mozz

I'll give it a look later. You linked it in this thread, correct?

Yeah. This is their press release with the quick summary, and this is the full report.

From her words, it looked like the conditions were terrible, but they made efforts to try and minimize the harm. It's likely that the treatment they gave the hostages varied wildly.

Yeah, agreed. I'd imagine there's a lot of variability.

The report talks about what they found interviewing returned hostages on page 18:

71. The mission team reviewed incidents of alleged sexual violence related to hostages in Gaza. Based on the first-hand accounts of released hostages, the mission team received clear and convincing information that sexual violence, including rape, sexualized torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment occurred against some women and children during their time in captivity and has reasonable grounds to believe that this violence may be ongoing.

72. Based on first-hand accounts of released hostages there are reasonable grounds to believe that female hostages were also subjected to other forms of sexual violence.

Israel hosted the UN investigation, both presenting to them their evidence and letting them travel around in Israel to the impacted areas, and letting them go around on their own including visiting the West Bank and meeting with Palestinian representatives.

They did make some effort, apparently, to dictate what the parameters of the investigation and report needed to be, which the report authors rejected which made the Israelis mad. Then they did the investigation and wrote their report anyway.

I honestly don't know what you mean by "blocking the UN investigation," but I suspect that it has to do with the Israeli government's non-cooperation with the investigative team at times, and rejection of a more thorough investigation, which I suspect was caused by them wanting to be able to lie without anyone investigating their lies. To me, that's a positive thing about the report and investigation, not a negative thing. If it's attempting to be objective in a way which angers Israel, including debunking some Israeli lies, then good.

“They are all religious guys; most of them are ultra-religious. They never saw a woman except their wife,” Sulitzeanu says. “So to see all these bodies, how did they deal with that?”

From the report, II(b):

"The mission team was led by the SRSG-SVC with the support of a technical team comprised of nine staff members with relevant expertise drawn from the United Nations system. The technical team included a principal human rights officer that acted as its head; a police expert in criminal investigation; a judicial affairs officer; two sexual and gender-based violence investigators skilled in the safe and ethical interviewing of survivors/victims and witnesses of sexual violence crimes; a forensic pathologist; a digital and open-source information analyst; and two political affairs officers. For certain segments of the visit, the mission team was accompanied by a public information officer. Logistical and security support for the mission was provided by the UN Country Team based in Jerusalem."

Actually, part of the report dealt with debunking not only Israeli government lies which I already talked about, but also some conclusions which were drawn potentially in perfectly good faith by earlier investigators who weren't experts. Maybe some of those people were ultra-religious guys who had never seen anyone but their wives naked, or maybe not, but it doesn't really have bearing on "debunking" the report. As far as I know.

Hamas is not doing it.

We should send a team of expert investigators to assess forensic evidence, conduct interviews all around, and also visit with Palestinian representatives to see what they have to say about it, so that we can assess whether this is objectively true

Oh wait

I just all of a sudden remembered why I had stopped talking with you about this. 🥲

Patten herself says it does not count as legal evidence. This post makes it very clear that the Patten report does not qualify as evidence

Like I said before, "Creating an artificial debate couched in slanted language over, was this a legal investigation or some other type of investigation" etc etc

You have dodged every question the last time around and you keep dodging the question.

Hey fun! I have some questions which you didn't answer last time around. This is sort of bordering on senseless bickering which helps no one, but sure, I'm happy to repeat the questions you avoided answering in the last thread:

• Where in the report did you find information about how the hostages were treated? You claimed to have read the UN report, and then made specific claims about what it said -- where in the report did you find the information you were claiming?
• You made an assertion is that one woman rescued from captivity who doesn't look "very pregnant" has some bearing on whether her or any other women are being raped in custody. Can you tell me more about the logic, why this would follow? I mean I follow the basic premise that "pregnant hostage = rape", I'm just having trouble accepting the contrapositive. Can you explain more?

I actually just asked you that second one, but you dodged it. Want to address it?

(Oh, actually -- third question: "ignore the parts of the report that debunk the entire report." What parts of the report are there that debunk the entire report? Can you explain what you mean here? Like cite the part of the report that you're saying debunks the entire report, and what it says that would debunk the entire report?)

And, like I said, I'm happy to address any question you wanna ask. I thought about citing some times before when I did it with citations and all multiple times, and then you ignored the answers and continued insisting counterfactual things about the report, but maybe that's just getting into the weeds. And likewise, citing the times I asked you a question over and over again and you didn't want to answer it. I think just, ask your question, and I'm happy to answer without dodging.

Some media did rush to claim sexual violence far before they had any evidence of it, especially soon after the 7th of October, which should be scrutinized.

The Israeli government made up some crazy imaginary shit that they had been victims of, because that's in their DNA at this point, and some people in the press believed them who should have known better. But also, there was a flood of victims of the attack who came back saying they had been raped. That infamous NYT story consists of a whole bunch of accurate information and then a couple made up stories from Israel's government, and for some reason everyone remembers it as all made up or a rush to judgement or whatever, when the main thrust of the article was true (as validated by the later in-depth UN investigation which found a shitload of evidence of systemic rape whether sanctioned or otherwise.)

There are differences between: A) Sexual violence committed by an individual or a few, B) That violence being tolerated by their superiors, and C) That violence being supported by their superiors. This distinction is important, since a very large organization having monsters in its ranks isn't statistically strange (and modern, well-run organizations make sure to punish those monsters and bringing them to one form of justice or another), but that organization not taking measures against those monsters or even promoting their behavior is far more serious.

I... more or less agree with this. I think you might be understating the scale of Hamas's sexual violence or the degree to which it's sanctioned by their leadership. But yes, Israel's in more of a position of power, and they're more organized about it; I agree. I honestly don't even want to compare the degree of cruelty involved on the two sides because what's the point; they're both horrible.

Personally, I had no doubt that there would be monsters in Hamas who would abuse the prisoners in their captivity, but the organization itself has an interest in making sure that the prisoners who make it out alive say that they were treated humanely (as we've seen with some of them). Attacking civilians and taking them hostage is already really terrible to start with, but noting what's being done out of logical political goals and what's being done out of sheer sadism is important.

I think you should read the UN report, if you have not. I'm not aware of any attempt at treating the prisoners, or deceased victims of the violence before they died, humanely. From the organization or the individuals. Do you have a source for this, like interviews with hostages where they said they were treated humanely, or something? What's in the UN report describes the exact opposite of that.

I wouldn't try to excuse Hamas just because their root cause is just. Israel specifically props up Hamas and funds them because they are the most violent and corrupt faction in Palestine, and they will do monstrous things which can then be used to "justify" Israel's crimes which it wanted to do anyway.

Although figuring out the most reasonable positions is far more important, in my view.

Honestly, like I say, to me it's not super complicated. Punish the guilty (which in large part means stop shielding Israel from prosecution for their crimes; certainly no one is making much of any attempt to shield Palestine from the consequences of Hamas's crimes.) How to do that and how to arrive at peace is complex, but "is this war crime that whatever people did, a war crime" is a lot simpler: The answer is yes.

They have been chewing through soldiers at a relentlessly steady pace for two years at this point. They started with a famously large army but it would be surprising if any supply of available recruits hadn't been exhausted and then some by now.

Not a Zionist by any means, but happy to answer in case it's directed in my direction

Do you think that Israeli soldiers and leadership should be judged for the sexual assault of Palestinians with the same severity as Hamas members who committed, allowed or promoted sexual violence against their captured prisoners?

Yes. (Actually more severity for a couple of different reasons.)

This is the type of question that's super easy to answer. Yes, anyone on any side who is raping should be punished. That's, honestly, my whole point in getting all up in arms about "let's not worry about that rape because of which side is doing it" narratives like OP's.

Who should conduct the appropriate investigation and trial?

The ICC

There is being deliberately outlandish to move the Overton window… and then there is overshooting by so much that you become pure absurd self parody

I legit thought this was setting up for a joke about how it’s going to become 2025 on January 1st and Biden isn’t doing anything to stop that any more than Trump is

I mean, sure. Modern international law defines it as a war crime if you're not preventing your troops from raping as any kind of common occurrence, which is obviously how it should be defined, but is actually pretty recent that it works that way.

But yes I agree, we could probably charge the commanders with more if we could prove that they were explicitly approving of it. Honestly, thinking of taking half the Israeli cabinet and all of the Hamas leadership to the Hague just makes me sad because of how unlikely it is to happen. But yes that would be a great if that could happen and is obviously the right answer if you look at what either of them have done (and are still doing.)

My point was, it's not like the lack of proof that it was approved by the leadership makes it this kind of "gotcha" like OP's article makes it out to be, by cleverly adjusting the language to slip phrases like "does not stand up to scrutiny" in there without technically lying and trying to say that Hamas didn't rape lots and lots and lots of people. That's why I say it's a skillfully deceptive article; it's honestly pretty impressive how it's put together, in a sick sort of rape-apologist type of way.

And then, when the country is embroiled in a profit-conflagarating civil war, and they personally know people who died in the fighting and they have no idea what they're even going to do, and they have to flee the country and set up in someplace that's still stable, costing them astronomically more than it would have just to deal with the emissions regulations or whatever, it won't be their fault.

It never is. It'll be someone else who created the problem.

This is true but it it's a little misleading. All militaries commit some instances of rape just because they are made of humans, but there's a massive spectrum in terms of the scale and tolerance level for it, dependent on the nature of the army.

Modern international law says that it's a war crime if you as leadership aren't enforcing discipline to prevent your troops from committing sexual violence, which is how it should be.