From +972 Magazine
Feminist principles compel us to stand with both the Palestinian women being slaughtered in Gaza and the Israeli women testifying about sexual violence.
The two most important struggles of my life are the fight against gender-based violence and the fight against Israeli occupation. I have always understood these struggles to be inextricably linked, both of them striving for liberation and equality for oppressed groups: women and Palestinians. But for the first time, it feels like those two worlds are clashing.
Since the onset of the war, we have all been pushed to choose a side — to support or condemn, to be for or against. This language, which we know so well from the toolbox of patriarchy, has also permeated feminist strongholds. Still in shock, Jewish and Palestinian feminists have been forced to take a stance: to believe or deny that Jewish women were victims of sexual violence during the Hamas-led October 7 assault on southern Israel. This question has been subsumed into the war of narratives in the aftermath of those attacks and amid Israel’s ongoing bombardment of the Gaza Strip.
I believe that gender-based crimes occurred on October 7. Even though we don’t know exactly what happened, or the form or scope of the sexual violence perpetrated that day — though we do have some indications — I believe that it happened because I have studied the history of women in war zones.
Samah Salaime is a feminist Palestinian activist, social worker, researcher and writer.
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