Palestine: Breaking the silence about rape

Ami Isseroff has written an article that may (with your help) break the conspiracy of silence. It's important enough to be copied in its entirety here.

I am now going to break the silence about what are very probably egregious human rights violations in Palestine.
But first, you must excuse these personal and intimate questions: Are you seeking dialog and solidarity with the oppressed Palestinians? Are you European or American, female, between the ages of 17 and 40?
Uh, er, are you a virgin? (I did warn you that this is going to get personal and intimate).

If you are looking for an adventure of a new and different kind, then you should probably head for the Palestinian territories, where you can do a real service to the oppressed Palestinians and at the same time get first hand experience of solidarity and intimate dialog with Palestinian Arabs, who, it seems, rape American and European female activists.

The stories of rape and sexual molestation of foreign peace activists by Palestinians first appeared in the dovish Haaretz several months ago. Back in July, Avi Isacharoff asked, Are the Palestinians silencing the attempted rape of U.S. peace activist? and then he reported: PA, protest leaders hushed up attempted rape of U.S. activist. That was back in July. Incredibly, nobody noticed these ‘juicy’ stories. The attempted rape incident he reported took place several months before that, probably in March or April in a village called Umm Salmona:

“Omar Aladdin, who had been arrested three months ago over suspicions he had attempted to rape the U.S. citizen, was subsequently released after agreeing to apologize to the young woman. However,  Haaretz had learned that representatives of both the popular protest movement and the PA have since applied pressure on the American peace activist as to prevent her from making the story public.

It was not the only incident. An undated article in Hebrew, by Roni Aloni Sedovnik reported on Betrayal by the left of female peace activists who were sexually assaulted. Aloni-Sedovnik reported an additional case, the ‘severe sexual assault’ of an Israeli peace activist at Sheikh Jarrah. The victim tried to complain, but this time it was Israeli peace activists who shut her up:

“However,  after heavy and unfair pressure from the organizers of the Sheikh Jarrah protest, she withdrew her complaint.

“As if that is not enough to make one appalled at the hypocritical morality and loss of direction, the situation became more serious recently, when the activists organizing the the demonstrations in Bil’in and Sheikh Jarah asked female demonstrators to wear ‘modest dress’ according to the code accepted in Arab villages: Hijab, Burqa or other head covering…

“How did we not hear about this? After all, the phenomenon is known in a broad group of peace activists, so what can we learn from the hushing up of this topic by the media?…

‘Peace’ groups such as Ir Amim that are demonstrating in Sheikh Jarrah and Bilin get U.S. tax deductible donations through the NIF, which supposedly advances ‘women’s rights’ and ‘democracy.’
The two cases are apparently only the tip of  the iceberg.Yehudah Belo wrote, under the dramatic headline, Female leftist activists are raped day after day, night after night about the alleged rape of Scandinavian girls:

“I know of such rape cases from women who are not Jewish: a female European leftist activist, a female Red Cross volunteer and a young Arab woman from Yafo. I met the three of them during reserve service. I met with each of them afterwards… they told me what happens there, in the Palestinian villages, far from any observing eye.”
“It is not a matter of rape to satisfy lust. They are done systematically in order to impregnate the girl, and then to marry her, after she converts to Islam. Of course, we know about this method from girls who underwent a similar process inside Israel and escaped to Europe, but it is hard to escape from the [Palestinian] territories.  Sometimes these women,  some of whom are already older women, are not allowed to leave their homes unaccompanied, in order to prevent their escape. If someone doubts my words…please, check the statistics for entries and departures, and you will discover that a large portion of female leftist activists did not leave the country. Everyone knows about it, but nobody dares to talk about it…
“I ran into a few Norwegian girls married to Palestinians. They are not happy. Their lives were destroyed. Their families have broken off contact with them. They have no place to return to. They are deep in the raising of children and wish to die. I assume there are women in that situation in their own countries and in Israel too. Not everyone is happy, but one might think that a person who grew up in Oslo will have trouble adjusting to life in the refugee camps. She is no longer allowed to be free, to fly about the world as she wishes, or even to be a leftist activist.

Belo pleaded with Israeli womens’ and leftist organizations to help, but so far, none has done so.
The cause was also taken up by Israeli blogger Nimrod Avissar, in a Hebrew article called Thunderous Silence.
These Israeli reporters and bloggers do not all fit the stereotype of right wing settler supporters. Haaretz generally is sympathetic to Palestinians and so is their reporter and analyst Avi Issacharoff. Nimrod Avissar lives in Ramat Gan, not in a settlement. The reports cannot be dismissed. When rumors about Israeli ‘war crimes’ and illegal organ transplants surfaced, they were plastered all over respected journals such as the New York Times and Time magazine, as well as Scandinavian journals, though there was probably not a word of truth to them. Judge Richard Goldstone wrote thousands of pages and made the gravest accusations based on flimsier evidence, causing an upheaval in international justice as well as media coverage. But almost nothing at all has been published in international media about these rapes. No activists took up the cause of these poor women. There were two articles about the rape issue in a respectable journal, but they were ignored. Additional material accumulated, but that too was ignored.
Most belatedly, after several months, the matter was exposed in Israel National News in an article by Gil Ronen in English, called Arabs Harass Female ‘Peace’ Activists; Left Silences Victims.The problem, however, is not to find the culprits for the silence, but to break the silence.
Perhaps ‘leftists’ or Palestinians can be blamed for suppressing these stories, but nothing prevents others from writing about them, as nothing prevented anyone from writing about Carlos Chavez, the Ecuadoran volunteer killed by the Hamas, or Angelo Frumartino, the Italian “peace” activist who came to help the Palestinians and was killed by Palestinian terrorists. Nothing prevented anyone from writing, but almost nobody wrote it seems. A lone blogger noted the attempted rape of the American activist, reported in Haaretz. It is fruitless to blame others for our own apathy and incompetence.
It seems that the mythical Zionist ‘PR’ machine is just that:a myth. If nobody knows these stories, but everyone knows who Rachel Corrie is and who Muhamad al Dura is, we have only ourselves to blame.

Over the years, I have heard plenty of stories, not just about Israeli or European women being raped, but about Arab Christian girls being raped, sometimes with the cooperation of, or on the initiative of, the Fatah Police. I have also seen those earnest Scandinavian Lutheran girls, recruited for the causes of ‘peace’ and dialog,’ standing in a room full of Palestinian young men. What could they have in common?? Why were there no Scandinavian young men? Draw your own conclusions. If it was ‘dialog’ and ‘solidarity’ that they sought, they came to the right place, it seems. I have also seen ominous warnings about ‘modest dress.’
Don’t the charges at least merit further investigation and publicity? After all, if the same charges were leveled at Israelis, there would be a barrage of publicity, regardless of whether they had any truth to them or not. There are numerous specious allegations that Israeli soldiers raped Palestinians. There was even a ‘study’ that ‘proved’ that Israeli soldiers (including the non-Jewish ones) do not rape Palestinians because IDF soldiers are racists.
Surely it is time to break the silence? Won’t Women in Black or Code Pink or perhaps Gila Svirsky’s group (CWP – Coalition of women for Peace) organize a tumultuous demonstration demanding an international investigation?? It is understandable if they keep mum about these stories. But where is the army of Zionist bloggers and journalists who are supposed to publicize these issues? Where are the organizations who take money to supposedly defend Israel? Why is everyone silent??

At least there should be an investigation. Surely, all progressive people will welcome an investigation into the status of women in the West Bank, which is no doubt commendable in every way..
Won’t someone publicize this cause? Won’t someone speak out about this injustice? Won’t someone tour campuses in the United States and Scandinavia to warn the innocents before it is too late?? Won’t someone come forward and break the silence??


Ami Isseroff