Monday this past week, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, “One of the reasons that [Hamas] doesn’t want to turn over women that they’ve been holding hostage… is they don’t want those women to be able to talk about what happened to them during their time in custody.”
He later added he meant sexual violence. He also said that this issue played into why the ceasefire ended late last week. It is why Hamas doesn’t want to re-engage in talks. Mr. Miller’s statement caught some people by surprise.
It caused media outlets to react with a degree of alarm. CNN interviewed Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who claimed that she and other Democrats condemn Hamas and their tactic of rape but that it is also important to “be balanced about bringing in the outrages against the Palestinians.”
We want to thank Marc Abear for this Contribution – Please direct yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
You can review our ‘Op-Ed Guidelines‘ on the FAQ Page.
Hamas denies the allegations made in the State Department’s allegations. They issued a statement Monday saying their fighters are Muslim. They would never engage in sexual assault. In that same statement, they also said they never attacked the music festival in Israel.
The music festival was where Hamas fighters paraglided in, slaughtered, and raped over 100 people. That’s on video. Also on video and retold by a survivor from that festival was a young woman assaulted by a gang of Palestinians who shot her in the head when they concluded their assault.
That story was published on Sunday by the Times of London.
Make of the warzone reporting what you will. Just know there are facts somewhere. They will vindicate one position and condemn the other, but is Hamas using sexual assault as a form of warfare? Does Islam condone such a thing? Have you heard condemnation by Islam of the tactics? Why are many Democrats and Progressives not reacting to it? Why aren’t they reacting, at least not negatively?
