Question: Please write a brief blog post (750-1,000 words), while focusing on a specific feminist topic of your interest from the last section of the semester.
Please write a brief blog post (750-1,000 words), while focusing on a specific feminist topic of your interest from the last section of the semester.
Your topic needs to be tied back to one (or more) of the last three topics of the course: Topic 9: Construction of enemy alien and critique of colonial/imperial feminism; Topic 10: decolonizing research and academia; Topic 11: disability justice, the mutual aide, building coalitions
Your blog also needs to respond to one of the open classroom recordings: Open Classroom on "Motherhood under the Rubble", Open Classroom on "#Free them all", and/or Open Classroom on "People's University for Gaza, Palestine". (Links to the open classrooms are available in the assignment section of our CANVAS home page.)
In other words, I would like you to select a specific feminist topic, that not only relates back to major themes/topics of the last section of WGS 150, but is also important and urgent at this particular moment of history, when Palestinians are leading/calling for global solidarity against imperial establishments of US, Israel, etc. and students are rising up in response. Please be creative!
Although your blog post would remain in this class, I would like you to write a piece that you could use in near future to reach out to a larger audience. Please make sure to articulate your message/main thesis clearly so that your audience gets encouraged to join your anti-colonial intersectional feminist work.
Here are requirements: (1) In your blog, use a concrete "artifact" (e.g., current event, campus event, image, song, poem, newspaper article, etc.) to focus on, so that your exploration/analysis of your topic would not remain abstract.
(2) In your blog, you must apply intersectional feminist/queer analysis.
(3) Please explain how your blog ties back to one of the last three topics of the course:
Critique of the Construction of Enemy Alien and Critique of Colonial/Imperial Feminism
Decolonizing Research and Academia
Disability Justice/Building Coalitions/ Mutual Aids
(4) Please explain how your blog is responding to one of the open classrooms:
Open Classroom on "Motherhood under the Rubble"
Open Classroom on "#Free them all"
Open Classroom on "People's University for Gaza, Palestine"
(4) Draw from at least four course readings and/or films on the last three topics of the course (Fall 2024): Topic 9: construction of enemy alien and critique of imperial/colonial feminism; Topic 10: decolonizing research and academy; Topic 11: disability justice/the mutual aide/building coalitions. Make sure to demonstrate full comprehension of the readings/films you utilize. (This means that you demonstrate a full understanding of the author's overarching argument and are not simply quoting randomly to fulfill this part of the assignment.) Please make sure that you have understood the lectures on those topics.
(5) Findoneoutside source directly related to the topic you have chosen. The source needs to be scholarly or other reliable source(s). (For example, a news article from an established credentialed news outlet.)
(6) Briefly explain how you are writing your blog on the foundation of your prior work for WGS 150 (i.e., Online Forum Discussion No.1, No. 2, Midterm, class reflection paper). Although you are not required to explain all your prior work in details, make sure to describe briefly how your feminist analysis has developed through the semester and how your blog project advances your semester-long work. What does your blog add to what you have already written for WGS 150
(7) At the end of your blog, provide a list of works cited, using a standard format (Chicago, MLA, etc.) Use parenthetical citations in the main text of your blog. You may consider making hyperlinks to relevant sources or embedding them in the main text of the blog, if that is effective for your argument.
(8) Please give a descriptive title to your essay, and center it above your blog.
(9) Please write down your name and a brief (a couple of sentences) author bio at the end of your blog.
(10) Please proof read your final draft at least twice.
Blog ideas (for brainstorming): You could report on a current news article of your choosing (summarize, synthesize, analyze and critique) based on your understanding of the required course materials. You could select a current issue or happening and take a position on how feminist movement should resist, approach, and/or understand this issue. You could also select a series of media representation of a specific item and analyze how women, non-binary, and/or LGBTQ folk were represented in the media. Think about, for example, what kinds of stories made the news. You could write an open letter to an organization (NY Times, SFSU administration, a Zionist organization, Governor, Senator, etc.) outlining in a concise way what the issue was, what had been tried to fix it, and what you think should be done.
Open Classroom Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKLEpuY88o8&t=3067s from 46:40- 1:16:50
Page K 1 of 4 ZOOM + WAR Late Edition "All the Consent That's Fit to Manufacture" The New york Crimes Today, accusations still confessions. Tonight, Zion- ism continues to be racism. Always, for a free Palestine. VOL. I ... No. 4 WAR The New York Crimes Company FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024 FREE MEDIA MANUFACTURES CONSENT FOR GENOCIDE HOW THE NEW YORK TIMES HELPS ISRAEL WEAPONIZE RAPE CHARGES AGAINST PALESTINIANS "..the fraudulent rape charge stands out as one of the most formidable artifices invented by racism' PRESS - ANGELA Y. DAVIS' By FEMINIST SOLIDARITY NETWORK FOR PALESTINE EVERYWHERE-As an international col- scriptions of "severed heads" and "slaughter" lective of feminist academics, writers, and with knives (beheading and cutting the throat lawyers, we offer the following critical analy- with a knife are common Islamophobia tropes) sis of claims made in the New York Times and acts of extreme psychopathic brutality article "Screams Without Words': How Hamas ("slic[ing] off her breast" with a box cutter and Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7," pub- "play[ing]" with it) summon up tropes of native IT ard lished December 28, 2023. While this article is savagery. This reinforces references to Pales- presented as the result of an extensive inves- tinians as "human animals"- most recently by A mural in Gaza City of the journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, martyred by the Israeli occupation on May 11, 2022. tigation, our research demonstrates that it war minister Yoav Gallant-in order to arguments are not only unfounded, but rely on strip Palestinian resistance fighters of their ra- non-credible witnesses, including unreliable tional agency and portray them as bloodthirsty first-responder and IDF testimony. Despite the and inhuman. We locate such descriptions flimsiness of the given evidence, we debated within a long history of colonial attempts to de- Creating the Illusion of Credible Journalism: whether addressing specific claims was the humanize the colonized; as Frantz Fanon wrote best way to proceed. Before we begin, a few in 1961, "the colonist turns the colonized into words on why. a kind of quintessence of evil... The 'native' is The NYT Investigation declared impervious to ethics, What is 'Screams without Words only the absence of values but also the negation actually attempting to do? of values. He is, dare we say it, the enemy of val- lamophobic tropes). In particular, the Times ues." It is this framing that allows the Times to A two-month investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, relies heavily on interviews conducted with While it claims to be presenting evidence, avoid accounting for their decision not to inter- establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part two categories of witnesses: those claiming to the article is in fact better understood as aiming view a single leader or operative of Hamas (who of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7. Relying on video be eyewitnesses of rape (4 in total from two to evoke an emotional response in the reader. released a statement denying that their fighters footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more ocations at the rave) and witnesses who infer Professor of criminology Anthony Collins ex- engaged in sexual violence) or any other Pal- rape by interpreting the positions and states ofnon-credible witnesses, including_unreliable first-responder and IDF testimony. Despite the flimsiness of the given evidence, we debated whether addressing specific claims was the best way to proceed. Before we begin, a few words on why. What is 'Screams without Words' actually attempting to do? While it claims to be presenting evidence, the article is in fact better understood as aiming to evoke an emotional response in the reader. Professor of criminology Anthony Collins ex- plains that 'Screams without Words' belongs t0 a genre of 'trauma porn' which, regardless of factual integrity, is \"very socially powerful at triggering not only emotional responses in individuals but collective social responses with social consequences.\"? By dwelling on the most explicit and gruesome details offered in testimonies regarding the alleged atrocities of October T's ArAgsa Flood, while eliberately refusing to situate the actions of the Palestinian resistance within any political or historical con- text, the article aims to trigger an overwhelm- ing affective response in the reader (disgust, revulsion, fear, rage). Met with an informational void, the average Times reader will seize upon already available narratives to make sense of this response. The most obvious of these is the myth of the Black/Brown rapist. As scholars of History, Philosophy, Politics and Literature, we know that colonized and racialized men have long been depicted in western cultural pro- duction as hypersexual, brutish threats to the \"purity' of white/colonial women, and that this narrative has repeatedly served as a means of justifying and enabling racial/colonial violence. 'This was the narrafive enlisted to justify the Iynching of thousands of Black men and boys in the Jim Crow US South, including 14 year old Emmett Till, who was brutally lynched af- ter being accused of having whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant Donham, in a store in Mississippi. A Angela Y. Davis reminds us, the myth of the Black rapist has been methodically conjured up whenever recurrent waves of vio- lence and terror against the Black community have required convincing justifications.\" When framed as defending white/colonial women's \"purity' against the supposed danger of Black men's sexuality, any extreme of retaliatory violenceor $0 the story goesis justified. Taking this history seriously means that the demand to \"believe women\" qua women can- not be embraced unconditionally or uncritically without an intersectional understanding of co- Ionialracial power. This is especially important when the demand is weaponized by an oppres- sive state to silence dissent and to perpetuate the dehumanization of a people whom it seeks to subjugate and destroy. Similar patterns emerge when it comes to western imaginaries of Arabs and Muslims. With the spread of European colonialism, the predatory Arab or Muslim man (often used inter- changeably) began to appear as a major figure in western lterature and art, shaping the dominant imaginary. This figure was depicted as a hyper- sexual, despotic and abusive tyrant from whom Muslim/Arab women needed to be rescued. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for example, depicted \"The Orient' as \"despotic...more virile, jealous and brutishly sensual...its men are tyrants.\"* Edward Said explained that in the 19th century European imaginary the Orient \"offended sexual propriety; everything about the Orient...exuded dangerous sex...an excessive 'freedom of inter- course.\"* By representing ArabMuslim men tional agency and portray them as bloodthirsty and inhuman. We locate such descriptions within a long history of colonial attempts to de- 'humanize the colonized; as Frantz Fanon wrote in 1961, \"the colonist turns the colonized into a kind of quintessence of evil...The 'native' is declared impervious to ethics, representing not only the absence of values but also the negation of values. He s, dare we say it, the enemy of val- ues.\" It is this framing that allows the Times to avoid accounting for their decision not to inter- view a single leader or operative of Hamas (who released a statement denying that their fighters engaged in sexual violence) or any other Pal- estinian political or military group. Despite representing a clear departure from journalis- tic standards of neutrality, this omission goes unchecked. Nor do the writers of this article account for the absence of the voices of Pales- tinians who have been subjected to systematic and well-documented sexual violence by Israeli and Zionist forces for over 75 years. Deflecting Attention Thus, the current manufactured outcry by Israel serves to distract attention from the longue dure of Israeli colonial violence with its reliance on U.S. military, economic and po- litical support. At the time of writing, almost all the population of Gaza has been displaced, over 23,910 Palestinians have been murdered, at least 8,000 are missing under the rubble, tens of thousands are injured, and countless children have been brutalized and orphaned. The media have played a crucial role in re- producing the discourses used to justify and enable racial/colonial violence for centuries. They \"inculcate individuals with the values, beliefs, and codes of behavior that will inte- grate them into the institutional structures of the larger society. Considering the cen- trality of the Zionist settler colonial project to maintaining US hegemony in the Middle East, it is not surprising that mainstream me- dia invest resources in obscuring the realities of the genocide in Gaza by projecting Israeli violence onto, and scapegoating, its victims. As one of the leading stenographers of US im- perialism, the Times has played a crucial role in this effort. Given this context, further focusing on these claims carries the risk of entrapping us in Israel's narrative. Indeed, part of the strate- gy behind the weaponization of sexual assault is to force voices calling for justice for Pales- tine into a defensive stance and to divert our energy into rebutting individual allegations. Nevertheless, it is clear that painting Hamas fighters and by extension all Palestinian men as irreconcilably 'savage', 'evil' and prone to sexual brutality enlists powerful western cul- tural tropes, and so demands address. Collec- tive work is needed to dislodge these images, preventing them from snowballing and un- dermining the global movement in solidarity with Palestine. As anti-racist feminists, and as witnesses to Israel's unfolding genocideits targeting of schools, hospitals and communi- cations, its maiming, massacre, and torture of Palestinians, its campaign of mass starva- tion and disease, its targeted assassination of journalists and academics, its desecration of the deadwe refuse to allow Israel to hide behind the language of gender justice. We call upon feminists worldwide to stand with us in refusing to be silenced by Israels racist misap- propriation of this language. While no author can definitively prove the negativethat no single instance of rape was committed by any side on October 7thwhat Creating the Illusion of Credible Journalism: The NYT Investigation A two-mont investigation by The Times uncovered painful new details, establishing that the attacks against women were not isolated events but part of a broader pattern of gender-based violence on Oct. 7. Relying on video footage, photographs, GPS data from mobile phones and interviews with more than 150 people, including witnesses, medical personnel, soldiers and rape counselors, The Times identified at least seven locations where Israeli women and girls appear to have been sexually assaulted or mutilated. Response What \"new evidence' is presented in 'Screams Without Words' The eyewitness testimonies of both Sapir and Raz Cohen are on the public recordalready interviewed by police (see hamas-massacre.net, a website set up by the government of Israel) and by news outlets, respectively. The Times conducts lon- ger interviews with each, but the journalists o not appear to have asked probing questions that would establish the credibility of these witnesses. Some \"volunteer medics\" (ZAKA), an IDF paramedic, and the two IDF reservists at the Shura Military Base have already been interviewed in other mediaalthough the particular ZAKA volunteer whom the Times chooses to focus on is new. Yet, in cases where these \"volunteer medics\" or soldiers claim to have suspected sexual abuse, no forensic evi- dence was collected and no autopsies were done. Indeed, there is no forensic evidence, nor any autopsies at all. Arguably, the testi- monies that corroborate each of Raz Cohen and Sapir could be construed as \"new defails,\" only if these testimonies withstand scrutiny. We show their weaknesses below. The Times claims credibility for its inves- tigation from a sheer accumulation of data (which on closer examination proves flimsy), from affective appeal to the singular story of Gal Abdush, and from spectacular and horror- inducing descriptions not only of rape, but of monstrosity, mutilation, and beheading (is- lamophobic tropes). In particular, the Times relies heavily on interviews conducted with two categories of witnesses: those claiming to be eyewitnesses of rape (4 in total from two locations at the rave) and witnesses who infer rape by interpreting the positions and states of bodies postmortem. The Times also claims access to videos and photos (which, except for those claimed to exist on IDF bases, were publicly available prior to the article). Regarding the first cat- egory of eyewitness, and despite the lengthy interviews that The Times conducts, their tes- timonies remain stereotypical and schemati- cally thin. The second category of witness are defined as \"medical personnel, soldiers, and rape counselors,\" yet on closer examination none cited in the article are professionally trained to determine sexual abuse or rape (see below on ZAKA and the Shura Military Base). More importantly, none of those who say they suspected sexual abuse at the time asked for forensic experts to conduct examinations of the scene or use rape kits on the bodies of po- tential victims. Anonymous \"rape counselors\" are only cited to support generic descriptions of the obstacles faced by rape victims in com- ing forward. Israeli officials say that everywhere Hamas terrorists struck the rave, the military bases along the Gaza border and the kibbutzim they brutalized women. Response The four witness testimonies cited in \"Screams Without Words' all center around the rave (Nova music festival), specifically \"two different_places along route 232.\" The NYT had previously published articles with detailed timelines of events at Kibbutz Be'eri! and ex- tensive interviews with survivors from Kfar Aza/? in which there was no mention of rape. The paramedic testimony from Kibbutz Be'eri has already been proven to be false (below). 'The Times does not provide exact details of the testimonies of volunteer medics from Kfar Aza. The Times seems to be basing much of its argument for a \"pattern\" of rape on postmortem observations by \"soldiers and volunteer medics who together described finding more than 30 bodies of women and girls in and around the rave site and in two kibbutzim.\" They infer rape by interpreting the postmortem appearance of the bodies they collected or prepared for burial, not from any medical or forensic examination for which, moreover, they were not trained. In- deed, none of the Times' Sources appear to have requested autopsies or forensic examination for the bodies they claim to have believed were raped. Below, we show why these witness ac- counts from the Shura Military Base and from volunteer 'medics' are to be treated with a great deal of caution. 'The Times also viewed a video, provided by the Israeli military, showing two dead Israeli soldiers at a base near Gaza who appeared to have been shot directly in their vaginas Response This is an IDF claim that we are asked to take at face value, This video has nei- ther been made public, nor independently verified. We can assume that the journalists Shown the video by the lsraeli military wers not themselves_qualified to determine the nature or location of gunshot wounds to a dead body. 'The Times viewed photo- graphs of one woman's corpse that emergency responders discovered in the rubble of a besieged kibbutz with dozens of nails driven into her thighs and groin Response This is a horrible and graphic scene. Does this show a sadistic act of torture, or could the nails have come from the shelling of the house? Hamas and other Palestinian fighters had bullets and hand grenades; while a hand- even a hole in a structure. But reducing a house to rubble may indicate, instead, shell- ing from a tank. It has been established that IDF tanks entered kibbutzim on October Tth, including through interviews with tank crews themselves.\" And there are at least two verified cases in which tanks shelled houses in kibbut- zim-houses containing both Israeli settlers and Palestinian fighters. These are also the two kibbutzim where the NYT claims to have found evidence for rape from the postmortem disposition of bodies. Kibbutz Be'eri Yasmin Porat, a survivor who had been at the Nova music festival and had taken refuge at Kibbutz Be'eri, recounted in an interview on Israeli State Radio on October 15 that there had been very heavy crossfire ('a gunbattle she believed everyone in the house was killed when it was shelled by the IDF tank. When she asked why they shelied, the IDF had told her it was \"to break the walls in order to help pu- rify the house.\" The NYT interviewed Ms. Po- rat and a second survivor, Hadas Dagan, who had been held hostage and was in the garden at the time; they cite Brig. Gen. Barak Hiram as ordering the shelling.f Video evidence has surfaced of a tank shelling a house in Kib- butz Be'eri and was shown on Israel's Chan- nel 12 in December. Families of those killed in the house are seeking an official probe into the events.\" Kibbutz Kfar Aza In an interview on October 14, Lt Col. Golan Vach was asked about the total destruction of burnt-out houses at Kibbutz Kfar Aza. He re- Page 2 of 4 - ZOOM + Orient' as "despotic...more virile, jealous behind the language of gender justice. upon feminists worldwide to stand with us in Response in the house are seeking an official probe into and brutishly sensual...its men are tyrants." Kibbutz Be'eri the events.? Edward Said explained that in the 19th century refusing to be silenced by Israel's racist misap- This is a horrible and graphic scene. Does Yasmin Porat, a survivor who had been at European imaginary the Orient "offended sexual propriation of this language. this show a sadistic act of torture, or could the Nova music festival and had taken refuge Kibbutz Kfar Aza propriety; everything about the Orient...exuded While no author can definitively prove the the nails have come from the shelling of the at Kibbutz Be'eri, recounted in an interview on In an interview on October 14, Lt Col. Golan dangerous sex...an excessive 'freedom of inter- negative-that no single instance of rape was house? Hamas and other Palestinian fighters Israeli State Radio on October 15 that there Vach was asked about the total destruction of course." By representing Arab/Muslim men committed by any side on October 7th-what had bullets and hand grenades; while a hand- had been very heavy crossfire ("a gunbattle burnt-out houses at Kibbutz Kfar Aza. He re- as sexual predators and Arab/Muslim women as we can and do prove is the following: Firstly, ful had Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPG), starts that our police started") and later "two sponded that IDF tanks had to shell houses in endangered, westerners could justify their colo- that Israel has lied-repeatedly, shamelessly, most entering kibbutzim are seen to carry tank shells were fired into the house." In a order "to conquer back the whole settlement." nial invasions of Muslim lands as civilizing mis- and often badly-in its attempt to claim that Kalashnikov rifles. Depending on the type, a more detailed interview on November 15, Ms. (In the house behind him, he noted, 19 Israeli sions. This narrative, which carries strong emo Hamas or other Palestinian resistance groups grenade can create fire and fragmentation, Porat told Israeli Public Broadcaster Kan that hostages had died.) tional weight with material consequences, has carried out a campaign of systematic rape on resurfaced time and again to justify imperialist October 7th, and that the Times is complicit References on Page violence-most evident in western representa- in these lies. Secondly, that the central claim tions of gender oppression used to justify the US of 'Screams Without Words' that there was "a invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Today, Jasbir broader pattern of gender-based violence on Puar argues that the figure of the 'terrorist' in Oct. 7" is unsubstantiated. the west stands in for what is considered illicit The following close analysis systematically We do not want to reform the New York Times or aberrant sexuality, and is to define the s taken directly from the category of 'normal' sexuality.' Far from being Times article "Screams without Words." It is in- accidental, the twin tropes of the terrorist and tended as a critical tool for the use of feminists We do not want to change the New York Times the sexual brute operate in tandem to demonize and allies seeking to grapple with claims that Arab and Muslim men in the public imagination. Hamas, and by extension the Palestinian resis- That 'Screams Without Words' invokes Ori- tance, used rape as a weapon of war in their We want to destroy the New York Times entalist cultural tropes that depict the Arab/ October 7th operation Al-Aqsa Flood. Muslim male as a terrorist-rapist in order to fuel racial fantasies in the reader is clear. De- References on Page 4 -Writers Bloc WAR 2 THE NEW YORK CRIMES SPECIAL DECOLONIAL FEMINISM EDITION FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024 "The Woman in the Black Dress" The New Hock Cun U.S. AID TO APARTHE Unpacking the case at the center ISRAEL of 'Screams Without Words' The Times frames its story around the grainy said to have suspected rape when they saw the video of Gal Abdush's body-a video that was video and even though Israel made use of the taken on the evening after her death and circu- video in its campaign to convince western me- lated online-and through a series of interpreta- dia to support its genocide in Gaza. The Times tive leaps in reading that video. Yet, there is no was able to gain access to Ms. Abdush's family physical evidence presented to corroborate this and to interview them, on what the family has interpretation-even though Israeli police are since claimed were misleading grounds TEND THEI At first, she was known simply as "the woman in the black dress." In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and OCCUPATION her right hand covers her eyes.\"The Woman in the Black Dress\" Unpacking the case at the center of 'Screams Without Words' 'The Times frames s story around the grainy video of Gal Abdush's bodya video that was taken on the evening after her death and circu- lated online-and through a series of interpreta- tive leaps in reading that video. Yet, there is no physical evidence presented to corroborate this interpretationeven though Israeli police are said to have suspected rape when they saw the video and even though Israel made use of the video in its campaign to convince western me- dia to support its genocide in Gaza. The Times was able to gain access to Ms. Abdush's family and to interview them, on what the family has since claimed were misleading grounds. At first, she was known simply as \"the woman in the black dress.\" In a grainy video, you can see her, lying on her back, dress torn, legs spread, vagina exposed. Her face is burned beyond recognition and her right hand covers her eyes. Response 'This video of Gal Abdush's body was filmed by Eden Wessely, as she searched for a friend later on the evening of October 7, and then post- ed to her Instagram account. It was later posted on hamas-massacrenet, a website set up by the government of Israel. The Times may have focused on this video because it was part of a compiled 43 minute montage shown to select journalists and diplomatic missions by Israel in its campaign to convince western governments to support its genocide in Gaza. However, at least one independent journalist working for The Guardian, who saw that montage, said he did not register seeing evidence of rape. Innterpreting the video, the Times does not consider any of the other possibilites present- ed by the available information. The position of Gal Abdush's body and nature of burn injuries could be consistent with Ms. Abdush sitting in a car when it was hit by an air strike from an IDF Apache helicopter (which we know fired on the site of the rave),? causing her body to ly out of the car. The car could have also been hit by a grenade thrown by a Hamas fighter, or from IDF tank fire, since there is evidence of a tank and an armored vehicle (APV) being on Route 232 with orders to prevent fighters from mov- ing north or returning south.\" [ \"The videos caught the eye of Isracli offcials as well very quickly after Oct. 7 they began gathering evidence of atrocities. They included foot- age of Ms. Abdush's body in a presentation made to foreign govern- ments and media organizations, using Ms. Abdush as a representation of violence committed against women that day. Response The Times inadvertently admits, here, that Israel has been weaponizing the image of Ms. Abdush. But its reporters do not bother to inquire why no forensic evidence was col- lected from the scene or from Ms. Abdush's remains, given that Israeli officials suspected this to be a case of gender-based violence early on. Based largely on the video evidence which was verified by The New York TimesIsraeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks. Response 'The video being \"verified\" only means that the Times has determined that the video itself 'was not doctored. It does not mean that any of the claims being made about the video by Israeli pqlice officials are Note thag the video was ily that they suspected she had been raped, nor did they conduct any forensic examination or an autopsy of the body, either of which should have been possible if, as the Times claims, they suspected rape early on, This seems especially ALY 20 DTHEl Protesters outside The Times in November 2023we'll be back ;-) Breaking Down Eyewitness Testimonies Four witnesses at two locations near the Nova Music Festival Sapir, a 24-year-old accountant, has become one of the Israeli police's key witnesses. She does not want to be fully identified [...] She also spoke to The Times. In a two-hour interview outside a cafe in southern Israel, she recounted seeing groups of heavily armed gunmen rape and kill at least five women. She said that at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7, she was hiding under the low branches of a bushy tamarisk tree, just off Route 232, about four miles southwest of the party. She had been shot in the back. She felt faint. She covered herselfin dry grass and lay as still as she could. About 15 meters from her hiding place, she said, she saw motorcycles, cars and trucks pulling up. She said that she saw \"about 100 men,\" most of them dressed in military fatigues and combat boots, a few in dark sweatsuits, getting in and out of the vehicles. She said the men congregated along the road and passed between them assault rifles, grenades, small missilesand badly wounded women. \"It was like an assembly point,"she said. 'The first victim she said she saw was a young woman with copper-color hair, blood running down her back, pants pushed down to her knees. One man pulled her by the hair and made her bend over. Another penetrated her, Sapir said, and every time she flinched, he plunged a knife into her back. She said she then watched another woman \"shredded into pieces.\" While one terrorist raped her, she said, an- other pulled out a box cutter and sliced off her breast. \"One continues to rape her, and the other throws her breast to someone else, and they play with it, throw it, and it falls on the road,\" Sapir said. She said the men sliced her face and then the woman fell out of view. Around the same time, she said, she saw three other women raped and terrorists carrying the severed heads of three more women. Sapir provided photographs of her hiding place and her wounds, and police officials have stood by her testi- mony and released a video of her, with her face blurred, recounting some of what she saw. Response For some time, this was the only eyewitness testimony circulated by Israeli sources, part of which is posted on hamas-massacre.net. We know that a video of this testimony was also shown to Israeli and Western journalists.' The Times are the first journalists to have access to this witness, yet in their two-hour interview they fail to ask probing questions that could es- tablish her credibility. Mondoweiss had already given a convincing critique of this testimony, in individuals and then shot in the head. But in the Times, Sapir tells of the rape of five women and their stabbing, while the sadistic torture she describes (the slicing of a breast) remains a common theme. Sapir's narrative moves from individuals who may have raped one woman to the larger claim of a systematic pattern of rape (100 men, 5 women), but also from guns to the more bloody and primordial use of knives (ste- reotypical of Arabs and Muslims in Orientalist these claims. While unverified, however, such narratives remain in the western imaginary and stick through repetition and amplification, as well as through the weight of credibility and au- thority attributed to voices like the Times, the backing of mainstream western feminists and the weight of historical racist narratives. Left unchallenged, these images work to dehuman- ize Palestinian and Arab men and boys, and to justify their continued targeting for stripping, Based largely on the video evidence which was verified by The New York TimesIsraeli police officials said they believed that Ms. Abdush 'was raped, and she has become a symbol of the horrors visited upon Israeli women and girls during the Oct. 7 attacks. Response The video being \"verified\" only means that the Times has determined that the video itself 'was not doctored. It does not mean that any of the claims being made about the video by Israeli police officials are true. Note that the video was taken postmortem; it is not a video that shows any act of rape or sexual assault, Curiously, Is- raeli police did not inform Ms. Abdush's fam- ily that they suspected she had been raped, nor did they conduct any forensic examination or an autopsy of the body, either of which should have been possible if, as the Times claims, they suspected rape early on. This seems especially egregious if, as Israeli police now claim, they are having difficulty finding testimonies to substan- tiate rape on October 7.4 Some members of the Abdush family saw that video and another version of it filmed by one of Ms. Wessely's friends. They immediately suspected that the body was Ms. Abdush, and based on the way her body was found, they feared that she might have been raped Response Gal Abdush's familyshown in the cover image of the article 'Screams Without Words' and quoted throughouthave recently stated that they were misled by the Times, who gave them the impression that the article would honor the memory of Gal Abdush and her part- ner, Nagi Abdush. They did not know that the article would focus on rape. Nor, it appears, had \"they feared that she might have been raped\" from viewing the video immediately af- ter October 7. Indeed, Gal Abdush's mother and brother said they had not suspected rape before they were approached by the journalists from the Times who claimed they had evidence of sex- ual assault. Her mother, Eti Bracha, told Ynet on December 31, 2023: \"We didn't know about the rape at first, we only knew when the New York Times reporter contacted us. They said they cross-examined the evidence and said that Gal was sexually assaulted. Until now we don't know what exactly happened.\"* Her brother said; \"It was only in the New York Times inves- tigation that we understood from the journal- ists that my sister was raped. The feeling was difficult, knowing what she went through.\" Nissim Abdush, Nagi Abdush's brother, appeared in a 14 minute interview on Israeli Channel 13 on January 1, 2024, in which he repeatedly denied that Gal Abdush had been raped, claiming \"the media invented it* He stated that his brother had called him at 7:00 am, telling him that Gal Abdush had been killed and that he was next to her body. His brother continued to communicate until 7:44 am and, in that time, \"never mentioned anything related to sexual assault\" The Times states that Nagi Ab- dush sent his last message at precisely 7:44 am, asking the family to take care of their children, but fails to mention that he had told his brother that Gal had been shot at 7:00 am or that he never mentioned sexual assault. Both of Gal Abdush's sisters also denied that she was raped. According to Mondoweiss, her sister, Tali Barakha, posted on Instagram: \"no one can know if there was rape o if she was burned while alive. Have you gone mad? 1 spoke to Nagi personally! At 7 o'clock, Gal was killed by those animals, and they shot her in the heart. Nagi was alive until quarter past eight..\"* Indeed, like us when we viewed the video online, several of her family members and friends found that the video \"lacks enough information to support the claim of rape.\" In an Instagram post on January 2, 2024, Ms. Ab- dush' sister, Miral Altar, responded to a video detailing Hamas \"sexual atrocities\" by Yoseph Haddad (a pro-Israel influencer) saying: \"why this story in particular? It's based on only one video published without the family's knowl- edge... It is true that the scenes in the video are not easy, but it's clear that the dress islfted up- wards and not in its natural state, and half her head is burned because they threw a grenade at the car. I don't want to be understood as if I'm justifying what they did; they are animals, they raped and beheaded people, but in my sister's case, this is not true.\" References on Page 4 @he New York Crimes Truth. Sapir pr 'mony and released a video of her, Response For some time, this was the only eyewitness testimony circulated by Israeli sources, part of which is posted on hamas-massacre.net. We know that a video of this testimony was also shown to Israeli and Western journalists.' The Times are the first journalists to have access to this witness, yet in their two-hour interview they fail to ask probing questions that could es- tablish her credibility. Mondoweiss had already given a convincing critique of this testimony, in particular the claim that \"terrorists [were] car- rying the severed heads of three more women.\" As Mondoweiss points out, \"this final claim has not been shared by any Israeli officials and rais- es serious questions as to the overall reliability of the witness.\" Indeed, there is no record of any, let alone three, women who were decapi- tated on October 7. Tt should be noted that the testimony Sapir gave to the Times differs significantly from the one originally on record. In the video, we hear of only one woman who is raped and in Haaretz we are told that that woman was raped by two Yura Karol, a 22-year-old security consultant, said he was hiding in the same spot, and he can be seen in one of Sapir's photos. He and Sapir were part of a group of friends who had met up at the party. In an interview, Mr. Karol said he barely lfted his head to look at the road but he also described seeing a woman raped and killed. ded photographs of her ing place and her wounds, and police o individuals and then shot in the head. But in the Times, Sapir tells of the rape of five women and their stabbing, while the sadistic torture she describes (the slicing of a breast) remains a common theme. Sapir's narrative moves from individuals who may have raped one woman to the larger claim of a systematic pattern of rape (100 men, 5 women), but also from guns to the more bloody and primordial use of knives (ste- reotypical of Arabs and Muslims in Orientalist imaginaries) We should add that the spectacular nature of mutilation claims in this testimony is troubling (potentially meant to provoke both horror and titillation). If true, they would indicate a sadism beyond the pale. Yet it s precisely for this rea- son that they require independent verification. These descriptions portray Palestinian fighters as monstrousnot only rapists but inhuman in their gratuitous mutilation and beheading of women. Since Israel has not conducted any au- topsies or collected any forensic evidence, it is impossible to confirm but also to fully disprove th her face blurred, recounting some of what she saw. als have stood by her tes these claims. While unverified, however, such narratives remain in the western imaginary and stick through repetition and amplification, as well as through the weight of credibility and au- thority attributed to voices like the Times, the backing of mainstream western feminists and the weight of historical racist narratives. Left unchallenged, these images work to dehuman- ize Palestinian and Arab men and boys, and to justify their continued targeting for stripping, torture, and executionatrocities that we know are being enacted by Israel in real time. It is not surprising that the intensification of rape allega- tions against Hamas, and the newer claim that they use rape as a systematic weapon of war, has coincided with the intensification of destruction in Gaza and the campaign to abduct and dehu- 'manize Palestinian men and boys in the north. (This is confirmed if we scrutinize how Israel counts the terrorists it has killed we find that it counts every single male Palestinian in Gaza, between ages 16 and 60, as a Hamas terrorist) Response When Sapir's testimony was reported in Haaretz by Josh Breiner on November 8th, 2023, the person who was with her said he had not seen the rape. Haaretz reported: \"Anoth- er witness who has recounted the incident to police was a man who was hiding behind the eyewitness and didn't see the rape. He said she told him at the time what she saw.\" Since in 'Screams Without Words' he says he barely lifted his head, it seems likely that this is the same man, but that he has changed his story to corroborate that of Sapir. At the very least, we would expect the Times to ask after any change in his story and to scrutinize the cred- ibility of this witness. 'That same morning, along Route 232 but in a different location about a mile southwest of the party area, Raz Cohena young Israeli who had also attended the rave and had worked recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo training Congolese soldiers said that he was hiding in a dried-up streambed. [...] Maybe 40 yards in front of him, he recalled, a white van pulled up and its doors flew open. He said he then saw five men, wearing civilian clothes, all carrying knives and one carrying a hammer, dragging a woman across the ground. She was young, naked and screaming. 'They all gather around her,\" Mr. Cohen said. \"She's standing up. They start raping her. I saw the men standing in a half circle around her. One penetrates her. She screams. I still remember her voice, screams without words.\" \"Then one of them raises a knife,\" he said, \"and they just slaughtered her.\" Response Raz Cohen is a \"discharged IDF officer from the elite Maglan unit* and an Israeli spe- cial forces veteran who trains Congolese sol- diers. Like Sapir, his testimony has changed dramatically over time. Raz Cohen has given multiple interviews to the media (CBC, Israeli Channel 12, PBS), some in which he mentions rape and others not. In a PBS interview on Oc- tober 10th, he mentions necrophilia (which he omits in the Times interview). But more significantly there he voices a need for \"revenge\" and says: \"If Gaza was on the map, after this Gaza won't continue to be on the map of Israel.\" In the same interview, we find out that he has been called up as a reservist and feels a need to take part in the war on Gaza. This expressed genocidal desire for revenge, coupled with his shifting story, damage the credibility of Cohen's account. Moreover, we might question why fighters equipped with guns and grenades (as we see on video from October 7) would use knives and a hammer. Shoam Gueta, one of Mr. Cohen's friends and a fashion designer, said the two were hiding together in the streambed. He said he saw at least four men step out of the van and attack the woman, who ended up \"between their legs.\" He said that they were \"talking, giggling and shouting,"and that one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, \"literally butchering her.\" Response References on Page 4 &he New York Crimes Truth. It comes at a cost. But you won't get it by subscribing to the New York Times, anyway. Unsubscibe now, save yourself money, and stop rewarding genocidal maniacs. THE NEW YORK, WAR A Analyzing Testimony From Volunteer Medics (ZAKA) and an IDF Paramedic Hours later, the first wave of vol- unteer emergency medical techni- cians arrived at the rave site. In interviews, four of them said that they discovered bodies of dead women with their legs spread and underwear missing some with their hands tied by rope and zip tiesin the party area, along the road, in the parking area and in the open fields around the rave site. Jamal Waraki, a volunteer medic with the nonprofit ZAKA emergency response team, said he could not get out of his head a having not taken photographs of the evidence he claims to have encountered, alongside a photograph of him gazing into the distance. The Times omits to discuss his lack of cred- ibility, which has been amply demonstrated by Libration which points to several false testi- 'monies that he has given. Landau s responsible for, among others, the story of the mass murder and burning of children tied together at Kibbutz Be'eri and a graphic account of the shooting of a non-existent pregnant woman, cutting of her abdomen, and kniving of her fetus at the same kibbutz. Both accounts have been disproven due to the absence of any bodies corresponding to the stories. However, as a recent Mondoweiss article shows, there are structural problems that make ZAKA suspect beyond the false stories of atroci- ties spread by its individual members.\" This in- cludes their financial corruption and attempt to raice finde throioh atraeity narrativec: the anen- diers. Like Sapir, his testimony has changed dramatically over time. Raz Cohen has given multiple interviews to the media (CBC, Israeli Channel 12, PBS), some in which he mentions rape and others not. In a PBS interview on Oc- need for \"revenge\" and says: \"If Gaza was on the map, after this Gaza won't continue to be on the map of Israel\" In the same interview, we find out that he has been called up as a reservist and feels a need to take part in the Moreover, we might question why fighters equipped with guns and grenades (as we see on video from October 7) would use knives and a hammer. Shoam Gueta, one of Mr. Cohen's friends and a fashion designer, said the two were hiding together in the streambed. He said he saw at least four men step out of the van and attack the woman, who ended up \"between their legs.\" He said that they were \"talking, giggling and shouting,\"and that one of them stabbed her with a knife repeatedly, \"literally butchering her.\" Response Shoam Gueta says he saw an attack, and doesn't specify rape. In an earlier interview with NBC News, he explicitly does not name rape. He says the victim was \"cut with a knife.\" His previous testimony does not include mul- tiple stab wounds or laughter. (I is worth not- ing, again, that the use of knives to slaughter or butcher is a common Islamophobic trope that is supposed to recall the Muslim act of slitting the throat of sheep for sacrifice.) CRIMES SPECIAL DECOLONIAL FEMINISM EDITION At the Shura Military Base Two witnesses, neither of whom has the medical or forensic training required to determine rape Many of the dead were brought to the Shura military base, in central Israel, for identification. Here, too, witnesses said they saw signs of sexual violence. Shari Mendes, an architect called up as a reserve soldier to help prepare the bodies of female soldiers for burial, said she had seen four with sisns of sexual violence. including Here's his previous testimony from Octo- ber 8th: \"Shoam Gueta said he ran away from the barrage with a group of 20 people and hid in the bushes for nearly six hours as the on- slaught unfolded around them. He used his mandatory military training experience to stay camouflaged and urged everyone in the group to remain silent and not to run away even when militants came within several feet. He saw Israelis gunned down as they tried to References on Page 4 take cover and watched as a woman was cut with a knife. One friend hid in a portable toilet. 'We saw terrorists killing people, burning cars, shouting everywhere,\" Gueta said. 'If you just say something, if you make any noise, you'll be murdered.\" Quietly, he said, Gueta called his mother to reassure he was safe despite the surrounding carnage.\" FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2024 3 Page
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