Genocide Blog 36--Rape allegations and Propaganda by occupying powers
11.03.2024
Pramila Patten trapped inside Israeli Propaganda of “mass rape”
Let us begin, since we are in the midst of marking International Women’s Day after starting with a Women’s Peace March organized by the MLF in support of the people of Palestine, with two sets of ideas to bear in mind. These two sets of ideas are part of the on-going legacy created by the women’s struggle against patriarchy.
1. Rape and Lynching
In all accusations of rape, there are two dangers, as the women’s movement experience teaches us, that we always need to bear in mind. The first danger is that the victim is blamed, silenced, and shamed. This has been addressed by the women’s movement world-wide in the past 5-6 years by the fine “me-too” movement. Women stand up, freely, and say “me, too”, meaning “I will not be shamed nor silenced nor blamed any longer.” The second danger, mainly in cases of gross social inequality, is that a rape or even a rumour of a rape is quickly followed by a gang of males choosing a whipping boy to blame and stringing him up summarily from a tree. This is what is called “lynching”. It is done by a lynch-mob of men from the powerful part of society against a man or men of the powerless part. In the USA the men in the lynch-mob notoriously tied white bed sheets over their heads and called themselves the KKK. Israel has acted like a lynch-mob in its genocide on Gaza. So, they badly need an “excuse”. The accusations of “mass rape”, when they continue to be made and to remain unsubstantiated, are just this kind of “excuse”. So, this danger should be born in mind in the case of the allegations by the Israeli State of “mass rape” by Hamas members on 7 October.
2. Sexual Violence in Conflict
In all conflicts, even more so when genocide is plausibly being perpetrated, there is, first of all, propaganda concocted and spread by the perpetrator. This needs to be remembered. At all times. We need to avoid falling for this propaganda. At all times.
That the perpetrator of genocide will use propaganda is something we all know will happen. It is both logical that it should be so, and is inevitably so. The occupying power, in this case Israel, is bound to need, however silly, to concoct some edifice of “justification” for the crime-of-crimes that they are perpetrating, i.e. genocide. The propaganda is aimed at “justifying” the huge-scale “lynching”, or revenge killing that genocide is. So, any news that is put out by the occupying State, in this case Israel, must be thoroughly investigated before being repeated in public. The context of occupier and occupied must be kept in mind. The known existence of State propaganda to cover State crimes, like genocide, must be kept in mind.
That should go without saying. Yet, people who should know better forget about it altogether. Somehow, Israel, having a big American brother with clout, is an exception. One of these people who has, at best, fallen into the trap set by Israeli propaganda is Mauritian barrister Pramila Patten.
In all conflicts, in particular, where there is an occupying power especially one in a settler colony, there is, in addition to propaganda, another element: There is rape and sexual violence, and it is perpetrated with impunity. It is, as it were, “the rule”. But, it is perpetrated, by way of this rule, by males from the occupying army. It is the males with power, under patriarchy, the males of the colonizer that consistently dominate others, including women, and rape is part of this domination. The women of the West Bank including East Jerusalem know this only too well, though in Gaza the particular form of occupation imposed kept the occupying forces outside of the concentration camp that Israel had besieged Gaza into for the past 17 years, thus sparing the people of Gaza at least this ill. So, when people say “in all armed conflicts” there is rape and sexual violence, there is an assumption that goes with this statement: in cases of great inequality, like colonization, the rape and sexual violence that is endemic is perpetrated typically by the occupying power. The other way around rape and sexual violence occurs but, by the very definition of rape, it is not ubiquitous.
Where there is an occupying power, especially in a settler colony, there is also a great deal of prejudice spread about the males of the oppressed people: the males amongst the oppressed are routinely projected as being rapists and being dangerous to women of the dominating people. Rape thus becomes an easy propaganda weapon for the Israeli army to use in order to accuse “Hamas” men.
And now let’s look at the “Report” produced by Mauritian barrister, Pramila Patten, who is Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict who has recently published a “Mission Report” of an “Official visit” to Israel and the occupied West Bank .
After weeks of the media in Israel, the US and the UK, baying against women’s organizations world-wide for “not denouncing” supposed “mass rape” by Hamas men against Israeli women, and after all the specific stories spread around concerning supposed “mass rape” have been debunked, one by one, Pramila Patten has published a “Report” that concludes vaguely: “Based on the information gathered by the mission team from multiple and [sic] independent sources, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred during the 7 October attacks in multiple locations across Gaza periphery, including rape and gang rape, in at least three locations. Across the various locations of the 7 October attacks, the mission team found that several fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head. Although circumstantial, such a pattern of undressing and restraining of victims may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.” This kind of statement is simply not proof of the “mass rape” alleged by Israel. It is merely a repeat of the claims made by the Israeli army and political leaders.
Pramila Patten, at Paragraph 25, says her “Report” is not meant to be an “investigation”. It sure is not one. It is not clear, however, what exactly it is meant to be. Her Report is certainly not, as she admits, the result of an investigation.
She adds, at paragraph 78: “Given the mission was not investigative, it did not gather information and/or draw conclusions on attribution of alleged violations to specific armed groups.” So, the report is not only not an investigation at all, but it does not attribute anything to Hamas or any other specific group, either.
Her Report is instead no more than a summary of the vague allegations made to her and her team by the occupying power during 33 meetings with Israeli State bodies including the military and secret services. This is just not good enough. As she puts it in her Report, “it must be noted that the information gathered by the mission team was in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions.”
Her Report makes some assertions based on witness testimony from some 34 individuals (17 men, presumably not victims, and 17 women) in paragraphs 58-62. These people include, according to the Report, survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks, first responders, health and service providers, members of the community displaced from kibbutz Nir Oz and a range of relevant Israeli civil society organizations and representatives from academia. There is nothing substantial in the Report to support the allegation of “mass rape”. In fact, the Report admits as much, again and again. This is in its favour. Instead, the Report is replete with the reasons why there is nothing substantial.
For example, what about forensic evidence? Since witnesses had little to offer, what did the forensic experts have to say. Her Report says, curiously, “The absence of comprehensive forensic evidence limited the mission team’s ability to draw definitive forensic conclusions in many instances.” There are long bits of her Report about why there are no victims or survivors or witnesses willing to speak openly or at all, and why there is no forensic evidence. But the fact is, there is nothing in the Report, except to say an independent investigation is needed. Well, of course it is.
It is astounding, therefore, that it, Pramila Patten’s document, is even called a “Report” at all. It is merely hearsay from the genocide perpetrators’ military men, who are desperate to find an excuse for the genocide they are committing, and somewhat vague stories from others, often based on women being found naked or half-naked. This is of concern, but hardly proof of “mass rape” being a supposed Hamas strategy, as Israel and much of the Western media maintains.
All this to say, we need investigation that is independent. And, in her favour, Pramila Patten does call for exactly this.
However, her “Report” has unfortunately played into the hands of the Israeli occupying power that is so desperate for an excuse for its perpetration of genocide. Though nothing, of course, could possibly be an excuse for genocide.
The lies have been spread by people as high up as Netanyahu himself, and taken up by Biden, Blinken and all their Western allies on atrocities and lurid lies about de-capitated babies (which President Biden mentioned twice, once even after his Aides had told him the whole thing was an invention), babies supposedly cooked in ovens (exposed as burnt body parts after Israeli Apache Helicopters shot Hellfire missiles at cars), a baby supposedly ripped from a disgorged pregnant woman (complete fabrication). It was when all these lies were finally exposed that the Israeli propagandists turned seriously to the allegations of “mass rape”. The propaganda offensive was led by the New York Times with its now thoroughly discredited article entitled “Screams without words”. This newspaper has since stopped running its promised daily story on this, and the journalist who wrote it has been discredited for her extreme pro-Israel, even pro-genocide, views. After the exposure of so much Israeli (and US) propaganda and flat-out fabrications and lies, any “Report” should at least look for actual facts, instead of repeating more vague propaganda and lies.
The Patten Report, in addition, seems blissfully unaware of the Israeli use of Hellfire missiles that killed so many Israelis (as well as Hamas and other resistance fighters) by causing all the badly burnt bodies mentioned. This should be mentioned. Instead, the Report assumes the fires are part of the Palestinian assault on Israel. This is what her Israeli hosts intend her to believe. And this is what then ends up in her “non-investigation”.
The Report also seems blissfully unaware of the International Court of Justice’s provisional order for Israel to stop its genocidal acts. This is not even mentioned as context. This would at least have made Pramila Patten reluctant to credit her Israeli sources with any material at all, without a caveat that it comes from those found by the ICJ to be plausibly involved in genocide.
In the case of the mass break-out of the Gaza concentration camp on 7 October, the males of the dominated people, the Palestinians, have been accused of “mass rape” and sexual aggression against Israeli women, as a planned act of war. Yet, we have no indication of masses of dead victims with forensic evidence indicating rape. In fact that is not one bit of forensic evidence, from any victim, dead or alive. And there is thus far no evidence from survivors of mass rape or credible witnesses of mass rape. It is as simple as that.
Again, in her favour, Pramila Patten admits the following:
“The mission team also faced specific challenges in gathering and verifying information on the occurrence of conflict-related sexual violence. The main challenge was the limited number of and access to survivors/victims of sexual violence, and to survivors and witnesses of the 7 October attacks. While the mission team was able to meet with ... some survivors and witnesses of the attacks, it did not meet with any survivor/victim of sexual violence from 7 October despite concerted efforts encouraging them to come forward.” We are given instead the reason there is no such evidence. The Report goes on, directly, “The mission team was made aware of a small number of survivors who are undergoing specialized treatment and still experiencing an overwhelming level of trauma. Further, the internal displacement of several communities from the Gaza periphery to other locations, the relocation of survivors of the Nova music festival attacks both internally and to third countries as well as the deployment of 7 October first responders from the military forces to combat, hindered access to first-hand information.”
Paragraph 10, where she says, “The absence of comprehensive forensic evidence limited the mission team’s ability to draw definitive forensic conclusions in many instances.” Again, we get the reason there is no forensic evidence instead, “This was compounded by evidence being spread among various agencies and limited organization of the material, and the fact that the process of linking individuals with specific photos and videos is still ongoing.” And then there is the additional admission that reads, “The inaccurate and unreliable forensic interpretations by some non-professionals also represented a challenge.” Is she referring to the deliberate invention of lies by the propaganda machinery of an occupying power plausibly perpetrating genocide? If so, her weak language compromises her Report.
To get back to where we started: We have not seen women in Israel standing up, as in the “me too” movement. There are stories put out in public by the Israeli Defense Force, propelled into the media through a propaganda arm of this army, and taken up in the West. This is different. And Pramila Patten’s “Report” fits into this last category. What we have got, however, is a case of massive-scale “lynching” by Israel of the Palestinian people in general and in Gaza in particular since 7 October, so massive it is judged “plausibly” genocide by the UN’s highest court, the ICJ, which Pramila Patten, part of this same UN system, fails even to mention.
The “mass rape” that is being alleged is being alleged against the males of the society under military occupation by a settler colony. This kind of demonization of men in the lower classes and oppressed peoples as “rapists” is common – as it was under slavery, under Apartheid South Africa, under German colonization as an excuse for the genocide against the Hereros and Namaqua in Namibia, and even more recently in the post-slavery era in the Deep South of the USA against freed slaves by white settlers. Rape is notoriously the crime committed by those males with power over the women they rape. Not the other way around.
All this to say that the women’s movement world-wide and in Mauritius, has taught us how to beware of the dangers of silencing women – and also, at the same time, to beware of the dangers of lynch-mobs and genocidal States that instrumentalize rape and rumours of rape in order to exact collective punishment, even genocide, on an oppressed people. And, in order to exact this punishment, the perpetrator relies heavily on producing and disseminating, and getting other to disseminate, State and military propaganda. All thinking people have to ensure that they do not end up disseminating propaganda that aims to justify a State committing genocide. Pramila Patten has not ensured that she avoids doing just this. Worse, she has gone and done it.
Lindsey Collen
for LALIT
