I came across a tweet recently that reads: “reminder that rape is used a weapon of war on a regular basis because it is one of the most demoralizing, terrifying and life-changingly traumatic things that can happen to a human being.”
This post was in light of the gruesome sexual assault case coming out of Cornell University, and it really stuck with me. I’ve spent the past few years reading and talking about the experiences of Palestinians as they face every kind of abuse from Israeli soldiers and settlers. It is not lost on me that the vehicles used by the patriarchy to suppress women, like rape, are unfortunately present in every aspect of our society — the same society that has manufactured consent for a genocide in Palestine. From college campuses to Palestine, we are seeing sexual and gendered violence being intentionally used to strip human beings down to the barest parts of themselves.
It is this system of imperial patriarchy that cultivates a world in which two situations are allowed to occur simultaneously: A college girl can be drugged and sexually assaulted for 7 hours, and women and men in Palestine can have their bodily autonomy ripped away from them as a tool of genocide. In both cases, the victims have been dehumanized by the outside world to such an extent that they are now an other.
And in both cases, their perpetrators and assailants can leave the crime scene unscathed, with their hands clean.
This summer, the Palestinian Feminist Collective released a report on the harrowing sexual and gendered violence Palestinians have faced during 70+ years of occupation, and increasingly so in the past three years of accelerated genocide. Israel has always treated its military personnel and settlers with impunity, allowing them free rein to sexually torture Palestinians. With extensive evidence, the report concludes that Israel systemically uses sexual violence as a method of genocide.
The stories that are recounted in “A Predatory State,” by both Palestinian men and women, are absolutely terrifying. When read all together, the pattern is plain and clear: Israeli soldiers and personnel operate within a dynamic of power where they believe they have complete authority over another human being. This results in gruesome and grotesque behaviors like sexual coercion, assault, harassment, and even enslavement. Palestinians are subjected to these abuses any time Israelis show up to steal their homes, massacre them, and round them up in mass-imprisonment campaigns.
I came across a tweet recently that reads: “reminder that rape is used a weapon of war on a regular basis because it is one of the most demoralizing, terrifying and life-changingly traumatic things that can happen to a human being.”
This post was in light of the gruesome sexual assault case coming out of Cornell University, and it really stuck with me. I’ve spent the past few years reading and talking about the experiences of Palestinians as they face every kind of abuse from Israeli soldiers and settlers. It is not lost on me that the vehicles used by the patriarchy to suppress women, like rape, are unfortunately present in every aspect of our society — the same society that has manufactured consent for a genocide in Palestine. From college campuses to Palestine, we are seeing sexual and gendered violence being intentionally used to strip human beings down to the barest parts of themselves.
It is this system of imperial patriarchy that cultivates a world in which two situations are allowed to occur simultaneously: A college girl can be drugged and sexually assaulted for 7 hours, and women and men in Palestine can have their bodily autonomy ripped away from them as a tool of genocide. In both cases, the victims have been dehumanized by the outside world to such an extent that they are now an other.
And in both cases, their perpetrators and assailants can leave the crime scene unscathed, with their hands clean.
This summer, the Palestinian Feminist Collective released a report on the harrowing sexual and gendered violence Palestinians have faced during 70+ years of occupation, and increasingly so in the past three years of accelerated genocide. Israel has always treated its military personnel and settlers with impunity, allowing them free rein to sexually torture Palestinians. With extensive evidence, the report concludes that Israel systemically uses sexual violence as a method of genocide.
The stories that are recounted in “A Predatory State,” by both Palestinian men and women, are absolutely terrifying. When read all together, the pattern is plain and clear: Israeli soldiers and personnel operate within a dynamic of power where they believe they have complete authority over another human being. This results in gruesome and grotesque behaviors like sexual coercion, assault, harassment, and even enslavement. Palestinians are subjected to these abuses any time Israelis show up to steal their homes, massacre them, and round them up in mass-imprisonment campaigns.