Browsing social media yesterday, I was again alarmed by the rampant denial that Hamas and its Gaza hordes had raped Israeli women during the savage Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel. The sheer number of people who try to downplay the evil committed that day echoes despicable efforts to deny the Holocaust. And in similar fashion they seem to believe their own lies.

And these lies are fueled by a mainstream media, even in Israel (looking at you, Haaretz), that at best questions whether or not rape occurred, and often enough joins in the falsehood that Hamas jihadists are too pious to have engaged in such a crime against the Koran.

Proponents of this narrative insist Israel and the alleged victims have not been forthcoming enough with any evidence that would put the question to bed. But have you ever heard of rape victims being so pressured to provide public evidence and speak openly about what happened to them? Of course not. In fact, in every other case, they are shielded from public scrutiny given their fragile emotional state and the feeling of utter vulnerability that rape produces in a victim. But such sensitivity is not shown to Israelis.

See: ‘When it’s Israeli women or Jewish women, they don’t believe it,’ activist says of United Nations

Let’s be clear: The evidence exists. But Israel itself is not so insensitive as to sacrifice these poor women’s mental wellbeing on the altar of public opinion.

Enough experts and journalists have been shown the evidence for it to be accurately reported. The New York Times, to its credit, belatedly did just that. In a podcast I was listening to this week, British analyst Maj. (ret.) Andrew Fox also laid down the truth of the matter in no uncertain terms:

“What rape in history do people demand all the evidence be put out into the public domain? It’s ridiculous. It shows no respect for the victims. There is evidence, and I have seen it. If you go to a base in Israel just north of Tel Aviv called Glilot, they have the sexual assault evidence there which certain people were invited to see. And I’m sad to say that I am one of them.

“I went with a military delegation of senior retired generals from around NATO, and I have never seen grizzled 35-year career soldiers reduced to that kind of fury and horror. It’s the worst thing I have ever seen in my entire life. I get chills just talking about it.

“I won’t go into details about what I’ve seen, but it is absolutely unquestionable that sexual assault happened. That people deny it is disgusting.”

Fox feels that the term “antisemitic” is thrown around a little too often, which risks cheapening the severity of phenomenon. But in this case, he felt it was appropriate: “There is an antisemitism in not believing Jewish women when they say they’re raped.”

Does Islam permit rape?

Many argue that rape couldn’t have happened on Oct. 7, 2023 or during the long captivity of Israeli female because Hamas is a pious Islamic movement, and Islam forbids rape.

But how true is that as a blanket statement?

ISIS and other jihadist movements, some of which now govern Syria, explained quite clearly that it was religiously justified for them to take Yazidi, Christian, and even Shia Muslim women as spoils of war and to treat them as sex slaves.

In 2014, ISIS published an official “Questions and Answers on Taking Captives and Slavery,” in which it determined, based on Koranic texts and Islamic tradition, the following:

• “Allah Almighty allowed the taking of [female captives]. The Prophet and his Companions took them during jihad against disbelievers.”
• “It is permissible to have sexual intercourse with the female captive. Allah the Exalted said: ‘[Except] from their wives or those their right hands possess…’ [Koran 23:6].”
• “The female captive can be bought, sold, or given as a gift, as she is considered property.”
• “If she [the wife of an infidel] is captured and becomes a slave, her marriage is annulled, and the owner may have intercourse with her.”

In video clips Hamas fighters filmed on Oct. 7, 2023, they are heard referring to captured Israeli females as “sabaya,” a medieval Islamic concept that more often than not condemned the victim to a life of sexual slavery. The same term was used by ISIS.

See related: Islam, Sexual Violence and the West

Fringe ideology, or ongoing threat?

Typically when this issue is raised, apologists for the Palestinians will insist “sabaya” is an outdated notion and that those practicing and promoting it are fringe elements. But they are again ignoring the evidence.

ISIS was large and powerful enough, with enough of a global following, to conquer broad swaths of the Middle East. Groups that came out of the eventual splintering of parts of ISIS now rule the country of Syria. They are not fringe.

Hamas remains by far the most popular Palestinian faction, and polls still show the if elections were held today, they’d win, just as they did in 2006. They are not fringe.

Boko Haram ravages northern Nigeria at will, and no one seems able or wiling to stop them. They are not fringe.

If even just 10 percent (a very low estimate) of Muslims support and engage in the taking of infidel sex slaves (rape) as a legitimate act of war, that’s still 190 million Muslims. More than the population of any European country. And if “mainstream” Islam, which purportedly rejects the rape of infidels, is unable or unwilling to take effective action to stop them, then we’ve got a problem, no matter what the apologists say.

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