Where's that "missing the point" GIF when I need it? LMAO
"My point, however, is that regardless of whether or not the rape allegations are true, they have served as weapons in the ongoing propaganda campaign to demonize Palestinians and make harm done to them politically palatable to Western audiences."
Yes, because they are not substantiated and so far seem to have been fabricated along with other stories. Not naive or denialist. You can only have denialism when there are facts and there are no facts about this.
So they stripped the hippie peace dancer naked and brutalized her and paraded her in a truck but there's no proof they raped her? That's the story you're going with?
"But there's no PROOF the murdered babies were ACTUALLY beheaded" is not a fact-checking win. It is apologetics.
Yesterday, Hamas blew up their human shields trying to leave northern Gaza. They of course blamed an Israeli missile but that is not at all consistent with the video evidence. So tell you what, we will now apply your ruleset to this incident: prove to me that it even happened, then prove to me that any Palestinians were killed, then prove to me that Israel did it. I require the same level of proof in hardware and postmortem examinations that you require in the form of documented rapes and scientifically enumerated beheaded infants.
You've missed the point entirely of the piece then. And people who are dehumanised, starved and thirsted to death will do horribile things to fight back. This can be found throughout history. I can't believe that you even write that as Gaza is currently being razed, Palestinians starved and deprived of electricity and water. All life is precious which is beside the point of Jeff's piece. He goes into the media theatre being staged--both by legacy media and big tech. Social media personalities pushed this Tablet piece that defies Tablet's own excellent journalism. That piece was shoddy, no confirmation, awkward syntax so as to leave us all with the sufi elephant before us--some people think a woman raped reported this, another imagines a witness--where the only "true" interpretation that we must a genuflect is that an untold number of women were raped. Jeff's point is that no rapes have been substantiated by anyone and yet this was spun off and used just as Judith Miller's and Jeffrey Goldberg's dishonest reporting which Rice and Powell brought to the Senate, convincing lawmakers that their reports were true. They were not. Thsi is rinse and repeat of the same tried and tired media strategies where there is no Chinese wall between facts and what an influencer or star on IG reposts. This was purposeful.
Everyone who has studied history knows that rape is a common trool used. This piece does not make any claim that rape did not occur or will not. It scrutinises bad journalism spun as social media gossip which became the "truth" by virtue of the many willing to hold onto this lie. The piece is strong, Matt, and your claim that Jeff is being "apologetic" is so off target that you seem to have projected a reading of his text that is simply not there. His is a massive crtiique of media propagagandising.
What I got from this piece is that when Hamas slaughters and rapes and tortures people, it is "media propagandizing" to discuss it, which is just rankly abusive DARVO.
Having worked in a newsroom, I have never ever seen a breaking news story that did not require clarification and updates. Not once. This story involved thousands of victims in a confusing and hectic scene. If Tablet got some details of the rapine and slaughter of the peace hippies dance party wrong, that is not because nefarious minds want bad things for Palestine. It is because Hamas attacked and slaughtered a peace hippies dance party in the middle of the desert.
Again, woosh goes the point completely over your head. Saying that they COULD be true is obviously not denying that they're true. And I acknowledged in the article that there are other allegations made against the Hamas fighters that have strong evidence supporting them--there's little reason to doubt that they, like the IDF, have killed a significant # of civilians. But the fucking POINT that you seem utterly determined not to get is that allegations against Hamas, even ones that at the moment don't have strong supportive evidence, are being weaponized to demonize all Palestinians and everyone who supports their cause, or at least to create indifference to their plight/fate. It obviously worked on you.
"It might not be true, and even if it is true we shouldn't discuss it, because that's bad for Paelstine and Israel deserved it anyway" is how abusers talk.
Some very disturbing information here about the extent to which the atrocity propaganda I discussed in my piece has been effective here in the US. In a nutshell, a poll found that 70% of Americans think the planned Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza is justified in response to Hamas' attack: https://twitter.com/TheGreeneBJ/status/1713728421677707431. This is reminiscent of the 90+ % who believed in 2002-03 that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" and sizable majority who initially supported the US invasion of Iraq. (Note, again, that I'm not saying here, just as I didn't say above, that Hamas/other Palestinian militias didn't commit any crimes against civilians. But hardly anyone in the West is demonizing Israelis as a whole or even the IDF as a whole (although at some point almost all Jewish Israelis serve in the IDF, so not a very different thing); it's only the Palestinians who get demonized.
Why do you support only free speech you agree with? This isn't an op-ed, I hope you realise. The LA times retracted their essay because many journalists have been raising alarms at the shoddy "reporting" on this issue! It's not even reporting, but a fictionalisation based on an article that was never investigated.
How is this piece "normalising barbarianism"? What a word to use for an article that you admit is "biased and probably not all true", probably being the operative word here. You have guessed your way through a critique that has already been admitted as unsubstantiated.
‘HORRIFIC’: ISRAELI FORCES DISCOVER BODIES OF 40 BABIES MURDERED BY HAMAS
829,885 views Oct 11, 2023
Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson says the most “horrific news imaginable” has emerged from the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists.
According to Ms Markson, the Israeli Defence Force has discovered the bodies of 40 babies and young children. “They'd been killed – some even beheaded,” she said.
“The shocking sight of beheaded young children with their heads cut off meant that the soldiers who found them and recovered their bodies were seen crying and comforting each other.
“There truly are no words to capture the evil, the cruelty that would lead these barbarians to take the lives of innocent tiny, beautiful babies.
The title "Atrocity Propaganda" constitutes a projection, imo
My shame at being a former Greens voter of 40 years is intensified. Thank dog I didn’t take the lemming leap into the abyss of insanity with the rest of the lunatic left.
As a GC feminist who endured a 5 day trial to legally prosecute the men who raped me (one went to jail the others were deported) I’m nauseatingly familiar with the arguments of rape apologist leftist men who are enthusiastically demonising feminism.
You have the effrontery to describe yourself as a "womans rights advocate".
As a woman I'll decide who deserves that recognition and you would be the last penis haver in the world I'd give it to. You are a man who believes males can turn into females and dismisses women who oppose transsexual ideology as bigots, nazis and fascists.
I can barely acknowledge you as a decent human being.
You say you've read every word, yet if so, you've barely understood any of it. As would have been blindingly obvious to someone who had adequate reading comprehension, I was pointing out that some of the very people (GC feminists) who are dishonestly labeled bigots, Nazis, fascists, etc. by idiotic TRAs simply for quite reasonably advocating that single-sex spaces be maintained are similarly misrepresenting those protesting against Israeli brutality and apartheid policies as supporters of Hamas and war crimes that they either committed or are alleged to have committed. And of course, apparently because you are blindly supportive of the Israeli government, the main point I was making in my piece flew completely over your head even though it is readily comprehensible to anyone with a shred of objectivity. To reiterate it, REGARDLESS of whether (that is, EVEN IF) the allegations of mass rape, beheading 40 babies, etc. are true, the fact is that these allegations are being used as a tool to demonize Palestinian people as a whole as well as anyone who supports their struggle for freedom from Israel's oppressive policies. In fact, you yourself are doing that, because you have demonized me when you don't even understand what I stand for despite what I wrote being readily understandable to anyone who isn't predisposed to hate Palestinians and their supporters.
Your claim Palestinians are being demonised because rape testimony is being “weaponised” against them by their enemies is inane. The only logical conclusion to that argument is that women should not make claims they have been raped. They should shut up with their allegations unless they can be categorically proved to a legal standard. That’s the view of a rape apologist.
The other implication of your argument that Palestinians are being wrongfully “demonised” is that if the rape and child murder allegations are true then outside observers might regard such actions on innocent bystanders as atrocious and consequently form an unsympathetic attitude toward the political aspirations of the perpetrators. In my opinion, it’s a credible reaction to feel repulsed by people who invade another country to intentionally assault and murder unarmed, noncombatant citizens. They are especially monstrous to justify their aggression as a nation building activity.
The contentions in what you wrote are fundamentally and profoundly flawed and seem likely to have arisen from a deep animus toward women. Your weird segue into defending Russell Brand confirms that to me.
Pearl, that is silly. The IDF has historically raped women--and men in detention! Jeff is not saying that women shouldn't make a claim of being raped. In fact, his piece doesn't even hint at that. It's about media malfeasance and the political machinery posturing the unsubstantiated claim of rape--again UNSUBSTANTIATED--as proof of the inhumanity of Palestinians.
Defending Russell Brand?? I said I thought he was guilty, dumbass. And your first paragraph is patently absurd. There AREN'T any women, so far, that have made claims that they were raped at the music festival. Instead, there is "one survivor" (meaning a festival attendee who wasn't killed) who said "women have been raped." The IDF even said itself that so far they don't have evidence of any rapes. (https://forward.com/news/564318/sexual-assault-rape-proof-hamas-idf-israel-gaza/) In the event that women do come forward with such claims, I will of course take their claims seriously just as I do those of the women who say Russell Brand (or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton or whoever) raped them. But again, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. There are war crimes that HAVE indisputably been committed by Palestinians, just as there have been by Israelis (see, for example, the pic at the top of the article). Those proven war crimes, too, are used to demonize Palestinians as a whole but not used in that manner against Israelis.
No, Jewish settlers in the region started it about 100 years ago. No amount of claiming "Palestinian group X are terrorists" nor actual terrorist acts by Palestinians can excuse the ethnic cleansing and terrorism carried out by (ethnically, not necessarily religiously) Jewish settlers since decades prior to the 1948 founding of Israel, including but far from limited to the Nabka, the blockade of Gaza for more than a decade, the shooting of tens of thousands (killing >200) of unarmed civilians during the Great March of Return, or the current carpet bombing of Gaza and complete cutoff of food, water, etc. Saying "Hamas started it" is the same thing as saying "Nat Turner started it" during the battle to overthrow slavery in the US. It's missing the forest for the trees and it's a despicable, morally bankrupt point of view. And I've pointed out both in my article and in the comments that the Palestinian side commits atrocities, so claiming that I'm sidestepping the atrocities is just flat-out lying. If you can't have an honest conversation, don't comment any more. And please don't ever make excuses for genocidal acts like cutting off food & water for 2.1 million people.
I note the claim that 'The blind acceptance and propagation of these claims has been particularly widespread among feminists'. I too have been following sex realists on X and have been disappointed to see many exhibiting an unthoughtful emotional reaction to the attacks on Israel whilst ignoring the history of Palestine, blaming Hamas for Israel's war crimes against Palestinians (denying water, indiscriminate bombing, forced mass movement of 1 million) and claiming that all Palestinians are anti-semitic and animals who deserve what is coming. However, these view are shared by both male and female sex realists, many of them lawyers. One particular example is @colwight who says he is a Prof. in international relations. He made a sweeping claim that there are many gender critical feminists who are supporting the Palestinans - and this is also probably true - as the left has traditionally supported the Palestinians.
So I think your claim that this is widespread amongst feminists was somewhat provocative. I have stood by the view that women must cross the aisle in order to build a women's rights movement and so it has been distressing to see some of the women I most admire with regard to sex realism on the other side when it comes to the current conflict. I have had to think hard about whether to condemn Hamas - it is hard against the propaganda that has been ongoing. Israel has been highly successful in their campaign to describe anti-zionism as ant-semitic when it is obviously not whilst at the same time dehumanising Palestinians calling them animals. I fear that Israel's war aim goes beyond their usual 40:1 collective punishment to ethnic cleansing (forcing Eqypt to open the crossing) and genocide having won the propanda argument in the west's main stream media.
I do support the overall argument regarding propaganda but many women don't 'identify' as 'feminist' (including myself) because too many feminists have capitulated to gender ideology. There are sex realists (like myself) who have felt politically homeless because of gender ideology who are now working through the implications of working with women who show no understanding of the history of Palestine. I have exclusively tweeted on gender ideology until this conflict and it has been disturbing (but not surprising) to see that this conflict divides women on traditional right / left lines.
To add. I have followed Savage Minds since waking up to gender ideology in 2020 meaning to subscribe and the reporting on Israel has finally moved me to subscribe. Julian Vigo is one of the most thoughtful journalists to follow and I am disappointed to see some of the comments dismissing this article and threatening to unsubscribe.
Thank you for your comments. I am awestsruck by how many people who started reading Savage MInds when we launched three years ago because we challenged and stood up to cancel culture--literally, no publication on the left or centre would run anything critical of lockdown--are now upset because they read a piece with which they disagree. If you are not in support of voices like Jeff's and others over the Israeli-Gaza war, then you are simply not in favour of free speech. Free speech only means something if you support the speech with which you are in complete disagreement. I am very disappointed to think that people would effectively no-platform any publication instead of sitting with their thoughts, dare I say meditate, and understand that free speech is this.
And submit an article, a riposte. If we'll-argued and well-written, we are happy to run it!!
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I regard any woman who supports full equality for women and has a fairly good understanding of at least most of the relevant issues as a feminist, although some of them choose not to describe themselves that way, which is fine. I think men who hold this perspective can also be considered feminists, although in deference to women who don't like labeling men as feminists, I try to stick to using terms such as "women's rights advocate." I, too, have been very distressed to see so many gender-critical women (and men like Colin Wright and Graham Linehan) take Israel's side, demonizing Palestinians as well as those of us who support their struggle for freedom. However, I'm not sure which is more distressing, this or the reverse problem of women who strongly support the Palestinian liberation struggle be so utterly clueless when it comes to gender ideology (Ash Sarkar is an example that comes readily to mind here). I've come to realize, as I noted in my conclusion, that even among people who are extremely well-informed about a particular issue (e.g., women's rights), very few people are well-informed in general, and the ignorance seems especially profound when it comes to matters of foreign policy.
I found the claims of rape and baby beheadings to be rather unsubstantiated by primary claims and recorded evidence so I put them in the “maybe” pile. Meanwhile, I witnessed the photographs and watched videos of things that clearly happened and those were sufficiently horrifying.
I never expected to say something like this, but it doesn’t matter to me if a baby was beheaded at this point. Men definitely broke into people’s homes, saw babies, made the decision to murder them, and then murdered them.
That is horrifying.
None of that horror is reversed if they didn’t choose to behead any babies. They don’t come off any better if they didn’t decapitate any babies. They looked at babies and decided to kill them.
Arguing about whether or not one or more babies were decapitated as if that is the thing that is going to redeem these fuckers is unbelievable.
I really hope women weren’t tortured with rape. But a lot of people were tortured and died horribly, at the hands of people who looked at them and decided to make them die horribly. In front of their family members. After watching their family members die. Watching other people die horribly and wondering if they were next.
You’re less skeptical of the crimes against humanity that happened during a chaotic terror attack than the alleged, possible false or exaggerated allegations that spread during a chaotic terror attack.
And you really show your hand by calling the victims oppressors in the end.
I’m done hearing that any man who decided to kill unarmed civilians including babies was “oppressed” and the victims deserved it because they’re “oppressors.”
Anyone who feels justified killing a baby does not have the moral high ground.
I cannot believe the absolute state of progressives anymore.
It’s pathological. You need help. I’ll sure be spending the rest of my life wondering how I was ever on the same side as you people.
I suggest you follow up further, aside from the links in Jeff's piece. The LA Times doesn't retract a piece for nothing. The claims were not substantiated in any way and thusly should not have been reported as if real. If and when those facts come to light, then is the time to report the facts.
Holy crap, your reading comprehension is terrible. It's astounding how completely you're missing my very obvious point. Yeah, there's good evidence that Palestinian combatants killed civilians. I've read Human Rights Watch's report and others. The IDF has killed many civilians too, more than Hamas et al. have. But Israelis as a whole aren't being demonized due to the IDF's war crimes; Palestinians as a whole are, and it's being done on purpose. That's the fucking point that you're too thick-headed to get. And obviously I don't condone either side deliberately killing civilians. If you've actually read my piece all the way through and are nonetheless accusing me of that, then you're lying.
Jeff Melton - please define what exactly would constitute sufficient evidence that a woman was raped?
What is your suggestion for setting up a process for the women who were assaulted during the attack by Hamas terrorists that would provide sufficient and verifiable evidence such that you wouldn't feel a need to contest their testimony?
Well, there's an example of what would constitute sufficient evidence for me at least to conclude that a woman was raped from just a month ago. Four women, including one who came forward years ago, made very detailed and highly corroborated rape allegations against Russell Brand, and there was also a pattern of public conduct over the years consisting of sexually harassing and humiliating women. He also himself admitted in his autobiographies that he had humiliated and abused women (such as spitting on them or breaking their phones), which doesn't itself constitute evidence of rape but certainly is evidence of someone who doesn't respect women. Contrast that with the allegation that "one survivor" said merely that "women have been raped" with no other detail or corroboration provided--in other words, not only is there not sufficient testimony from a woman that would lead a jury to convict an accused perpetrator, there isn't ANY testimony (so far) from women who allege having been raped. But as I've pointed out to you a couple of times already, although if they're guilty then of course they should be held accountable, whether or not Palestinian troops are guilty of rape has nothing to do with the point I'm making, that these sorts of allegations have been weaponized to demonize or reduce public sympathy for ALL Palestinians--men, women, and children, combatants and noncombatants alike. Meanwhile, even rape allegations against Israeli troops that juries would consider highly credible are NEVER used to demonize Israelis as a whole.
Had you actually read my piece, you'd know that I said there was credible evidence that Hamas combatants or allied groups had killed civilians. There's also credible evidence that Israeli troops killed civilians in the very same battle, to say nothing of the war crimes depicted in the photo at the top of this article. And the Israeli government has openly admitted to carpet bombing Gaza as well as cutting off all food, water, fuel, and electricity--you might even say they're proud of it.
As for the rape allegations, even the Israeli military itself has said that so far they're unaware of any evidence that rapes occurred during this event. Should credible evidence come out, I'll be among the first to say so. And there have been numerous media reports of IDF troops raping Palestinian (as well as Israeli) women, of widespread rape and sexual abuse of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, and of Israel being a haven for Jewish child molesters trying to escape justice. If I were inclined to make sweeping generalizations about large groups of people like you are, I would say "Imagine what it must be like as a woman to live in Israel."
Laughable history, lower level detail than my average 19 year old C student essays. ("Long before Israel’s founding in 1948, there was conflict between Jews who settled in Palestine and its native Arab inhabitants) - Um, long before this, Ottomans? Saudis? Romans? There is a long long yknow.
Ridiculous claims about western media bias. How rich, given this piece.
The only thing correct here is the heading. Thanks for making your thesis clear.
Nothing that would come remotely close to justifying carpet-bombing densely populated areas, cutting off food and water, or fabricating mass rape or baby beheadings claims, no.
Well thats where we can all differ, even if raised with the same attitudes. What the Islamic Jihadist terrorist group did, to undo peace efforts, probably does justify what Israel has done. If it doesn't, and I like most want them to cease fire, one can still understand the reaction. We all react. You have reacted in these threads right? An immediate lashing out is quite normal behavior, horrible as it is.
Its amazing how our Left in the West defend murderous terrorists who would cut your head off without a thought and attack US/Israeli/Western military retaliations. I mean, I hate this sentence, but whose side are we on?
I don't know if you have a daughter, but I'd like you to think about those young ladies being held right now by the sexually repressed neanderthals.
This is the single most naive and denialist essay I have ever read here.
Where's that "missing the point" GIF when I need it? LMAO
"My point, however, is that regardless of whether or not the rape allegations are true, they have served as weapons in the ongoing propaganda campaign to demonize Palestinians and make harm done to them politically palatable to Western audiences."
"whether or not the rape allegations are true" - naive and denialist
Yes, because they are not substantiated and so far seem to have been fabricated along with other stories. Not naive or denialist. You can only have denialism when there are facts and there are no facts about this.
So they stripped the hippie peace dancer naked and brutalized her and paraded her in a truck but there's no proof they raped her? That's the story you're going with?
"But there's no PROOF the murdered babies were ACTUALLY beheaded" is not a fact-checking win. It is apologetics.
Yesterday, Hamas blew up their human shields trying to leave northern Gaza. They of course blamed an Israeli missile but that is not at all consistent with the video evidence. So tell you what, we will now apply your ruleset to this incident: prove to me that it even happened, then prove to me that any Palestinians were killed, then prove to me that Israel did it. I require the same level of proof in hardware and postmortem examinations that you require in the form of documented rapes and scientifically enumerated beheaded infants.
You've missed the point entirely of the piece then. And people who are dehumanised, starved and thirsted to death will do horribile things to fight back. This can be found throughout history. I can't believe that you even write that as Gaza is currently being razed, Palestinians starved and deprived of electricity and water. All life is precious which is beside the point of Jeff's piece. He goes into the media theatre being staged--both by legacy media and big tech. Social media personalities pushed this Tablet piece that defies Tablet's own excellent journalism. That piece was shoddy, no confirmation, awkward syntax so as to leave us all with the sufi elephant before us--some people think a woman raped reported this, another imagines a witness--where the only "true" interpretation that we must a genuflect is that an untold number of women were raped. Jeff's point is that no rapes have been substantiated by anyone and yet this was spun off and used just as Judith Miller's and Jeffrey Goldberg's dishonest reporting which Rice and Powell brought to the Senate, convincing lawmakers that their reports were true. They were not. Thsi is rinse and repeat of the same tried and tired media strategies where there is no Chinese wall between facts and what an influencer or star on IG reposts. This was purposeful.
Everyone who has studied history knows that rape is a common trool used. This piece does not make any claim that rape did not occur or will not. It scrutinises bad journalism spun as social media gossip which became the "truth" by virtue of the many willing to hold onto this lie. The piece is strong, Matt, and your claim that Jeff is being "apologetic" is so off target that you seem to have projected a reading of his text that is simply not there. His is a massive crtiique of media propagagandising.
What I got from this piece is that when Hamas slaughters and rapes and tortures people, it is "media propagandizing" to discuss it, which is just rankly abusive DARVO.
Having worked in a newsroom, I have never ever seen a breaking news story that did not require clarification and updates. Not once. This story involved thousands of victims in a confusing and hectic scene. If Tablet got some details of the rapine and slaughter of the peace hippies dance party wrong, that is not because nefarious minds want bad things for Palestine. It is because Hamas attacked and slaughtered a peace hippies dance party in the middle of the desert.
Again, woosh goes the point completely over your head. Saying that they COULD be true is obviously not denying that they're true. And I acknowledged in the article that there are other allegations made against the Hamas fighters that have strong evidence supporting them--there's little reason to doubt that they, like the IDF, have killed a significant # of civilians. But the fucking POINT that you seem utterly determined not to get is that allegations against Hamas, even ones that at the moment don't have strong supportive evidence, are being weaponized to demonize all Palestinians and everyone who supports their cause, or at least to create indifference to their plight/fate. It obviously worked on you.
"It might not be true, and even if it is true we shouldn't discuss it, because that's bad for Paelstine and Israel deserved it anyway" is how abusers talk.
I AM discussing it, dumbass.
You are dismissing it, dipshit.
Some very disturbing information here about the extent to which the atrocity propaganda I discussed in my piece has been effective here in the US. In a nutshell, a poll found that 70% of Americans think the planned Israeli ethnic cleansing of Gaza is justified in response to Hamas' attack: https://twitter.com/TheGreeneBJ/status/1713728421677707431. This is reminiscent of the 90+ % who believed in 2002-03 that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" and sizable majority who initially supported the US invasion of Iraq. (Note, again, that I'm not saying here, just as I didn't say above, that Hamas/other Palestinian militias didn't commit any crimes against civilians. But hardly anyone in the West is demonizing Israelis as a whole or even the IDF as a whole (although at some point almost all Jewish Israelis serve in the IDF, so not a very different thing); it's only the Palestinians who get demonized.
I am unsubscribing and will not support savage minds any longer. This is biased reporting.
The whole Israel Palestine 50 years is not what happened this week.
You should be ashamed of yourselves to publish this
You are normalizing barbarianism.
Hamas and the Israeli gov’t do want to keep fighting yes
The people of both sides are victims yes
But this is superficial and biased, and probably not all true.
- Etana in Florida
Why do you support only free speech you agree with? This isn't an op-ed, I hope you realise. The LA times retracted their essay because many journalists have been raising alarms at the shoddy "reporting" on this issue! It's not even reporting, but a fictionalisation based on an article that was never investigated.
How is this piece "normalising barbarianism"? What a word to use for an article that you admit is "biased and probably not all true", probably being the operative word here. You have guessed your way through a critique that has already been admitted as unsubstantiated.
On Oct 15, 2023, at 10:37 PM, Julian Vigo <forum@mg1.substack.com> wrote:
> many journalists have been raising alarms at the shoddy "reporting"
> on this issue! It's not even reporting, but a fictionalisation
> based on an article that was never investigated
> critique that has already been admitted as UNSUBSTANTIATED.
Here is some reporting of the barbarianism.
https://youtu.be/ZyDX8Xs2k_U?si=_KFY5SCku5DGCKzB
SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA
‘HORRIFIC’: ISRAELI FORCES DISCOVER BODIES OF 40 BABIES MURDERED BY HAMAS
829,885 views Oct 11, 2023
Sky News Australia host Sharri Markson says the most “horrific news imaginable” has emerged from the ongoing war between Israel and the Hamas terrorists.
According to Ms Markson, the Israeli Defence Force has discovered the bodies of 40 babies and young children. “They'd been killed – some even beheaded,” she said.
“The shocking sight of beheaded young children with their heads cut off meant that the soldiers who found them and recovered their bodies were seen crying and comforting each other.
“There truly are no words to capture the evil, the cruelty that would lead these barbarians to take the lives of innocent tiny, beautiful babies.
- Etana
Sickening.
The title "Atrocity Propaganda" constitutes a projection, imo
My shame at being a former Greens voter of 40 years is intensified. Thank dog I didn’t take the lemming leap into the abyss of insanity with the rest of the lunatic left.
As a GC feminist who endured a 5 day trial to legally prosecute the men who raped me (one went to jail the others were deported) I’m nauseatingly familiar with the arguments of rape apologist leftist men who are enthusiastically demonising feminism.
Commenting on an article you clearly haven't read is what's sickening here.
I read every word of it several times.
You have the effrontery to describe yourself as a "womans rights advocate".
As a woman I'll decide who deserves that recognition and you would be the last penis haver in the world I'd give it to. You are a man who believes males can turn into females and dismisses women who oppose transsexual ideology as bigots, nazis and fascists.
I can barely acknowledge you as a decent human being.
You say you've read every word, yet if so, you've barely understood any of it. As would have been blindingly obvious to someone who had adequate reading comprehension, I was pointing out that some of the very people (GC feminists) who are dishonestly labeled bigots, Nazis, fascists, etc. by idiotic TRAs simply for quite reasonably advocating that single-sex spaces be maintained are similarly misrepresenting those protesting against Israeli brutality and apartheid policies as supporters of Hamas and war crimes that they either committed or are alleged to have committed. And of course, apparently because you are blindly supportive of the Israeli government, the main point I was making in my piece flew completely over your head even though it is readily comprehensible to anyone with a shred of objectivity. To reiterate it, REGARDLESS of whether (that is, EVEN IF) the allegations of mass rape, beheading 40 babies, etc. are true, the fact is that these allegations are being used as a tool to demonize Palestinian people as a whole as well as anyone who supports their struggle for freedom from Israel's oppressive policies. In fact, you yourself are doing that, because you have demonized me when you don't even understand what I stand for despite what I wrote being readily understandable to anyone who isn't predisposed to hate Palestinians and their supporters.
Your claim Palestinians are being demonised because rape testimony is being “weaponised” against them by their enemies is inane. The only logical conclusion to that argument is that women should not make claims they have been raped. They should shut up with their allegations unless they can be categorically proved to a legal standard. That’s the view of a rape apologist.
The other implication of your argument that Palestinians are being wrongfully “demonised” is that if the rape and child murder allegations are true then outside observers might regard such actions on innocent bystanders as atrocious and consequently form an unsympathetic attitude toward the political aspirations of the perpetrators. In my opinion, it’s a credible reaction to feel repulsed by people who invade another country to intentionally assault and murder unarmed, noncombatant citizens. They are especially monstrous to justify their aggression as a nation building activity.
The contentions in what you wrote are fundamentally and profoundly flawed and seem likely to have arisen from a deep animus toward women. Your weird segue into defending Russell Brand confirms that to me.
Pearl, that is silly. The IDF has historically raped women--and men in detention! Jeff is not saying that women shouldn't make a claim of being raped. In fact, his piece doesn't even hint at that. It's about media malfeasance and the political machinery posturing the unsubstantiated claim of rape--again UNSUBSTANTIATED--as proof of the inhumanity of Palestinians.
Defending Russell Brand?? I said I thought he was guilty, dumbass. And your first paragraph is patently absurd. There AREN'T any women, so far, that have made claims that they were raped at the music festival. Instead, there is "one survivor" (meaning a festival attendee who wasn't killed) who said "women have been raped." The IDF even said itself that so far they don't have evidence of any rapes. (https://forward.com/news/564318/sexual-assault-rape-proof-hamas-idf-israel-gaza/) In the event that women do come forward with such claims, I will of course take their claims seriously just as I do those of the women who say Russell Brand (or Joe Biden or Bill Clinton or whoever) raped them. But again, THAT IS NOT THE POINT. There are war crimes that HAVE indisputably been committed by Palestinians, just as there have been by Israelis (see, for example, the pic at the top of the article). Those proven war crimes, too, are used to demonize Palestinians as a whole but not used in that manner against Israelis.
Um, Julian and Jeff. If Hamas hadn't killed 1000 people with rockets and attacked, you could all be having a nice evening.
Media reporting, particularly the week of, is rarely perfect. So, well done. The media is not perfect. Great article.
You are sidestepping the atrocities. Of Hamas. They started it, last Saturday.
No, Jewish settlers in the region started it about 100 years ago. No amount of claiming "Palestinian group X are terrorists" nor actual terrorist acts by Palestinians can excuse the ethnic cleansing and terrorism carried out by (ethnically, not necessarily religiously) Jewish settlers since decades prior to the 1948 founding of Israel, including but far from limited to the Nabka, the blockade of Gaza for more than a decade, the shooting of tens of thousands (killing >200) of unarmed civilians during the Great March of Return, or the current carpet bombing of Gaza and complete cutoff of food, water, etc. Saying "Hamas started it" is the same thing as saying "Nat Turner started it" during the battle to overthrow slavery in the US. It's missing the forest for the trees and it's a despicable, morally bankrupt point of view. And I've pointed out both in my article and in the comments that the Palestinian side commits atrocities, so claiming that I'm sidestepping the atrocities is just flat-out lying. If you can't have an honest conversation, don't comment any more. And please don't ever make excuses for genocidal acts like cutting off food & water for 2.1 million people.
I note the claim that 'The blind acceptance and propagation of these claims has been particularly widespread among feminists'. I too have been following sex realists on X and have been disappointed to see many exhibiting an unthoughtful emotional reaction to the attacks on Israel whilst ignoring the history of Palestine, blaming Hamas for Israel's war crimes against Palestinians (denying water, indiscriminate bombing, forced mass movement of 1 million) and claiming that all Palestinians are anti-semitic and animals who deserve what is coming. However, these view are shared by both male and female sex realists, many of them lawyers. One particular example is @colwight who says he is a Prof. in international relations. He made a sweeping claim that there are many gender critical feminists who are supporting the Palestinans - and this is also probably true - as the left has traditionally supported the Palestinians.
So I think your claim that this is widespread amongst feminists was somewhat provocative. I have stood by the view that women must cross the aisle in order to build a women's rights movement and so it has been distressing to see some of the women I most admire with regard to sex realism on the other side when it comes to the current conflict. I have had to think hard about whether to condemn Hamas - it is hard against the propaganda that has been ongoing. Israel has been highly successful in their campaign to describe anti-zionism as ant-semitic when it is obviously not whilst at the same time dehumanising Palestinians calling them animals. I fear that Israel's war aim goes beyond their usual 40:1 collective punishment to ethnic cleansing (forcing Eqypt to open the crossing) and genocide having won the propanda argument in the west's main stream media.
I do support the overall argument regarding propaganda but many women don't 'identify' as 'feminist' (including myself) because too many feminists have capitulated to gender ideology. There are sex realists (like myself) who have felt politically homeless because of gender ideology who are now working through the implications of working with women who show no understanding of the history of Palestine. I have exclusively tweeted on gender ideology until this conflict and it has been disturbing (but not surprising) to see that this conflict divides women on traditional right / left lines.
To add. I have followed Savage Minds since waking up to gender ideology in 2020 meaning to subscribe and the reporting on Israel has finally moved me to subscribe. Julian Vigo is one of the most thoughtful journalists to follow and I am disappointed to see some of the comments dismissing this article and threatening to unsubscribe.
Thank you for your comments. I am awestsruck by how many people who started reading Savage MInds when we launched three years ago because we challenged and stood up to cancel culture--literally, no publication on the left or centre would run anything critical of lockdown--are now upset because they read a piece with which they disagree. If you are not in support of voices like Jeff's and others over the Israeli-Gaza war, then you are simply not in favour of free speech. Free speech only means something if you support the speech with which you are in complete disagreement. I am very disappointed to think that people would effectively no-platform any publication instead of sitting with their thoughts, dare I say meditate, and understand that free speech is this.
And submit an article, a riposte. If we'll-argued and well-written, we are happy to run it!!
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I regard any woman who supports full equality for women and has a fairly good understanding of at least most of the relevant issues as a feminist, although some of them choose not to describe themselves that way, which is fine. I think men who hold this perspective can also be considered feminists, although in deference to women who don't like labeling men as feminists, I try to stick to using terms such as "women's rights advocate." I, too, have been very distressed to see so many gender-critical women (and men like Colin Wright and Graham Linehan) take Israel's side, demonizing Palestinians as well as those of us who support their struggle for freedom. However, I'm not sure which is more distressing, this or the reverse problem of women who strongly support the Palestinian liberation struggle be so utterly clueless when it comes to gender ideology (Ash Sarkar is an example that comes readily to mind here). I've come to realize, as I noted in my conclusion, that even among people who are extremely well-informed about a particular issue (e.g., women's rights), very few people are well-informed in general, and the ignorance seems especially profound when it comes to matters of foreign policy.
I found the claims of rape and baby beheadings to be rather unsubstantiated by primary claims and recorded evidence so I put them in the “maybe” pile. Meanwhile, I witnessed the photographs and watched videos of things that clearly happened and those were sufficiently horrifying.
I never expected to say something like this, but it doesn’t matter to me if a baby was beheaded at this point. Men definitely broke into people’s homes, saw babies, made the decision to murder them, and then murdered them.
That is horrifying.
None of that horror is reversed if they didn’t choose to behead any babies. They don’t come off any better if they didn’t decapitate any babies. They looked at babies and decided to kill them.
Arguing about whether or not one or more babies were decapitated as if that is the thing that is going to redeem these fuckers is unbelievable.
I really hope women weren’t tortured with rape. But a lot of people were tortured and died horribly, at the hands of people who looked at them and decided to make them die horribly. In front of their family members. After watching their family members die. Watching other people die horribly and wondering if they were next.
You’re less skeptical of the crimes against humanity that happened during a chaotic terror attack than the alleged, possible false or exaggerated allegations that spread during a chaotic terror attack.
And you really show your hand by calling the victims oppressors in the end.
I’m done hearing that any man who decided to kill unarmed civilians including babies was “oppressed” and the victims deserved it because they’re “oppressors.”
Anyone who feels justified killing a baby does not have the moral high ground.
I cannot believe the absolute state of progressives anymore.
It’s pathological. You need help. I’ll sure be spending the rest of my life wondering how I was ever on the same side as you people.
I suggest you follow up further, aside from the links in Jeff's piece. The LA Times doesn't retract a piece for nothing. The claims were not substantiated in any way and thusly should not have been reported as if real. If and when those facts come to light, then is the time to report the facts.
Holy crap, your reading comprehension is terrible. It's astounding how completely you're missing my very obvious point. Yeah, there's good evidence that Palestinian combatants killed civilians. I've read Human Rights Watch's report and others. The IDF has killed many civilians too, more than Hamas et al. have. But Israelis as a whole aren't being demonized due to the IDF's war crimes; Palestinians as a whole are, and it's being done on purpose. That's the fucking point that you're too thick-headed to get. And obviously I don't condone either side deliberately killing civilians. If you've actually read my piece all the way through and are nonetheless accusing me of that, then you're lying.
Its interesting how many clearly educated people can't get your point.
I wonder why.
Jeff Melton - please define what exactly would constitute sufficient evidence that a woman was raped?
What is your suggestion for setting up a process for the women who were assaulted during the attack by Hamas terrorists that would provide sufficient and verifiable evidence such that you wouldn't feel a need to contest their testimony?
Well, there's an example of what would constitute sufficient evidence for me at least to conclude that a woman was raped from just a month ago. Four women, including one who came forward years ago, made very detailed and highly corroborated rape allegations against Russell Brand, and there was also a pattern of public conduct over the years consisting of sexually harassing and humiliating women. He also himself admitted in his autobiographies that he had humiliated and abused women (such as spitting on them or breaking their phones), which doesn't itself constitute evidence of rape but certainly is evidence of someone who doesn't respect women. Contrast that with the allegation that "one survivor" said merely that "women have been raped" with no other detail or corroboration provided--in other words, not only is there not sufficient testimony from a woman that would lead a jury to convict an accused perpetrator, there isn't ANY testimony (so far) from women who allege having been raped. But as I've pointed out to you a couple of times already, although if they're guilty then of course they should be held accountable, whether or not Palestinian troops are guilty of rape has nothing to do with the point I'm making, that these sorts of allegations have been weaponized to demonize or reduce public sympathy for ALL Palestinians--men, women, and children, combatants and noncombatants alike. Meanwhile, even rape allegations against Israeli troops that juries would consider highly credible are NEVER used to demonize Israelis as a whole.
The Hamas murderers published the photos themselves! They are proud. Imagine what it must be like as a woman under their rule.
Had you actually read my piece, you'd know that I said there was credible evidence that Hamas combatants or allied groups had killed civilians. There's also credible evidence that Israeli troops killed civilians in the very same battle, to say nothing of the war crimes depicted in the photo at the top of this article. And the Israeli government has openly admitted to carpet bombing Gaza as well as cutting off all food, water, fuel, and electricity--you might even say they're proud of it.
As for the rape allegations, even the Israeli military itself has said that so far they're unaware of any evidence that rapes occurred during this event. Should credible evidence come out, I'll be among the first to say so. And there have been numerous media reports of IDF troops raping Palestinian (as well as Israeli) women, of widespread rape and sexual abuse of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons, and of Israel being a haven for Jewish child molesters trying to escape justice. If I were inclined to make sweeping generalizations about large groups of people like you are, I would say "Imagine what it must be like as a woman to live in Israel."
Laughable history, lower level detail than my average 19 year old C student essays. ("Long before Israel’s founding in 1948, there was conflict between Jews who settled in Palestine and its native Arab inhabitants) - Um, long before this, Ottomans? Saudis? Romans? There is a long long yknow.
Ridiculous claims about western media bias. How rich, given this piece.
The only thing correct here is the heading. Thanks for making your thesis clear.
Even if they are fabricated, rules of the game for millennia, all sides.
To wit: can you think of something that happened last Saturday that might lead to excessive overreaction and outrageous claims?
Can ya think of anything? Anything?
Nothing that would come remotely close to justifying carpet-bombing densely populated areas, cutting off food and water, or fabricating mass rape or baby beheadings claims, no.
Well thats where we can all differ, even if raised with the same attitudes. What the Islamic Jihadist terrorist group did, to undo peace efforts, probably does justify what Israel has done. If it doesn't, and I like most want them to cease fire, one can still understand the reaction. We all react. You have reacted in these threads right? An immediate lashing out is quite normal behavior, horrible as it is.
Its amazing how our Left in the West defend murderous terrorists who would cut your head off without a thought and attack US/Israeli/Western military retaliations. I mean, I hate this sentence, but whose side are we on?
I don't know if you have a daughter, but I'd like you to think about those young ladies being held right now by the sexually repressed neanderthals.