The recent report published by the Israeli Dinah Project about Hamas’ sexual violence against Israeli victims on October 7, 2023 took me back to two essays by the Palestinian feminist activist and writer (a citizen of Israel), Samah Salaime.

In the first article, Women’s liberation mustn’t stop at either side of the Gaza fence from December 2023 (less than three months after October 7) Samah writes, “I believe that gender-based crimes occurred on October 7. Even though we don’t know exactly what happened… I believe that it happened because I have studied the history of women in war zones… armed men, drunk on power, see women’s bodies as part of the battlefield.”

She also echoes what those of us who, like Samah, have committed our adult lives to fighting male violence against women and girls know all too well: “patriarchy silences, diminishes, or denies the truth, and it is therefore crucial to say: we believe women”. 

In the context of Israel and Hamas’ sexual crimes against Israeli women, I would say that patriarchy silences, diminishes or denies the truth, unless it serves that patriarchal entity. Because Israel, as with any other patriarchal state, doesn’t really care about male violence against women. Israel uses the war crimes Hamas committed on October 7 to justify its ‘one eye for a thousand eyes’ revenge war on Gaza. 

Ironically (for a lack of better word) the name of the Israeli project that “was established to achieve recognition and justice for victims and survivors of sexual violence during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, and for those taken hostage”, is “Dinah”.

For those who are not familiar with the biblical reference, Dinah was Jacob’s daughter who was raped by Schem, the son of the most prominent man in the area. After the rape, Schem asked Dinah’s family to let him marry her. Dinah’s brothers conditioned the marriage with all the men in Schem’s tribe to be circumcised so they will become “one people”. The men complied and when they were weak and in pain, Dinah’s brothers killed all the males of Schem’s tribe and took all the females as their captives. In short, instead of punishing only the man who committed the rape crime, the sons of Jacob (in that part of the bible he is already given his second name, Israel), revenged against all the men, women and children even though they were innocent. 

Back to Samah’s writing… “It is on the basis of these same feminist principles” she writes “that we must also stand with the Palestinian women in Gaza facing untold suffering at the hands of the Israeli army since October 7. Our struggle for women’s liberation must not stop at either side of the Gaza fence.” 

The second essay by Samah I urge you to read is “Where’s the outrage over ‘systematic’ sexual violence against Palestinians?” It was published three months ago following the report submitted to the United Nation Human Rights Council: “Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence since 7 October 2023”. The findings of the report, as Samah notes “drew not only from survivor accounts but also from Israeli soldiers’ own social media posts. Perpetrators proudly documented their “heroic” acts of masculine vengeance”.

In Israel, Samah describes, “reactions have ranged from silence to outright denial.” The chairwoman of Israel’s largest women’s organization said that the report has a “strong stench of antisemitism” and the feminists leading the Dinah Project dismissed it as “another step in the campaign to delegitimize Israel.”  

While Israeli women rightfully demand global recognition for the war crimes Hamas committed, most of them refuse to do the same for Palestinian women, let alone demand that Israel stops its crimes against humanity in Gaza.

In spite of that, Samah concludes with a powerful insistence on, and a commitment to, feminist solidarity: 

“After some painful reflection, I’ve come to learn the strength and courage we women must cultivate to unequivocally denounce any violence against a woman’s body as abhorrent, whether she is Palestinian or Israeli. It should need no explanation that no mother — whether her child has red hair or dark skin, green eyes or brown — should be killed, and that no baby should be fed to the insatiable war machine of power and wealth-hungry men.

We women — young and old, mothers and daughters, feminists and even those who don’t define themselves as such — must raise our voices and say: Enough of this war. This homeland will not be liberated on our bodies, and no future is worth building from the wreckage of our wombs.”

And my concluding words to this post are… Samah’s feminism, that’s the feminism I want to live by.