*Here’s what Pramila Patten’s UN report on Oct 7 sexual violence actually said* *The UN report on sexual violence on October 7 has found no evidence of systematic rape by Hamas or any other Palestinian group, despite widespread media reporting to the contrary. But there are deeper problems with the report’s credibility.* by Feminist Solidarity Network for Palestine ( https://palestinianfeministcollective.org) Mondoweiss, March 11, 2024 https://mondoweiss.net/2024/03/heres-what-pramila-pattens-un-report-on-oct-7-sexual-violence-actually-said/
Over the past four months, a concerted propaganda campaign, mounted by the Israeli government and amplified across various Western media outlets, has accused Hamas of using rape as a weapon of war on October 7. Allegations that Hamas planned and carried out a systematic campaign of sexual violence (with acts ranging from the deeply grotesque to the outright fetishistic and bizarre) have been used to paint the Palestinian resistance as inhuman and to justify Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza. Recently, analysis <https://sites.google.com/view/nycrimes/decolonial-feminist-edition-no-4> demonstrating the fallacious <https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza> nature <https://www.oct7factcheck.com/sexual-violence> of these claims — the fabrications <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mass-rape-accusation>, factual errors <https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/cnn-report-claiming-sexual-violence-on-october-7-relied-on-non-credible-witnesses-some-with-undisclosed-ties-to-israeli-govt/>, and journalistic malpractice <https://theintercept.com/2024/02/28/new-york-times-anat-schwartz-october-7/>, the non-credible witness and first responder testimonies, the Israeli military affiliations of key sources, as well as the absence <https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them/> of *any *forensic evidence or video or photographic proof — has broken through into the mainstream. . . . Ironically, it is the absence of any ability or power to investigate that likely induced Israel to extend an invitation to Patten. This was despite Israel’s refusal to cooperate <https://apnews.com/article/europe-middle-east-israel-geneva-race-and-ethnicity-d71a6a9692959a73806c8356cd7bf2dd> with the official UN investigation currently underway. While Patten has made no secret of the fact that her “main concern <https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/03/05/exp-un-sexual-violence-israel-patten-live-030502pseg1-20438620-cnni-world.cnn>” in producing the report was to “do everything for the remaining hostages,” it is her complaisance and willful ignorance when it comes to *not* investigating the nexus of what happened on October 7 — its before and after, contextually and historically — that makes her mission useful to Israel. No wonder that Patten’s mission enjoyed the “full cooperation” of the government of Israel (Para 32), when they knew in advance that the mission could not — indeed, would not — probe too far. Upon the release of her recent mission report, Patten argued <https://webtv.un.org/en/asset/k1w/k1wee1dcdl> that any conclusive finding regarding sexual violence on October 7 would require an official UN investigation.[1] [2] But it is exactly this UN investigation <https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/10/commission-inquiry-collecting-evidence-war-crimes-committed-all-sides-israel>, chaired by Navi Pillay and already underway, that the Israeli government has repeatedly blocked. ... . . . *2.1 The UN report does not find a ‘pattern’ of sexual violence on October 7* This was the central claim of Jeffrey Gettleman, Anat Schwartz, and Adam Sella in their now thoroughly discredited <https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2024/03/05/israel-hamas-oct7-report-gaza> article, “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized Sexual Violence on Oct. 7, <https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html>” which argued that Hamas fighters did not carry out rogue or isolated acts of rape, but rather engaged in “a broader pattern of gender-based violence,” using rape as a weapon of war. However, when, 52 minutes into Patten’s March 4 press conference, Farnaz Fassihi from the *Times* asks, “Would you say that you found a pattern of sexual violence that was a strategy of Hamas, both in the October 7 attacks and in regards to the hostages?” Patten answers definitively in the negative. . . . *Patten’s report functions as a distraction from genocide * Despite the fact that Patten’s report does not find any credible information supporting a pattern of rape on October 7, that it has no investigative powers, and that it sustains glaring gaps in credibility that it cannot address within its mandate, Western media has been following the lead of the Israeli government in framing the report as a vindication of Israel’s narrative that Hamas committed systematic sexual violence on October 7. . . . -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. 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