“She deserved to be raped.”

No one I know would ever agree with such a sentiment. Until now. Until Israeli women were the ones raped.

On the UC Santa Cruz campus, I have heard self-proclaimed social justice warriors chanting that any kind of resistance is justified. While blaming the Israeli victims, they excuse the Hamas rapists with the subtle bias of low expectations. Others deny that such sexual violence occurred at all, even though Israeli women and at least one man have bravely described being sexually assaulted.

Although sexual violence against women has existed throughout history, it is only recently that rape in wartime has evolved from a “byproduct” of war, to a policy of mass, systemic violence against the most vulnerable. Think of Bosnia and Rwanda in the ’90s or Japan’s use of sexual slavery during World War II. The weaponization of sexual violence is uniformly condemned — unless the victims are Jewish.

It is undisputed that on Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered 1,200 in Israelis and kidnapped 250 (including women, children, infants, men, the elderly and the disabled) from Israeli towns and from a music festival. The terrorists even filmed it with their own GoPro cameras.

The heinous acts of murder, torture, rape, gender-based violence and abduction spurred the immediate formation of the Civil Commission on Oct. 7 Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, headed by University of Pennsylvania-trained attorney Cochav Elkayam-Levy. The commission collects evidence of atrocities committed against families and of the sexual assaults committed by Hamas during its slaughter.

During my current trip to Israel, I spoke with Einat Reich, chair of the board of the commission. “We have collected evidence of sexual violence during the Hamas attack,” says Reich. “It was completely there — and systemic.” Because of the brutality of the attack, many of rape victims — and witnesses — were murdered, forever silencing their testimony. But actions speak louder than words. Women were found, naked from the waist down, bloodied and with broken pelvises. As a former lawyer, I know that circumstantial evidence can be even more powerful than direct evidence.”

With so much evidence of the weaponizing of rape on Oct. 7, why do progressive defenders of women’s rights refuse to see the obvious — why the willful blindness?

Back here in progressive Santa Cruz, I have attended events where a prominent community member falsely proclaimed that Hamas’ sexual assaults were “thoroughly debunked” and where a local feminist-studies affiliated professor brushed aside the evidence, stating “not many” rapes occurred and dismissed those that had, as more like a few bad apples rather than a tactical trend in waging war.

Instead, it seems that many self-proclaimed advocates of social justice — when it comes to Israeli victims — suddenly align themselves with rape culture, in which our society minimizes the severity of sexual violence and normalizes attitudes and beliefs that defend acts of sexual violence.

The strident denials and assertions that the sexual assault of Israeli women was fabricated or exaggerated by Israeli women is a too similar to the warped conspiracy theories of Holocaust denial.

While the Civil Commission’s investigation is ongoing, Reich and Elkayam-Levy have been presenting the evidence they have gathered so far at meetings at the UN and around the world, seeking moral allies — of people who oppose sexual crimes against women and children. They have also recently published a groundbreaking report on kinocide: “The Weaponization of Families,” which details horrific crimes with the intent to inflict as much pain as possible within the family unit, leaving deep, generational trauma.

“These crimes,” says Reich, “should be prosecuted as crimes against humanity.”

Anastasia Torres-Gil lives in Santa Cruz and is a Steering Committee Member of the Santa Cruz Chapter of Hadassah and is a retired attorney. To read more about the Civil Commission’s work: www.dvora-institute.org.