Archive | 2024/05/01

Co widzą ci, którzy nie widzą?

Co widzą ci, którzy nie widzą?

Andrzej Koraszewski


Kadr z filmu “Kabaret”

Czasami pytam młodych ludzi, czy widzieli film „Kabaret”. Wśród urodzonych w tym stuleciu, z tych, których o to pytałem, nikt nie słyszał o tym filmie. Kiedy wszedł na ekrany w 1972 roku, był niezwykle popularny. Fenomenalna gra Lizy Minnelli i Michaela Yorka była częściej tematem dyskusji, niż fakt, że była to (i nadal jest) najwspanialsza prezentacja atmosfery Berlina w momencie, w którym nazizm stawał się religią niemieckiego narodu. Film jest dostępny za niewielką opłatą, można go również kupić na DVD. Oglądanie go dziś robi piorunujące wrażenie. Ponad pół wieku temu ten film opowiadał o odległej historii, dziś opowiada o świecie, w którym żyjemy.

Dekadencja i rozpad znanego świata, zachwyt barbarzyństwem, oportunizm tych, którzy powinni widzieć, ale woleli odwracać oczy, beznadzieja protestu wobec wzbierającej fali, obecność zła w morzu zabawy. Drobne i z pozoru mało znaczące incydenty zaczynają się zlewać w nową, odrażającą  rzeczywistość.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali pisze o incydencie, który miał miejsce w Londynie 13 kwietnia 2024r. Nagrana na wideo scena przedstawia mężczyznę w centrum Londynu, w pobliżu propalestyńskiego marszu. Mężczyzna jest w garniturze, ma na głowie małą jarmułkę. Brytyjski policjant ostrzega go:

„Jesteś otwarcie Żydem, to jest marsz propalestyński, o nic cię nie oskarżam, ale obawiam się reakcji na twoją obecność.”

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, była muzułmanka, która uciekła z Afryki w poszukiwaniu wolności, jest przerażona. W londyńskiej metropolii człowiek jest zagrożony, ponieważ nie ukrywa tego, że jest Żydem. Autorka pisze o ludobójczych hasłach wielotysięcznych tłumów w mieście, które jest kolebką europejskiego parlamentaryzmu. Do tych haseł na ulicach Paryża, Barcelony, Madrytu, Berlina czy Amsterdamu zdążyliśmy się już przyzwyczaić.        

„Prawdziwym szokiem wywołanym tym nagraniem z 13 kwietnia nie jest jednak tylko zagrożenie islamistyczną przemocą na tle antysemickim. Do tego jesteśmy przyzwyczajeni. Prawdziwym szokiem jest to, że brytyjski funkcjonariusz policji, przedstawiciel państwa, zdaje się sugerować, że bycie ‘całkiem otwarcie Żydem’ jest dziś nie do zaakceptowania na ulicach dużego zachodniego miasta.”

Policjant prawdopodobnie kierował się troską o bezpieczeństwo mężczyzny, którego łatwo rozpoznać jako Żyda, pewnie bał się również o własne bezpieczeństwo, gdyby musiał interweniować i chronić obywatela przed rozbestwionym tłumem. Zapewne nie jest antysemitą ani sympatykiem Hamasu.   

Mężczyzna na tym nagraniu to Gideon Falter, dyrektor naczelny Kampanii Przeciw Antysemityzmowi. Czy jego zachowanie było prowokacyjne, czy chciał pokazać, że sama jego obecność ujawni jednoznacznie antysemickie postawy i poglądy demonstrującego tłumu? Możemy uznać to zachowanie za odważne, nierozważne lub niepotrzebnie prowokacyjne. Ayaan Hirsi Ali przypomina, że pokojowe protesty są legalne, a współczucie dla postronnych i niewinnych ofiar wojny jest zrozumiałe. Równocześnie trudno o wątpliwości, brytyjska policja doskonale wie, że ci demonstranci są gotowi do przemocy, że wyrażają solidarność z ludobójczymi działaniami, może nawet policjanci wiedzą co oznacza skandowanie okrzyku: Khaybar, Khaybar, ya yahud!

W wielu miastach europejskich od wielu lat pojawiły się całe dzielnice, do których policja obawia się wchodzić. Utrata zdolności utrzymania porządku i prawa przesuwa się krok po kroku coraz dalej. Stopniowo zanika neutralna przestrzeń publiczna. 

„Nie możemy udawać, że nie ma różnicy pomiędzy pokojowymi protestami a tymi, którym towarzyszy groźba islamskiej przemocy” – pisze ta była muzułmanka, która lepiej niż inni zna przesłanie islamu i jego radykalnych organizacji.

Islamizm to świat, w którym minaret góruje nad wszystkim. To powiewające poły burki otulającej kobiety niczym inwazyjna winorośl w niegdyś kwitnącym ogrodzie. To zgromadzenie na placu krzyczy, że „to jest teraz nasza przestrzeń”. To adhan rzucany głośno na chrześcijanina, żyda – lub świeckiego! W tej, czy innej części miasta. Aż pewnego dnia w mieście nie ma już żadnej niemuzułmańskiej części. Chrześcijanie w Stambule i Żydzi z Bagdadu przekonali się o tym na własnej skórze. Modlę się, aby zamożni agnostycy Mayfair i Chelsea nigdy tego nie doczekali.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali zastanawia się nad pytaniem, czy brytyjskie państwo nauczy się odróżniać pokojowe (niezależnie uzasadnione, czy nieuzasadnione) protesty od marszów ogłaszających podbój. Apeluje o powrót do agory, na której panuje poszanowanie prawa i godności wszystkich istot ludzkich. Przypomina, że bez tego nasz świat będzie coraz bardziej podatny na wrogie przejęcie.

Czytając ten tekst miałem wrażenie, że autorka świadomie wybrała ton łagodnej perswazji w nadziei, że coś dotrze wreszcie do tych, którzy widzą i odmawiają wiary w to, co widzą, lub jeszcze gorzej, świadomie wspierają to wrogie przejęcie.

Urodzona w Somalii Ayaan Hirsi Ali przyjechała jako młoda kobieta do Holandii, zrobiła tam studia, została posłanką  do holenderskiego parlamentu i musiała uciekać dalej przed byłymi współwyznawcami i ich zachodnimi sojusznikami. Dziś mieszka w Stanach Zjednoczonych. Uniwersytety odwołują zaplanowane z nią spotkania, media głównego nurtu unikają jej jak zarazy. Jej książki mówią o grozie wojującego islamu, głoszą pochwałę zachodniej wolności i grzeszą poparciem dla Izraela. Dla takich ludzi nie ma miejsca na scenie, w publicznym dyskursie, w dobrym tonie jest udawanie, że oni nie istnieją.                  

W Stanach Zjednoczonych, gdzie dziś mieszka, najlepsze uniwersytety są wylęgarnią osobliwie uplasowanej empatii z wolna przechodzącej w otwarte poparcie ludobójczych ruchów dążących do tego, co Ayaan Hirsi Ali nazywa wrogim przejęciem. 

Młodzi ludzie demonstrują na rzecz „Palestyny”. Co wiedzą, a czego nie wiedzą? Wiedzą, że nie lubią „syjonistów” i wykrzykują, że „syjoniści” mają wracać do Polski. Atakują każdego, kto ma jakiekolwiek symbole związane z judaizmem lub z żydowskim państwem, odmawiają jakiejkolwiek dyskusji i blokują wszelkie próby ich organizowania. Pilnują, żeby opanowana przez nich przestrzeń publiczna była wolna od Żydów.     

Próbując to obejrzeć  i zrozumieć reporterka The Free Press, Olivia Reingold postanowiła zmieszać się z tłumem „protestującej” młodzieży.  Zajęcia zignorowane, studenci rozbijają obóz na trawniku przed biblioteką Columbia University. Jedni robią bransoletki przyjaźni, inni malują hasła na kawałkach tektury. Olivia zatrzymuje się przed tabliczką z napisem „Paint Ur Nails 4 Palestine” (pomaluj swoje paznokcie dla Palestyny). Właścicielka namiotu demonstruje swoje czerwone paznokcie u nóg. Młodzieniec z książką Frantza Fanona, który dziesiątki lat temu wzywał do mordowania białych, jest radośnie witany przez swoją wybrankę. Agitatorka z megafonem budzi umiarkowane zainteresowanie. Dominują kefije znad których wystają fioletowe i marchewkowe czupryny. Zabawa w pełni. „Każdy ma swoją rolę w rewolucji” – mówi studentka stroniąca od tradycyjnych zaimków osobowych.      

Olivia pstryka zdjęcie większego namiotu, pod którym umieści podpis:

„W rozległym mieście namiotowym znajduje się punkt pierwszej pomocy, namiot doradczy, ‘Biblioteka Ludowa Wyzwolonej Nauki’, kącik artystyczny, kącik dla mediów i ‘pralnia’ do suszenia ubrań po deszczu. Przed namiotem na gobelinie rozłożone są olejki i nalewki.”

Witamy w „obozie Solidarności z Gazą”. Jest tu namiot doradczy, centrum pisania, kącik sztuki. Są stoiska ze zdrową żywnością, organicznymi tamponami, gry planszowe i znaczki „Wspólnoty dumnych”.  

W drugim dniu protestu student przedstawiający się jako „W” wyjaśnił dziennikarzom, że  studenci uniwersytetu przeciwstawiają się „brutalnemu tworowi syjonistycznych osadników” w Izraelu.

Ludobójstwo – pisze Olivia Reingold  – to słowo, które nieustannie pojawia się wśród studentów. Widać tu bezgraniczny gniew na Izrael, nie widać żadnych pretensji do Hamasu, grupy terrorystycznej, która 7 października 2023 r. zamordowała 1200 osób i nadal przetrzymuje 129 zakładników. Nie ma wzmianki o 500 000 Syryjczyków zamordowanych przez prezydenta kraju Baszara al-Assada. Ani jedna osoba nie wyraziła oburzenia z powodu Ujgurów w Chinach, którym grozi rzeczywiste ludobójstwo i zsyłka do obozów pracy tylko dlatego, że są muzułmanami.”

Zdjęcie Olivia Reingold
Zdjęcie Olivia Reingold

Wcześniej organizatorzy z Yale i Columbia opublikowali przewodnikzatwierdzony przez organizację „Studentów na rzecz Sprawiedliwości w Palestynie”. Ma ciekawy tytuł: First We Take Columbia (najpierw bierzemy Columbię). Przewodnik nawiązuje do studenckich protestów podczas wojny w Wietnamie, ostrzega przed infiltrującymi ruch agitatorami „okupacji”.   

To wszystko jest świetnie zorganizowane. Chociaż nie wygląda na to, żeby policja interesowała się specjalnie, kto to organizuje i skąd płyną instrukcje oraz pieniądze. Dla obserwującej te harce reporterki interesujące są zachowania uczestników.

Ci, którzy chcą dyskutować, to „syjoniści, którzy weszli do obozu”. Zarządca określający się jako „rzecznik”, natychmiast poleca „wypchnięcie ich”. Młodzi ludzie tworzą ludzki łańcuch, wypierając intruzów.    

Reporterka zauważa również sprzęt z napisem „People’s Forum” – to nazwa organizacji finansowanej przez multimilionera powiązanego z chińskim rządem.

Olivia Reingold przez osiem dni obserwowała ten studencki protest. Jej obszerny reportaż kończy się sceną, podczas której jej rozmowę ze studentką, która specjalnie przyjechała na gościnne występy z Wielkiej Brytanii, przerywa dziennikarz z Japonii. Dziennikarz pyta, dlaczego nikt w tym obozie nie potępia Hamasu. Mówi, że należałoby to powiedzieć. Jeden ze stojących obok studentów wykrzykuje z gniewem, że „Powiedziano”. Japoński dziennikarz doskonale wie, że to kłamstwo i głośno zaprzecza.

Studenci milkną, patrzą w ziemię, dziennikarz dziękuje za rozmowę i odchodzi.

Kiedy już go nie ma, jeden ze studentów idzie „z kimś o nim porozmawiać”. „To było dziwne” – mówi, strzepując brud z dżinsów. „Organizatorzy muszą o nim wiedzieć”.

Domyślam się, że wśród tych tysięcy ludzi porwanych przez nową religię będą jednostki, które odkryją, że ich oszukano. Zastanawiam się, jak można zwiększyć liczbę tych, którzy zrozumieją co widzą, w czym uczestniczą i co popierają. Sprawa jest niemal beznadziejna. W odległym od tamtego zamieszania kraju wysłałem list do organizacji, która zajmuje się zwalczaniem rasizmu i która opublikowała nagrodzone zdjęcie Palestynki ze zwłokami owiniętego w całun dziecka. Nagrodzony fotograf z Gazy jest zatrudniony przez agencję Reutersa, ale przegląd jego wpisów na koncie X i w Instagramie nie pozostawia żadnych wątpliwości, dokumentuje „zbrodnie Izraela” zgodnie z instrukcjami Hamasu. Organizacja zajmująca się dokumentowaniem rasizmu wiernie powtarza informacje Ministerstwa Zdrowia Hamasu, komentujący to czytelnicy poprawnie odbierają przekaz. Pod wpisem wylew nienawiści do Żydów. Nie pytam, czy znają Kartę Hamasu, nie powtarzam pytania japońskiego dziennikarza. Przesyłam im zestaw zdjęć bojowników Huti, bojowników Hezbollahu, dzieci szkolonych przez Hezbollah oraz to zdjęcie, które „walczący z rasizmem” sami zamieścili.  Pytam, czy są świadomi tego, co robią.

Organizacja dokumentująca rasizm pozostawia moje pytanie bez odpowiedzi.

Film „Kabaret” zaczyna się od sceny, w której młody Amerykanin, który postanowił podszlifować swój język niemiecki, przyjeżdża do Berlina i puka do drzwi mieszkania, w którym wynajął pokój. Otwiera młoda kobieta i przez uchyloną szparę pokazuje pomalowane na czarno paznokcie. Śmieje się, upewnia się, czy jej gość jest zaszokowany.

Film kończy pieśń „Przyszłość należy do mnie”. Nowa religia jest już religią powszechną. Młodość zdobyła agorę, przestrzeń publiczna jest już całkowicie opanowana.            

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How Qatar Bought the Ivy League

How Qatar Bought the Ivy League

Robert Williams


At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian… Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes.” — ISGAP report, “The Corruption of the American Mind,” November 2023..

Ivy League – A list of 8 private research universities in the northeastern United States considered the best schools in the world.

  • All Ivies (members of the Ivy League) except Cornell were founded during the colonial period; thus, they constitute seven of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution.
  • Ivy League schools are considered some of the world’s most prestigious universities. All eight universities rank in the top 17 U.S. News & World Report’s 2020 National Universities rankings, including four Ivies in the top five.
  • Undergraduate enrollment ranges from approximately 4,500 to 15,000 students, which is more significant than most liberal arts universities and smaller than most state universities. Total enrollment, which includes graduate students, ranges from about 6,600 at Dartmouth to more than 20,000 at the University of Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, and Penn.
  • Ivy League endowments range from Brown’s $4.7 billion to Harvard’s $41.9 billion, representing the largest endowment of any academic institution globally.
Nightmare of Dark Money

Qatar allows Ivy League universities to claim they receive no funds from the Qatari state. The donations are funneled through the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar. This ensures that the foundation can identify itself as a private organization, which enables Qatar to conceal its state funding as private donations.

 “At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar’s academic funding.” — ISGAP report, “Networks of Hate,” December 2023.

 “We would pay them [journalists]… Some of them have become MPs now. Others have become patriots…. We would pay [journalists] in many countries. We would pay them every year. Some of them received salaries. All the Arab countries were doing this. If not all, then most of them.” — Former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim, February 2022.

The hapless testimony by three Ivy League university presidents from Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania before the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce can be traced to Qatar and its insidious campaign to buy itself influence in US academia.

Qatar, oil-rich and with an estimated population of only 2.5 million, is the largest foreign donor — that we know about — to American universities, with at least $4.7 billion donated between 2001 and 2021. Many of those billions went unreported to the Department of Education, according to research done by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP). Under federal law, colleges and universities that receive donations from foreign sources that total at least $250,000 must disclose such transactions to the Department of Education.

Qatar is far from the only authoritarian nation that donates to American universities. According to a Department of Education report from April 2023, American universities and colleges have received $19 billion from unreported sources, more than half of which has come from authoritarian and antidemocratic Middle Eastern governments.

Flouting the law by failing to disclose foreign donations to universities has been declared a “dark money nightmare.”

Former Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos wrote in February 2023:

 “While there’s nothing inherently inappropriate about foreign-sourced gifts, there is a significant reason for concern if these gifts are not disclosed, as required by law.

 “Unfortunately, the higher-ed lobby has made it no secret it opposes true transparency. The American Council on Education — the lobbying organization for colleges and universities — praised the Biden administration in an open letter for ending the investigations we launched into schools that were skirting the law and failing to report sources of foreign money.

 “One major cause for concern is the high correlation between foreign gifts, especially from our geopolitical adversaries, and American universities that are home to major research laboratories, including those with Department of Defense contracts.”

To assess correctly the damage that Qatari influence in the US is causing, it is essential to understand what Qatar stands for and promotes. Qatar has for decades cultivated a close relationship with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is: “‘Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” It aims to ensure that Islamic law, Sharia, governs all countries and all matters.

Hamas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, has enjoyed Qatar as its main sponsor, to the tune of up to $360 million a year, and was until recently the home of Hamas’ leadership. In 2012, Ismail Haniyeh, head of the terrorist group’s political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook, and Khaled Mashaal, among others, moved to Qatar for a life of luxury. This month, likely because of Israel’s announcement that it will hunt down and eliminate Hamas leaders in Qatar and Turkey, the Qatar-based Hamas officials reportedly fled to other countries.

Qatar was also home to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was exiled from Egypt until his death in September 2022. According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

 “Qaradawi is mainly known as the key figure in shaping the concept of violent jihad and the one who allowed carrying out terror attacks, including suicide bombing attacks, against Israeli citizens, the US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes. Because of that, he was banned from entering Western countries and some Arab countries…. In 1999, he was banned from entering the USA. In 2009, he was banned from entering Britain…”

Qaradawi also founded many radical Islamist organizations which are funded by Qatar. These include the International Union of Muslim Scholars, which released a statement that called the October 7 massacre perpetrated by Hamas against communities in southern Israel an “effective” and “mandatory development of legitimate resistance” and said that Muslims have a religious duty to support their brothers and sisters “throughout all of Palestine, especially in Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and Gaza.”

Qatar is still home to the lavishly-funded television network Al Jazeera, founded in 1996 by Qatar’s Emir, Sheikh Hamad ibn Khalifa Al Thani. Called the “mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood,” Al Jazeera began the violent “Arab Spring,” which “brought the return of autocratic rulers.”

In 2017, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt made 13 demands of Qatar: “to cut off relations with Iran, shutter Al Jazeera, and stop granting Qatari citizenship to other countries’ exiled oppositionists.” They subsequently cut ties with Qatar over its failure to agree to any of the demands, including ending its support for terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Al Jazeera.

The Saudi state-run news agency SPA said at the time:

 “[Qatar] embraces multiple terrorist and sectarian groups aimed at disturbing stability in the region, including the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS [Islamic State] and al-Qaeda, and promotes the message and schemes of these groups through their media constantly,”

US universities and colleges are happy to see this kind of influence on their campuses in exchange for billions of dollars in Qatari donations. According to ISGAP:

 “[F]oreign donations from Qatar, especially, have had a substantial impact on fomenting growing levels of antisemitic discourse and campus politics at US universities, as well as growing support for anti-democratic values within these institutions of higher education.”

In November 2023, ISGAP published a report, “The Corruption of the American Mind: How Concealed Foreign Funding of Higher Education in the United States Predicts the Erosion of democratic values and antisemitic sentiment on Campus.” It found that there is a direct correlation between antisemitism and censored speech on campus and undocumented contributions from foreign governments, notably Qatar. According to the report:

 “At least 100 American colleges and universities illegally withheld information on approximately $13 billion in undocumented contributions from foreign governments, many of which are authoritarian. In institutions receiving such undocumented money:

  • Political campaigns to silence academics were more prevalent.
    — Campuses receiving undocumented funds exhibited approximately twice as many campaigns to silence academics as those that did not.
  • Students reported more significant exposure to antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric.
  • Higher levels of antisemitic incidents were reported on their campuses.
  • This relationship of undocumented money to campus antisemitism was more robust when the undocumented donors were Middle Eastern regimes rather than other regimes.
    — From 2015-2020, Institutions that accepted money from Middle Eastern donors, had, on average, 300% more antisemitic incidents than those institutions that did not….

 “Speech intolerance—manifesting as campaigns to investigate, censor, demote, suspend, or terminate speakers and scholars—was higher at institutions that received undocumented money from foreign regimes.”

Qatar allows Ivy League universities to claim that they receive no funds from the Qatari state. The donations are funneled through the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science, and Community Development, a not-for-profit organization established in 1995 by the Emir of Qatar. This ensures that the foundation can identify itself as a private organization, which enables Qatar to conceal its state funding as private donations.

In a report published this month, “Networks of Hate: Qatari Paymasters, Soft Power and the Manipulation of Democracy,” ISGAP wrote:

 “At the time of writing, the State of Qatar contributes more funds to universities in the United States than any other country in the world, and raw donation totals omit critical, concerning details about the nature of Qatar’s academic funding. For instance, Qatar concentrates its donations within a contained number of elite U.S. universities to maximize its influence. This targeted approach suggests that strategic motivations for instance—to advance Qatari state interests, influence the Qatari strategy—rather than pure philanthropy.”

The issue of Qatar on US campuses, as serious as it is, is only part of a larger picture of Qatari influence in the US and the rest of the West.

Qatar funds US think tanks, such as the Richardson Center for Global Engagement and the Brookings Institution, and infiltrates US media. In 2021, Qatar pledged to invest $10 billion in US ports. According to the US State Department:

 “In recent years, Qatar has significantly bolstered its U.S. investments through its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and its subsidiaries, notably Qatari Diar. In 2019, QIA pledged to allocate $45 billion to U.S. investments; it opened an office in New York City in 2015 to facilitate its U.S. investments. The fifth U.S.-Qatar Strategic Dialogue took place in Doha from November 2022 to March 2023 and further strengthened strategic and economic partnerships and addressed obstacles to investment and trade.”

According to MEMRI, in February 2022, former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim said in an interview that Qatar had many journalists “in different countries” on its payroll.

 “We had Journalists on our payroll. In many countries, we would pay them. Some of them have become MPs now. Others have become patriots. I know them. We would pay [journalists] in many countries. We would pay them every year. Some of them received salaries. All the Arab countries were doing this. If not all, then most of them.”


Robert Williams is a researcher based in the United States.


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Feminist Silence: Hamas’s Sexual Violence

Feminist Silence: Hamas’s Sexual Violence

Nils A. Haug


  • In November 2023, it was reported that the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed the evidence against Hamas “was ‘not solid’ enough to warrant a statement” — to which London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, replied: “How can we talk about eliminating violence against women and girls if we are tacitly saying its acceptable to rape Jewish ones?”

  • Alsalem, from Jordan, claims the charges against Israeli forces are “reasonably credible,” but refuses to divulge the source. In reality, no credible or proven instance of this behaviour by Israel’s forces in Gaza since October 7 has been publicly recorded.
  • “Organizations that fight for LGBT rights condemned the country that allows freedom, and marched for a terrorist organization that punishes gay people with death.” — Jared Kushner, townhall.com, March 7, 2024.
  • “Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.” — Paul Johnson, historian, thepublicdiscourse.com, January 23, 2023.
  • Early women’s liberation movements, forerunners to present feminist activism, were founded to proclaim women’s rights to social equality. Radical feminism, as a narrow expression of the original movement, fails spectacularly in exemplifying society’s moral and ethical precepts. Its advocates appear to prioritize narcissistic, egocentric identity ideologies over the sanctity, dignity, and ontological security of the individual woman.
  • “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” — Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, December 10, 1986.


For all advocates for women’s welfare, especially in the area of sexual violence, the crucial concern at this time should be the terror perpetrated on defenceless females of all ages through acts of sexual depravity, torture, and death by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Pictured: A demonstration outside of United Nations headquarters in New York City on December 4, 2023, labeled “#MeToo unless you are a Jew,” protesting the UN’s silence about sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists against Israeli women and girls. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)

In November 2023, the UK Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy penned a poem, “We See You,” celebrating the triumph of female soccer players. Success of women in traditional men’s sports is certainly something to celebrate. Even so, a Poet Laureate’s task is surely also to reflect deep contemporary issues affecting the nation. Duffy, a devoted feminist, gender activist, and supporter of the oppressed, has yet to address the most seminal issue of the moment for women’s welfare: the horrific and systemic gender-based violence suffered by innocent Israeli girls and women, many raped to death, abused, tortured, massacred, with their sexual organs carved from their bodies by Hamas murderers on October 7, 2023. Perhaps she still might comment or pen an emotive poem, perhaps not.

The reality is that for all advocates for women’s welfare, especially in the area of sexual violence, the crucial concern at this time should be the terror perpetrated on defenceless females of all ages through acts of sexual depravity, torture, and death by Hamas in Israel on October 7.

The moral obligation of lovers of peace, and those who hold to the sanctity of human life, is to speak out against injustice. This is particularly so in crimes of violence against the defenceless. It is therefore fitting to expect women’s rights groups to speak out on behalf of traumatized females of all ethnic and religious categories. This approach was ratified in by Nobel Peace Prize winner Eli Wiesel in his 1986 acceptance speech:

“We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

Archbishop Charles Chaput remarked that “tolerating grave evil within a society is itself a form of serious evil.”

By and large, citizens of many nations are outraged at the lack of widespread condemnation of atrocities purposefully inflicted on vulnerable females of all ages, from toddlers to seniors, by Hamas terror squads on October 7. Particularly shocking is the paucity of denunciation by post-modern Western feminists. To his credit, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately issued a statement to the effect that Hamas violence against Israeli women was “beyond anything that I’ve seen.” In an oblique allusion to Wiesel’s principle, Blinken questioned “why countries, leaders, international organizations were so slow to focus on this.” Blinken, however, overlooks the inference that the Biden Administration’s promotion of leftist, neo-Marxist, identity construals, particularly that of radical feminism, could be a pertinent factor.

In November 2023, it was reported that the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Reem Alsalem, notwithstanding overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed the evidence against Hamas “was ‘not solid’ enough to warrant a statement” — to which London’s Victims’ Commissioner, Claire Waxman, replied:

“How can we talk about eliminating violence against women and girls if we are tacitly saying its acceptable to rape Jewish ones?”

That is the crux of the matter, namely, widespread hypocrisy, apparently emanating from pervasive anti-Semitism, which intersects with anti-Zionism and extreme feminist gender ideology.

The following instances clearly show the prejudice of certain women’s groups when it comes to Jewish and Israeli victims of sexual violence arising from October 7 events:

  • For two months after October 7 terror, representatives of the UN Women’s Agency for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment refused to meet with an Israeli women’s group, despite the Agency’s laudatory slogans of “a global champion for women and girls” and women’s “right to live free from violence.”
  • During the last days of November 2023, the women’s rights group, UN Women, eventually issued a statement criticising the “numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” perpetrated by Hamas on October 7. This statement was released nearly eight long weeks after the event and, no doubt, solely due to pressure from concerned human rights groups. A critic of UN Women, lamented their silence on the issue, “It seems like they forgot they fighting for all women; and if they are not fighting for all women then they are fighting for none.”
  • On November 20, Miriam Schler, director of a Tel Aviv crisis center alleges international women’s rights groups largely remain silent and “bend over backwards to justify atrocities and rationalize rape.”
  • Samantha Pearson, Director of the University of Alberta’s Sexual Assault Center, “signed an open letter denying women were raped by Hamas terrorists.” She was later fired from her post;
  • The UK’s Sisters Uncut ­claimed that allegations of sexual assault against Israeli women on October 7 were “Islamophobic and a racist weaponization of sexual violence”;
  • The US National Women’s Studies Association, while condemning gender violence in war generally, failed to mention the sexual assaults against Israeli women;
  • Typical of many prominent feminists, Pramila Jayapal, US Representative (D-WA) and human right’s advocate “hedged her condemnation of Hamas’ terrorists raping Israeli women” when interviewed on CNN, December 3. She refused to unconditionally censure Hamas’s actions.
  • A month after October 7 events, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women was celebrated by the UN internationally. At various related “conferences, roundtables and events,” not one “word against these horrible acts that have just recently been committed on Israeli land was made, and it is a real shame on them,” claimed Ms. Granot-Lubaton, a concerned protestor in New York. No resolution was passed condemning Hamas’s mass rape and sexual assault against the innocent girls and women of Israel;
  • Despite a widely-released statement on October 13, 2023, by the Physicians for Human Rights recounting October 7 instances of rape and torture of females, both young and old, the UN and feminist rights groups mostly remained silent on the issue.
  • In early December 2023 and due to Israeli insistence, the UN convened a session in New York to investigate Hamas’ sexual crimes. Against much opposition, the former CEO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, together with US Democratic Senator, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, addressed the meeting. Sandberg said, “If we can’t agree that rape is wrong, then we have accepted the unacceptable.” Her colleague, Senator Gillibrand, expressed she “nearly choked” when she saw “how many women’s rights organizations chose to stay silent.”
  • It was only on March 4 2024, some five months after October 7, that the UN compiled a report acknowledging, “clear and convincing information that sexual violence including rape, sexualized torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Predictably, arising from interviews conducted in Palestinian occupied areas of the West Bank, the UN asserted “cruel, inhuman and degrading” actions by the IDF like “sexual violence in the forms of body searches and threats of rape.” It is believed the allegation emanates from conspiracy theorist and virulent anti-Semite Richard Falk via his foundation, Euro-Med Monitor. The UN Rapporteur Alsalem, from Jordan, claims the charges against Israeli forces are “reasonably credible,” but refuses to divulge the source. In reality, no credible or proven instance of this behaviour by Israel’s forces in Gaza since October 7 has been publicly recorded.
  • Notwithstanding the report, the UN Secretary General António Guterres has not summoned a meeting of the Security Council “to declare Hamas a terror group and place sanctions on its supporters.” Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded that Israel has not heard “one word” from Guterres on the issue of sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas.
  • On March 6, 2024, former adviser to President Trump, Jared Kushner pointed to the hypocrisy of progressive feminists concerning Jews and Israel: “When women were brutally raped on October 7, most liberal women’s groups in America stayed silent.” Kushner then highlighted the irrationality and anti-Semitism of gender ideologues, “Organizations that fight for LGBT rights condemned the country that allows freedom, and marched for a terrorist organization that punishes gay people with death.”
  • On November 27, 2023, former Italian parliamentarian, Fiamma Nirenstein, suggested that the primary cause of feminist silence — and the absence of feminist-led protest marches, against Hamas’s sexual violence — is unmitigated Jew-hatred.
  • Hamas’s diabolical stance on sexual terror was further exposed on March 6, 2024, when spokesman Osama Hamdan denied October 7 sexual assaults on innocent females. “[T]he woman who wrote it should be fired”, he said; then alleged that one of them underwent cosmetic surgery because she thought that she was not assaulted because she was not pretty enough.”

To be expected, radical feminist groups rebel against criticism of their failure to firmly condemn Hamas’s sexual assaults. An article published February 29, 2024 in Portside Magazine, by an anonymous group, projected the blame onto Israel:

“Israel’s current campaign to discredit feminists – especially feminists of color, Arab feminists, and Jewish anti-Zionist feminists – and others critical of its lethal offensive against Palestinians is insulting and dishonest, but it is nothing new.”

They did not write a single word condemning Hamas’s use of systemic rape and mutilation as terror.

In striving for purported social justice, contemporary radical feminists seem to perceive crucial issues like race and gender through the lens of “critical race theory.” In terms of ethnicity, social revolutionaries allege that Western culture is systemically biased against minorities. The feminists themselves, however, are biased against Jews. Typical Marxist revolutionary policy dictates that the oppressed class, the “workers,” should overthrow the masters, the “captains of industry” who control them. For feminists, the same principles apply to issues of gender. In their solipsistic view, a reset society along lines that are supposedly more egalitarian is required, thereby entrenching a bigoted form of social justice.

Marxian class-dualist theory, the foundation of identity politics, ostensibly provides its followers with an ideological basis for viewing Palestinians as an oppressed class. This doctrine might explain the vociferous October 13 march in Hebron by Palestinian women, who are often all too familiar with femicidal crimes, in support of Hamas’s attacks against Israeli females. These Palestinian feminists perhaps identify with Hamas as social liberators irrespective of terror heaped upon innocent females in the process, and possibly understand their own role in the conflict as part and parcel of tribal solidarity. Even so, their manifest Schadenfreude — their delight at the sexual violence perpetrated upon females of a differing faith — is there for all to witness.

In publicly aligning with terrorists, these Palestinian women, possibly feeling an obligation to their society, then go on to raise children as indoctrinated as they are, modelling to them a future of hatred and violence.

Erika Bachiochi, a lawyer, criticizing post-modern feminism, noted that the “enduing moral principles” which earlier feminist movements “employed to make a reasoned critique,” no longer exist. Instead, she said, the aims of contemporary, woke, feminists are “bereft of noble purpose and ultimately dangerous.”

Historian Paul Johnson also decried the primacy of ideology generally:

“Above all, we must at all times remember what intellectuals habitually forget: that people matter more than concepts and must come first. The worst of all despotisms is the heartless tyranny of ideas.”

Early women’s liberation movements, forerunners to present feminist activism, were founded to proclaim women’s rights to social equality. Radical feminism, as a narrow expression of the original movement, fails spectacularly in exemplifying society’s moral and ethical precepts. Its advocates appear to prioritize narcissistic, egocentric identity ideologies over the sanctity, dignity, and ontological security of the individual woman. They resent certain categories of other females, especially those who are not supporters of gender ideology, such as women who celebrate gender differences; women who have a high opinion of the nuclear family and their pivotal role in fostering it; women who understand civilization is founded on the crucial roles of wife, mother and family; and women who celebrate their femininity.

Finding ideological origins within cultural Marxism, these feminists seem to favour the underdogs of society, which is probably how they view themselves. They extol victory over the oppressive establishment whether by Hamas or any other revolutionary group. Revolutionary movements that result in rearrangement of the culture’s systemic bias against some minority groups — but not others — and which are supposedly essential for attaining equality and social justice, are, in their view, to be glorified.

Radical feminist ideology is directed at all Western societies, with the religious precepts underpinning society’s values a prime target for eradication. This is especially true against the Jewish people, as custodians of foundational values and purveyors of a reliance on facts, a trait many might find inconvenient. As in all instances where the termination of the Jews and their ancestral homeland is sought, the seminal issue is one of faith, land, and historical evidence. The exclusive claim by all revolutionary movements to legitimacy, purporting to act in the interests of fairness, freedom and economic opportunity — as with Lenin’s Russia, Mao’s China, Castro’s Cuba or Chavez and Maduro’s Venezuela impoverishing their people — makes Judaism a crucial target.

What else can be said to these “liberators of women of the world,” these campaigners for women’s rights, these supposed opponents of gender-based violence, these vociferous feminists allegedly in pursuit of social justice, and self-proclaimed advocates of the “sisterhood of all women” but, yes, “We see you” and your silence shocks all who actually do care about justice to the core.


Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A trial lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political theory interconnected with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology. Dr. Haug is author of Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity; and Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age. His work has appeared in First Things, The American Mind, Quadrant, Minding the Campus, and Gatestone Institute.


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