Remember when the anti-Israel left went into full spin mode after it was revealed that Hamas terrorists had raped Israeli women they had taken hostage on October 7? The formerly #MeToo crowd quickly switched it up to #MeWho?
High-profile progressives eagerly played the role of Hamas apologists, responding to the news by either downplaying the sexual violence against Israeli women or denying it altogether. But now, a survivor of the attacks and kidnappings is speaking up, and her experience is going to put the pro-Hamas crowd in a tricky situation.
A recently released Hamas hostage's revelation of sexual violence against her fellow captives appears to refute anti-Israel progressives who tend to downplay or dismiss terrorists' atrocities.
Chen Goldstein-Almog, 48, was held hostage by Hamas with three of her children for 51 days following the Palestinian terrorist group's Oct. 7 attack on Israelis.
Her husband and eldest daughter were murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the attack.
Goldstein-Almog recounted hearing several other Israeli women discussing what Hamas terrorists did to them while they were in captivity.
During her interview, Goldstein-Almog revealed she heard firsthand accounts of sexual violence from other female hostages by their Hamas captors.
"I heard the testimony directly from girls and heard things second hand," Goldstein-Almog said. "Some of the sexual violence happened well into our time in Gaza, not in the first week."
"But the way their bodies were desecrated, they don’t know how they will deal with that. It happened weeks into their time in Gaza," she said.
"If they were released earlier, they would’ve been saved from experiencing sexual violence," Goldstein-Almog added.
Goldstein-Almog said they "heard three stories firsthand of women saying they were sexually abused and we heard an additional story." She added that "presumably, there are more instances" of sexual violence by Hamas.
Former communications director for Bernie Sanders’ campaign Briahna Joy Gray was on the front lines of people attempting to dismiss claims of rape by Israeli women. She went overboard in trying to cast doubt on the reports discussing how the women were treated while being held captive by Hamas.
Progressive Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) did the same during an appearance with CNN’s Dana Bash:
Other high-profile leftist figures and organizations simply ignored the issue. An Israeli government minister recounted reaching out to former First Lady Michelle Obama, asking her to condemn the sexual assaults. Obama ignored the request and has not responded. A United Nations women’s group wrote a post denouncing the rapes but quickly deleted the post.
The question is: Would any of these people have responded the same way if there were reports about Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting Palestinian women? Of course not. They would blindly believe the reports and weaponize them against the Israel Defense Forces and portray it as a group of vile rapists.
Now that there is more information emerging about this issue, it raises questions as to how those who pretended Hamas did not mistreat Israeli women will respond. I’m predicting they will simply ignore the evidence unless they are pressed on it. Then, they will deflect and do everything they can to avoid talking about it.
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