a few hours, are alleged to have committed several *separate* acts of sexual violence across multiple sites.

This single fact would be of great interest to the International Criminal Court or to other bodies interested in war crimes. Several militants committing assaults across several different sites in a short time entails some level of planning/permission to engage in sexual violence.

To believe otherwise would entail asserting that, within the space of 6-12 hours, different men came to music festival, to a military base, & then to different kibbutzim & other sites & decided, independently of one another, to commit these crimes against women.

Trigger warning: I am trying to not be graphic, but here I do have to give some detail: Both genital mutilation & gang rape are alleged to have occurred at different sites. Different weapons were used for the mutilation. There are also accounts of broken bones across sites.

I'm not a war crimes investigator or expert in international humanitarian law. But, broadly speaking, this is how people answer the Q: "was sexual violence used as a method of war?" Was there planning? Was it systematic? Are only the soldiers culpable or are others culpable too?

I have many thoughts on this story and our reaction to it, but I am taking a break now. I encourage everyone to be faithful to the truth first & foremost. No justice has ever come from denying the truth.

 

The last paragraphs of the New York Times article are on the children of Gal Abdush, who was raped and murdered by Hamas terrorists, and her husband Nagi, also murdered by Hamas.

The couple had been together since they were teenagers. To the family, it seems only yesterday that Mr. Abdush was heading off to work to fix water heaters, a bag of tools slung over his shoulder, and Ms. Abdush was cooking up mashed potatoes and schnitzel for their two sons, Eliav, 10, and Refael, 7.

The boys are now orphans. They were sleeping over at an aunt’s the night their parents were killed. Ms. Abdush’s mother and father have applied for permanent custody, and everyone is chipping in to help.

Night after night, Ms. Abdush’s mother, Eti Bracha, lies in bed with the boys until they drift off. A few weeks ago, she said she tried to quietly leave their bedroom when the younger boy stopped her.

“Grandma,” he said, “I want to ask you a question.”

“Honey,” she said, “you can ask anything.”

“Grandma, how did mom die?”

Normalizing antisemitism in American life

Today was a pretty good day for me personally, but a rotten day for me as a Jew in America.

Three reasons:

1) The attack on the Chabad synagogue today, in Poway, California, by a murderous white nationalist who spewed the same ideology as the murderer of 50 Muslims in New Zealand a month ago. He also claims to have committed arson at a California mosque, so he is clearly a hater of anyone he thinks threatens white supremacy. If you look at his manifesto (not something I recommend if you'd like to be cheerful the rest of the day), you'll see that he espouses the Nazi ideology that blames Jews for all the ills of the world, including immigration by brown people to the United States (legal or undocumented); he's very much like the man who attacked the Pittsburgh synagogue exactly six months ago, who was motivated by the fantastical belief that Jews are responsible for migrants from central American (and other parts of the world) seeking asylum in the US. His manifesto is also full of hate for African Americans and Arabs (not going to repeat the slurs he uses).

2) Learning about the antisemitic cartoon published on Thursday in the international edition of the New York Times. Of the New York Times! Have they fired all their editors? Or decided to hire only antisemitic ones? How did this cartoon even get printed?

The cartoon shows a blind Donald Trump, wearing thick eyeglasses (with black lenses), wearing a black yarmulke, with Benjamin Netanyahu as his seeing-eye dog, with a blue star of David around his neck - with the obvious message that Bibi the Jew controls Trump. I think the yarmulke on Trump's head is meant to convey the idea that he has surrendered to the Jews and even identifies with them. Or perhaps it's meant to refer to the fact that his daughter Ivanka is Jewish and that he has Jewish grandchildren - in any case, it's antisemitic.

As the following commenter responds on Twitter:

In the NYTimes international: Bibi Netanyahu characterized as a dog leading a blind, Jewish Trump.
When did the @nytimes hire David Duke as an editor? pic.twitter.com/7bGf1jLrri

— Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) April 27, 2019

The same commenter also wrote, "The cartoon doesn't even have anything to do with the article below. It's as if the editors went, "interesting article, but we need more anti Semitism."

How did the Times respond?

An Editors' Note to appear in Monday’s international edition. pic.twitter.com/1rl2vXoTB3

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) April 27, 2019

Not an apology, or even a statement of "regret" - just an "error of judgement." Whose error of judgement? Who drew this cartoon, and which editor approved its placement in the international edition? At least the statement acknowledges that the cartoon "included anti-Semitic tropes." I will be interested to read what Bari Weiss and Bret Stephens have to say about the cartoon, since they are both eager to decry antisemitism when it occurs in other places.

3) There is a Facebook page called "Rise Up Ocean County," set up by someone who is upset that ultra-Orthodox Jews who live in Lakewood, New Jersey, are moving out of Lakewood and buying houses in nearby towns (because the population of Lakewood is growing quickly and people are seeking somewhat less expensive housing). About 11,000 follow the page, and there are posts both by the admin and by followers. Some are about real issues of overdevelopment, but there are frequent antisemitic posts and comments.

The admin of the page posted earlier today about the antisemitic cartoon in the Times.

A number of people in the subsequent comment thread wrote that they did think the cartoon was in bad taste or antisemitic, but there were a number of antisemitic remarks.

One woman wrote, "Antisemitic and in poor taste," to which the page admin replied, "Help me here. How is that anti Semitic?"

Another response was an antisemitic cartoon:

Just browsing quickly, I found a couple of other antisemitic posts by followers of the page (names of the posters not included - my purpose is not to target any individual, but to indicate that this page has no trouble publishing obvious antisemitism while claiming really to be concerned about overdevelopment and corruption).

Another post was a complaint about ultra-Orthodox Jews going to nearby beaches. Complaining about people littering on beaches is not antisemitic. But calling them "gods chosen people" is.

A couple of years ago NJ.com published a series about Lakewood and issues with housing, overdevelopment, busing of Orthodox students to private Jewish schools, and corruption - without stooping to the antisemitism frequently found in this Facebook group. For the first article, and links to subsequent ones, go to https://www.nj.com/news/2017/08/window_on_lakewood_inside_the_fastest-growing_comm.html.

What are the lessons to learn from this evidence of antisemitism in a variety of American venues: 1) at this moment, the most violent and dangerous form of antisemitism is to be found among white nationalists; but 2) antisemitism is not restricted to people on the extreme right, although that may be the most murderous version of it; 3) even well-respected American institutions like the New York Times can be blind to the very antisemitic tropes that they publish; 4) ordinary Americans who don't belong to the white nationalist right or the anti-Zionist far left are also prey to antisemitic stereotypes, and employ them when encountering visible Jews doing things they don't like.

White nationalist terrorism is obviously the most immediate threat to Jews - we've now had two murderous attacks in six months. How many other killers are now planning to attack synagogues or other Jewish places? These killers are part of the same racist white nationalist movement that attacks LGBT people, Muslims, Sikhs, African American churches, and Latinx people, and it offers distinctive threats to members of each group. The killer in Poway hated many of these groups, and claims to have attacked a mosque as well as the synagogue. 

The kind of antisemitism espoused by the Times cartoon could come from either the right or the left, and belongs to the conspiratorial antisemitism that believes "the Jews" run the world and are responsible for everything evil in the world. It's also dangerous, because it underlies murderous white nationalist antisemitism (as well as far left antisemitism that blames Jews and Israel as "imperialists" in league with the US and other western powers).

The antisemitism displayed in Rise Up Ocean County seems to be composed of various stereotypes of ultra-Orthodox Jews combined with classic denunciations of Jews being clannish and sticking with their own exclusively, as well as bitter remarks about how rich they must also be, and snide antisemitic remarks like the one about the "chosen people." In my opinion, this is the kind of antisemitism that is more likely to result in Jews being discriminated against in housing or employment, not in violent reactions (but I could be wrong - there have been a number of anti-Jewish hate crimes reported in Lakewood). There is a real conflict going on over scarce resources - housing and tax dollars - but some people express this in antisemitic terms.

It's exhausting to have to deal with all of this, and I'm quite apprehensive about the future in America.

Some additional articles on the New York Times cartoon:

https://sethfrantzman.com/2019/04/27/tracking-the-fallout-reactions-and-details-of-the-nyt-antisemitic-cartoon-scandal/

Apology from New York Times Opinion:

We apologize for the anti-Semitic cartoon we published. Here’s our statement. pic.twitter.com/nifZahutpO

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) April 28, 2019

Criticism from CNN's Brian Stelter:

NYT staffers are alarmed and dismayed by this anti-Semitic cartoon AND by the paper's initial response.  It started on Thursday when print editions of the international edition of The New York Times ran an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog on a leash held by a blind POTUS. Most US staffers knew nothing about it until they read about this editor's note on Saturday. The note admitted that the cartoon was an "error in judgment," but didn't go into any detail about what went wrong. Some news outlets inaccurately called the note an "apology," which it wasn't, which led people to wonder why the NYT hadn't actually apologized.  Jake Tapper commented on Sunday morning that the cartoon "could just have easily appeared in ISIS or neo-Nazi propaganda."  Per three plugged-in sources at the NYT, staffers were alarmed to see the image in the first place -- and dismayed that the initial response was so feeble. They told me that they wanted a more detailed explanation...  Awaiting more info...  After a barrage of criticism,The Times issued a statement on Sunday afternoon saying "we are deeply sorry" for the cartoon, and "we are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again." The NYT said the decision to run the syndicated cartoon was made by a single editor working without adequate oversight. "The matter remains under review, and we are evaluating our internal processes and training," the statement said. "We anticipate significant changes." The paper is out with its own news story about the situation... And Bret Stephens, one of the paper's op-ed columnists, has a clear-eyed column titled "A Despicable Cartoon in The Times." Stephens said he is certain that the Times is not guilty of institutional anti-Semitism, but he said the cartoon was a sign of the Times' ongoing criticism of Zionism and the Israeli government. Here is his column... And our news story...

See also: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/28/media/ny-times-anti-semitic-cartoon/index.html.

New York Times article about the cartoon: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/28/business/ny-times-anti-semitic-cartoon.html.

Ethan Bronner and the Public Editor of the New York Times

The Public Editor of the New York Times is calling for Ethan Bronner, the New York Times chief correspondent in Israel, to be reassigned for the period when his son is serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Fortunately, Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, disagrees.

The concern of Hoyt (the Public Editor) seems to be not that Bronner would actually be biased in his research and writing, but that some readers would perceive him as being prejudiced. As Keller makes clear in his reply to Hoyt, the New York Times is endlessly scrutinized for its Israel/Palestine coverage, and people on both (or many) sides of the issue are quick to criticize them for it. I've had Jewish friends accuse the Times of being anti-Israel, and I've had other friends claim that the Times is reflexively pro-Israel (one such conversation included the awkward claim that the Times was pro-Israel because the owners of the newspaper are Jewish - my interlocutor, whom I had thought was a friend, was unaware of the newspaper's shameful role during WWII in downplaying the gravity of the Holocaust). For an example of the claim that the Times' reporting is reflexively pro-Israel, see the first comment to Keller's response, which comes from Alison Weir, who is convinced that Israel can never do anything right.

Keller asks very cogent questions about who it is that should be trusted to report the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:

Readers, like reporters, bring their own lives to the newspaper. Sometimes, when these readers are unshakeably convinced of something, they bring blinding prejudice and a tendency to see what they want to see. As you well know, nowhere is that so true as in Israel and the neighboring Palestinian lands. If we send a Jewish correspondent to Jerusalem, the zealots on one side will accuse him of being a Zionist and on the other side of being a self-loathing Jew, and then they will parse every word he writes to find the phrase that confirms what they already believe while overlooking all evidence to the contrary. So to prevent any appearance of bias, would you say we should not send Jewish reporters to Israel? If so, what about assigning Jewish reporters to countries hostile to Israel? What about reporters married to Jews? Married to Israelis? Married to Arabs? Married to evangelical Christians? (They also have some strong views on the Holy Land.) What about reporters who have close friends in Israel? Ethical judgments that start from prejudice lead pretty quickly to absurdity, and pandering to zealots means cheating readers who genuinely seek to be informed.

He also gives examples of other Times reporters who have a personal involvement of some kind in the area they are reporting about - for example, he brings up the case of Nazila Fathi, the Times correspondent in Tehran. Should she not be permitted to report on Iran because the Iranian regime hounded her out of the country?

Nazila Fathi, our brave Tehran correspondent, was hounded out of her native country and into exile by the current regime. Does that “conflict of interest” disqualify her from writing about Iran? Or does that, on the contrary, make her more qualified, knowing as she does how that regime operates? Would you prefer to have a correspondent in Tehran who had NOT been persecuted by the Iranian government?

It seems to me that Hoyt is calling for an impossible standard which would lead to an absurdity - reporters who do not care at all about the place or topic they are reporting on. One of the things I had noticed over the years about the Times' reporting on Israel is that every few years they would send a new person to be the chief correspondent. They did not have as their chief correspondent someone who actually lived in the country for a long time - nor did it seem they even had Israeli or Palestinian correspondents (perhaps some stringers). I think it is a good thing that the Times is now employing reporters who know Israel thoroughly because they are Israelis or have lived in the country long term. (For example, Isabel Kershner, whom I first read in the Jerusalem Post probably about twenty years ago, is now reporting for the Times pretty regularly). Perhaps if they are worried about the appearance of bias, they should be careful to employ a Palestinian reporter to write regularly for the Times on an ongoing basis (the reporter they used in Gaza last year during the Gaza War seemed excellent to me).

Tablet Magazine has just weighed in on this issue, on the side of Hoyt - "Hoyt and I agree that Bronner has been fair-minded. But Hoyt and I also agree with Alex Jones, a Pulitzer-winning Harvard press expert. He told Hoyt: 'The appearance of a conflict of interest is often as important or more important than a real conflict of interest. I would reassign him.' Such a move, frankly, is unfair to Bronner, 'but the newspaper has to come first,' he added."

I repeat that this is an impossible standard for the newspaper. Does this mean now that the excellent Gaza reporter the Times had last year for the Gaza War shouldn't work for them because of her inevitable personal stake in the course of the war? In Iraq the Times also employs many Iraqi staffers, some of whose names actually even show up as bylines. Should they be fired because they also have a stake in the ongoing fighting there? I imagine that some are Shi'ites, some are Sunnis, some are Kurds, some are Christians - all groups that are struggling over what is going to happen in Iraq. I think it is actually a plus for the Times to have reporters who are from a particular place - as long as they can adhere to journalistic standards. I have not seen any reporting from the local reporters in Iraq or Gaza or Israel that has led me to believe that they are violating journalistic standards.

And why is Tablet Magazine piling on in this argument? It's a Jewish publication - do they believe that an Israeli Jewish reporter would be incapable of reporting on Israel/Palestine fairly? What about Isabel Kershner, who is an Israeli and who writes for the Times? She immigrated to Israel from Britain and is an Israeli citizen. She used to report for the Jerusalem Report (and I think also for the Jerusalem Post). NPR employee Linda Gradstein, who is an American Jewish immigrant to Israel, has reported for them for at least 15 years. I don't think she's served in the IDF, but her husband may have. Does that mean she's incapable of reporting fairly on Israel/Palestine?\

Jeffrey Goldberg has written two good posts on this issue - Pandering to Zealots, in which he says:

.....reporters are capable of actually separating out their personal interests from their coverage. I've worked with Palestinian reporters in Gaza and the West Bank, many of whom have had family ties to Fatah and, in one case, even to Hamas, but without fail they've functioned as professional news-gatherers interested only in getting the story before the competition. I don't think the Times should stop using Palestinian reporters in the West Bank and Gaza, because if it did so, its coverage would suffer. And its coverage of Israel would suffer immeasurably if the Times bent to the pressure of anti-Israel propagandists and removed Ethan Bronner from his post. I'm just glad Bill Keller is the editor of the Times, and not Clark Hoyt. 

Amen to that point. His second posting is in response to a reader's inquiry about "Why not have Jewish reporters cover Gaza? Why not have Palestinians cover Israel?" He answers:

A good question. Two answers: First, Jewish reporters do cover Gaza. And Palestinians do, in fact, cover Israel. Anyone who has been in the Knesset press room knows that Palestinians, working for Arab outlets, as well as European and American publications, are busy covering the main issues of the day. Answer number two: There could always be more of this cross-cultural coverage. I, for one, would love to read a Taghreed al-Khodary [who has reported for the New York Times] profile of Bibi, or Gabi Ashkenazi, or whomever, not only because she's a great reporter, but because she would draw out different responses from these men, based on her background and knowledge, than I could. I trust her to be fair and accurate, so why not?

Indeed.

The NYTimes doesn't want us to know that William Safire was Jewish?

So I guess the Jews really do control the media, according to Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss: Dowd breaks ‘Times’ seal on Safire’s ‘influential’ religion. The site seems to have an obsession with the NYTimes obit of Safire - there are three articles on the subject - and how its failure to mention that Safire was Jewish is part of some deep plot to minimize the evil Zionist/Jewish influence on the diabolical MSM. It's kind of embarrassing to read this classically anti-semitic trope on the website of someone who prominently mentions his Jewishness himself.