{"id":1456933,"date":"2024-01-21T20:47:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-21T20:47:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dissidentvoice.org\/?p=147624"},"modified":"2024-01-21T20:47:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-21T20:47:03","slug":"why-the-guardians-hamas-mass-rape-story-doesnt-pass-the-sniff-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2024\/01\/21\/why-the-guardians-hamas-mass-rape-story-doesnt-pass-the-sniff-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Guardian\u2019s \u201cHamas Mass Rape\u201d Story doesn\u2019t Pass the Sniff Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Guardian<\/em> has just published the latest in the western media\u2019s endless cycle of stories claiming Hamas committed \u201csystematic, mass rape\u201d on October 7. Its article is headlined: \u201cEvidence points to systematic use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas in 7 October attacks<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem with these stories isn\u2019t just the continuing absence of any meaningful evidence<\/a> for \u201csystematic<\/em>\u201d rape; or Israel\u2019s long track record of lying<\/a> to justify state terrorism; or Israel\u2019s refusal to cooperate with independent investigators; or the racist, anti-Arab tropes that pass for sophisticated analysis in western circles.<\/p>\n

It is simply the outrageous improbability of so many of the evidence-poor rape stories being advanced.<\/p>\n

The Guardian recycles a supposed eyewitness account of a group of Hamas fighters taking turns to rape a woman at the Nova festival on October 7, then cutting off her breast to play a football-like game with it at the side of the road.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

We are supposed to believe this happened when we also know \u2013 from facts<\/a><\/em> provided by the Israeli media<\/a> \u2013 that Hamas stumbled on to the Nova festival totally unprepared and on their way to what they assumed would be a major confrontation with the Israeli military at a nearby army base; that its fighters were quickly confronted by paramilitary Israeli police who engaged them in gun battles; and that Israeli Apache helicopters, with little intelligence to work on, were firing Hellfire missiles at anything that moved, based on the \u201cHannibal directive\u201d to prevent hostage-taking at all costs.<\/p>\n

Does any of that add up? Did Hamas\u2019 most disciplined elite fighters \u2013 training for years and knowing that this might be their their only, brief moment to take on the Israeli army in a near-fair fight or drag hostages back to Gaza for a prisoner swap before the Israeli military used its air power to overwhelm them \u2013 really take time out to indulge in a sick game involving a woman\u2019s breast?<\/p>\n

How is it that no one \u2013 the Guardian reporter, her section editors, the paper\u2019s editors \u2013 stopped for a moment and thought \u201cIs this really plausible?\u201d and \u201cAm I being played to advance a nefarious agenda?\u201d \u2013 in this case, genocide. Or did they simply recite in their minds \u2013 as Israel knew they would \u2013 \u201cBelieve women!\u201d, especially if they are confirming a racist assumption that Arab men are blood-thirsty, sex-obsessed primitives.<\/p>\n

In fact, the Zaka volunteers who are being heavily relied on in this Guardian \u201creport\u201d are Jewish religious extremist men,<\/em> also with a proven record of lying: they came up with the complete fabrication<\/a> of \u201c40 beheaded babies\u201d, when no babies were beheaded. Two infants are recorded dying that day.<\/p>\n

The woman leading the \u201cHamas mass rape\u201d campaign \u2013 now an academic \u2013 is a former spokesperson for the Israeli military<\/a>. Their job, as any honest reporter will tell you, is to lie to journalists to excuse Israel\u2019s incessant war crimes.<\/p>\n

What we now know \u2013 from multiple credible Israeli sources \u2013 is that Israel killed lots of its own civilians on October 7. Ynet, Israel\u2019s biggest media outlet, has just published an investigation<\/a> in Hebrew showing that Hamas successfully took out Israel\u2019s all-seeing drone \u201ceyes\u201d over Gaza that day, leaving the Israeli military blind about what was happening. Panicked, Israeli commanders invoked the Hannibal directive, allowing those in the field to order tanks and helicopters to fire at anything that moved.<\/p>\n

It was Israel that incinerated the hundreds of cars trying to flee the Nova festival, killing potentially hundreds of the 1,140 Israelis that died that day, as well as Hamas fighters. It was an Israeli tank that incinerated 13 Israeli civilians, and 40 Hamas fighters, holed up in a house in Kibbutz Be\u2019eri by blasting a shell through its front wall.<\/p>\n

Israel, of course, wants no one, least of all the western media, talking about any of that. What it needs instead is anything that will help to distract from its crimes against its citizens and justify its committing of genocide against the people of Gaza. So it has every reason to serve up the \u201cHamas mass rape\u201d story, feeding what it rightly assumes are the Islamophobic prejudices of most Israeli Jews and western reporters.<\/p>\n

Journalists at the Guardian<\/em>, the BBC and the rest of the establishment media are paid to play their role in regurgitating these lies to advance western foreign policy goals. You are not. So please hold on to your humanity \u2013 and refuse to play along with Israel and the media\u2019s racist disinformation campaign.<\/p>\n

I have written previously about the media\u2019s peddling of deceptions about October 7. You can find those articles at these links:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

\n

What the BBC fails to tell you about October 7:<\/p>\n

It is journalistic malpractice for the media to still be repeating so credulously the Israeli military\u2019s account of that day. My latest: https:\/\/t.co\/EJKNpYYzUM<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/lp6DoBrZWG<\/a><\/p>\n

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 2, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n