The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny. Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger report on eight months of claim and counter-claim
Talk of rape began circulating almost before the massacres themselves were over. Much of it came from what Patten would later call “non-professionals” who supplied “inaccurate and unreliable forensic interpretations” of what they found, creating an instant but flawed narrative about what had taken place.
Meanwhile, the political establishment has opened a fresh battle with the UN over what the Patten report didn’t say: that sexual violence was beyond reasonable doubt, systematic, widespread and ordered and perpetrated by Hamas. Israeli advocates for the female survivors are now warning that the country’s refusal to co-operate with a full and legal investigation, which the carefully worded report was not, threatens the prospect of ever finding out the full truth about the sexual violence of October 7 and delivering justice for its victims.
It was not a legal investigation, Patten explained, as Israel had not allowed one: that mandate could only be fulfilled by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which Israel has refused to work with since its inception. She hoped that would change.
Patten made it clear there was sufficient evidence of acts of sexual violence to merit full and proper investigation and expressed her shock at the brutality of the violence. The report also confirmed Israeli authorities were unable to provide much of the evidence that political leaders had insisted existed. In all the Hamas video footage Patten’s team had watched and all the photographs they had seen, there were no depictions of rape. We hired a leading Israeli dark-web researcher to look for evidence of those images, including footage deleted from public sources. None could be found.
I just all of a sudden remembered why I had stopped talking with you about this. 🥲
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
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:
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.
Dude, when an article or comment disagrees with @[email protected] they are suddenly Nancy Drew tearing apart every word in the most detailed class in forensic analysis; however, if something agrees with their narrative opinion blog posts are just fine.
I've stopped engaging with their arguments because it's clear this is only a team sports type of online game. The truth is not particularly relevant to this person.
Yeah I had this sort of sudden moment of clarity just now like dude WTF am I thinking investing this level of time and energy into this person
I think a certain amount of debunking was productive but I think the back and forth is sufficient to speak for itself and I've had a chance to quote enough sections of the report to show what's going on, at this point.
I had this moment of realization when they came out the gate and accused me of Zionism or defending Israel-none of which I care for. In fact I find the actions of Israel despicable in this conflict. It was then that it became clear @[email protected] is more here for the team sports aspect of it rather than having a factual discussion to determine the truth of the matter. Right now the conversation is so diluted not much on the conflict can be discussed here because the team sports value has taken precedence over anything else, and personally I'm tired of playing team sports.
Best of luck.
Yeah. I'm honestly a little bit just curious about how their brain works, at this point.
Thanks for your opinion guy that claims israel is not an Apartheid state.
I've told you multiple times I'm ok calling it an apartheid state. This is like the 3rd or 4th time now. Go back to playing team sports now.
I don't think it's team sports. I think it's one of two things:
I initially thought they were way too committed and energetic about this stance they're taking about the UN report, to be any kind of shill, but now I'm less sure. They're certainly posting with a level of energy and aggressiveness that makes a lot more sense if it's their job, and usually people who have come by their counterfactual opinions organically have some kind of structure built up in their head for why it makes sense to them (Like they would say the UN report is crazy and biased and can't be trusted for some reason -- they wouldn't just insist for 2 days that it says a huge variety of very specific things that it doesn't say, and then just not address it on any level when someone points out the contradiction while continuing to go HAM on arguing about it. The second one sounds more like disinformation poster behavior to me.)
I don't really know. They don't act like most shills (or who I believe to be shills) that I have encountered. Like if you just looked at their comments arguing about Hamas, you probably wouldn't predict that their other singular area of focus in comments would be Biden and the Democrats. But the more that I look back over the conversation + take a look over their user, the more it makes sense to me as an explanation.
(Oooh... I just looked a little further; they also use the phrase "blue MAGA," and if you look back past the current conversation there's a lot more of a focus on Biden and Democrats and quite a concerted effort to link Israel's policies to Biden. The plot thickens.)
I've seen some of the other usual suspects use "blue maga" as well, along with the same biden and democrats rhetoric.
Yeah. It was virtually unknown on Lemmy up until around May 20th, when return2ozma and a few other accounts all started using it at the same time. It's sort of dropped off since then; I think their effort to make it catch on failed. But there are a few accounts that still like to drop it into conversation in perfectly natural fashion every now and again.
I think like a lot of propaganda, it's not meant to have any wild level of success on its own; it's more just one little piece that's designed to combine with a hundred other little pieces to create a sizable overall impact.
Yeah that's a good assessment. It's the aggressive and highly energetic and/or frenetic level to it that is particularly odd.
I've had lots of discussions or disagreements on this platform with various people, but the vitriolic nature of their comments indicates either a) very young person b) aesthetic / team sports argumentation for the sake of argumentation. Like arguing for the sake of arguing. Can be fun for some people I guess.
Yeah. For me the really notable factor is the weirdness of the disconnect. Like if you look at the person's claims and study the flow of the conversation back and forth, it starts to become really obvious that they don't actually have factual belief in the things they are saying. But they still want to continue the conversation and invest a bunch of energy into it. Like, a lot, over a long period of time.
So... why? There aren't too many plausible explanations for those two things in combination, and then coming alongside "blue MAGA" and Democrats this and Biden that, it all of a sudden clicks into focus and it all makes sense. Now that I'm looking at it more, I'm pretty sold on shilling being the explanation.
Well, when I say team sports I mean it as an aesthetic. There are plenty of noble and lofty revolutionary causes to attach onto these days and honestly it's really laudable that young people are becoming more invested politically.
But there is a contingent that in my opinion is only tagging along the ride for the perceived social capital that is gained by joining a team. Right now, Palestinians are victims and targets of atrocities being perpetuated by the IDF. Right now the in-group is committing a sort of map and territory switch where the aesthetic of the cause supersedes the goals it is trying to achieve.
A good example to ground this is political streamer Hassan Piker: He lives in a multimillion dollar mansion, drives a Porsche, and touts himself as a socialist/communist. He has a sickle and hammer backdrop in a lot of his merchandise but he wouldn't be the product of what he is without milking capitalism to its full extent.
That's why when I call out Linkerbaan for larping, I mean it's just an aesthetic or as a performative production. The map has become the territory.
Antonio Gueterres, the head of the UN certainly doesn't believe the things you are saying.
Cool! I love the "Never Play Defense" game, and would be happy to bring some other random assertion into the mix to counterbalance your random new assertion. But, I have exhausted the amount of effort I want to expend on this right now. Another day, sure; feel free to reach out any time.
You keep bringing up the same stale points debunked a million times in every thread. Even in the post it's mentioned the Patten report is not a proper investigation.
You're the one that doesn't want to defend the fact that the UN doesn't acknowledge the Patten report as evidence.
If you are really hankering that badly to continue the pointless back-and-forth, I should be able to provide you with something, just not right now. I will get back to you though. I have an idea that I think can keep you busy for more or less as much time as you want to spend on it.
We're in an article that spent money on a dark web expert to dig up any rape evidence and still didn't find any.
If only those fools from the UN team had spent their money on that, instead of a team of experts in sexual assault who then toured the affected areas and interviewed all those people and reviewed forensic evidence. The answers were on the dark web the whole time. Everyone knows the first thing you learn in Hamas is how to use Tor Browser. Now that you say it that way, it’s completely obvious.
Which forensic rape evidence was found? You're bringing it up so surely you mean to imply there's forensic evidence of rape in the UN report?
Why would I need to tell you? You've read the report, you said, so you would know what is and isn't in it.
A sarcastic response occurred to me, so I let it out, but I'm not interested in continuing the lengthy dishonest exchange where you cosplay as someone who's "winning" (for reasons I still don't really understand.) The interaction is done from my side.
There's a new UN report out. Some interesting reading material for you maybe.
But they did find rape evidence.... of israel raping Palestinians.
My god dude. Okay, sure. This next is a two part message (1/2)
Me
I'd like you to create a report on Linkerbaan's level of good faith engagement in this comment chain. You'll have to be a little bit careful to observe the nested structure of the comments, which ones are replies to which, and then make a detailed report -- in the format of a formally structure report like a UN presentation of fact-finding, divided into chapters, sections, and then subsections where appropriate.
Some of the main chapters I'd like to include are:
Here is the comment chain that I'd like you to summarize in that way. Bear in mind that the topic is a fairly sensitive topic.
(comment chain is redacted)
GPT
Report on the Engagement of Linkerbaan in the Comment Chain
Chapter 1: Unanswered Questions
Section 1.1: Key Instances of Unanswered Questions
Question from @Belastend:
Question from @mozz:
Section 1.2: Repeated Evasion of Specific Queries
Chapter 2: Misrepresentation
Section 2.1: Misrepresentation of Sources
Section 2.2: Misrepresentation of Other Users’ Statements
Chapter 3: Positive Engagement
Section 3.1: Points of Constructive Dialogue
(To be continued, 1/2)
Haha, that is amazing.
But seriously, you're just wasting your time with this clown.
Honestly I was pretty impressed with the level of detail and accuracy it was able to come up with.
And yes I know that looking for productive conversation with this person is looking for sandwiches in a pigpen. I do feel like I wasted a little too much time on it yesterday, but I'm just entertaining myself at this point; this kind of thing is funny to me.
This needs to get in the halls of /bestoflemmy or something.
Second message portion (2/2). This is the recommendations. If you want to keep talking with me, you can start with this section, answering some of the unanswered questions and following the recommendations on how you can engage more productively in the conversation. If you're open to doing that, then sure! Let's rap.
Chapter 4: Recommendations
Section 4.1: Questions for Linkerbaan to Address
Substantive Responses to Specific Questions:
Clarification of Evidence Claims:
Address Misrepresentation Concerns:
Section 4.2: Steps for Productive Engagement
Engage with Nuanced Points:
Provide Clear Citations:
Acknowledge Other Viewpoints:
This structured report aims to objectively assess the engagement of Linkerbaan in the specified comment chain, highlighting areas of evasion, misrepresentation, and providing constructive recommendations for future discussions.
If you don't want to engage on a subject consider not replying to a thread. One can't make false rape accusations and then be upset when they get debunked.
Why are you rejecting my good faith efforts to help you with productively engaging in the conversation
I typed up a whole report just for you Linkerbaan
Which forensic evidence was it again? Couldn't find it in your response.
I hope I have at least brought some entertainment to your working day. Have a good one
Thanks you too mate see you in the next post.
You don't appear to be very okay with it seeing how people calling out israel is a very sensitive subject.
Thanks for your assessment of what appears ok and what doesn't. Your discernment and insight is always top notch!
Thanks it's not that difficult to discern reality from Zionist lies though.
Ok
What exactly are you debunking? You didn't even read the report as you have yet to quote the evidence in it.
If you did read the report you'd find out why the UN isn't claiming there was any rape on oct7 and you'll never hear Antonio Gueterres say it.
You keep failing to answer why israel is blocking the official UN investigation. Pasting the same wall of text over and over again.
I had a feeling you wouldn't want to answer my questions. All good.
I don't think it's a good use of my time to just keep dealing with you indefinitely for any amount of Gish Galloping you feel like doing -- I did offer to answer your questions without dodging, though, so:
Two answers:
Honestly, dude, don't you feel bad about this? A whole bunch of innocent people got raped and are continuing to be raped, and you're over here standing up for the people who did it, trying to spread propaganda implying that it didn't happen, by twisting language around to say well the report that concluded that it happened wasn't a legal investigation, or some other weird little constructions, to obfuscate the very clear evidence which we've already talked about.
My question is, why? Why are you taking that stance? Aren't you against rape, whether or not the investigation that concluded that it happened was a legal investigation or not? I would think that's a pretty easy moral test to pass.
Same wall of text every time. Why is israel blocking the UN investigation?
Thread here
I had a feeling you would not be eager to engage with the question of why you are working so vigorously to defend rape
Which rape? Am I defending israel anally raping Palestinians?