[News] UN report launders Israel's fraudulent "mass rape" propaganda

[Anti-Imperialist News]

electronicintifada.net
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/un-report-launders-israels-fraudulent-mass-rape-propaganda/45021>
UN report launders Israel's fraudulent "mass rape" propaganda

Asa Winstanley <https://electronicintifada.net/people/asa-winstanley> and Ali
Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> The
Electronic Intifada
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/electronic-intifada> 7 March 2024
------------------------------
[image: Three people pose in front of a photo collage]

UN official Pramila Patten posing for photos with Israeli politician Gilad
Erdan. (Israel MFA
<https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1754899518296887454>)

Just as Israel’s long running propaganda campaign alleging
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mass-rape-accusation> a strategy of
“mass rape” by Palestinians on 7 October was unraveling at high speed
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ny-times-found-no-7-october-rape-victims-reporter-admits>,
a United Nations official stepped in this week to try to stick it back
together.

The Israeli government is grateful to the official, Pramila Patten, who
released a high-profile report on alleged sexual violence at a press
conference in New York on Tuesday.

It came after a two-week visit to Israel between January and February by
Patten and her team.

This is key timing for Israel. Since December, the most important proponent
of the propaganda narrative has been *The New York Times*.

But as The Electronic Intifada has been reporting, the *Times* is embroiled
in a growing scandal
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ny-times-found-no-7-october-rape-victims-reporter-admits>
over the veracity of its reporting on the issue.

A now infamous article – “‘Screams Without Words’: How Hamas Weaponized
Sexual Violence on Oct. 7
<https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/28/world/middleeast/oct-7-attacks-hamas-israel-sexual-violence.html>”
– has been completely debunked by a small group of independent journalists: The
Electronic Intifada
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-debunking-israels-mass-rape-propaganda>,
*The Grayzone*
<https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/> and
*Mondoweiss*
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/01/family-of-key-case-in-new-york-times-october-7-sexual-violence-report-renounces-story-says-reporters-manipulated-them/>
and the Twitter user @zei_squirrel <https://twitter.com/zei_squirrel>.

And despite several of its writers giving
<https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1764419992018108607> credence
<https://theintercept.com/2023/12/24/feminism-sexual-violence-hamas-israel/>
to the false claims of mass rape, *The Intercept* has done additional
reporting further discrediting the Israeli claims.

In their latest piece on Monday
<https://theintercept.com/2024/03/04/nyt-october-7-sexual-violence-kibbutz-beeri/>,
*The Intercept’s* Jeremy Scahill and Ryan Grim identified and talked to
family members related to two of the three alleged victims of sexual
violence singled out in the *Times* piece.

The family insisted: “It’s not true. They were not sexually abused.”

The family of the third supposed rape victim – Gal Abdush – had already
disowned
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/watch-ny-times-investigation-mass-rape-hamas-falls-apart>
the *Times* article back in January.

The *Times* is facing a growing internal rebellion among its staff over the
article.

An episode of *The Daily*, the widely heard podcast produced by the
newspaper, was canceled in January
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/ny-times-tries-cover-its-7-october-mass-rapes-fraud>
after failing a fact check. *Times* whistleblowers – as well as staff of
Arab and Muslim heritage – are facing a witch hunt
<https://www.vanityfair.com/news/nyt-under-fire-leaks-israel-coverage> by
the paper’s management, who are desperate to stem the leaks about the
internal turmoil.

Pramila Patten’s report, then, seems almost as if it was timed to save the
*Times* and, by extension, the Israeli government and its US government
accomplices.

But contrary to media spin, the Patten report further exposes the claims of
systematic sexual violence as a fraud.
“Solidarity” with Israel

Whatever motive she has, Patten is not the unbiased UN official seeking to
combat sexual violence during conflict that she claims to be.

Israeli newspaper *Yedioth Ahronoth* reported
<https://www.ynetnews.com/article/h1sajwrqa> last month that during her
visit to Israeli settlements near the Gaza boundary, “In each meeting she
attended, Patten consistently expressed her solidarity, empathy and
sympathy towards Israel.”

Patten’s visit was not a formal UN investigation, and the resulting report
presents no new evidence. It is conspicuously vague on specifics and admits
to being based almost entirely on Israeli government and military sources.

A key conclusion buried in the report concedes that the UN team “was unable
to establish the prevalence of sexual violence and concludes that the
overall magnitude, scope, and specific attribution of these violations
would require a fully-fledged investigation.”

As Patten’s report itself notes, Israel has consistently refused to
cooperate with independent UN investigators.

Crucially, Patten and her team were unable to locate a single victim and
did not speak to any alleged survivors of sexual violence or rape – despite
making a public appeal for such survivors to come forward and speak
confidentially and with assurances of safety and privacy.

Notwithstanding all these limitations, Patten’s report claims that there
are “reasonable grounds” to believe rape took place during the 7 October
events. She bases this conclusion on “circumstantial” information which she
claims “may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence.”

The report alleges that Patten’s team saw “clear and convincing information
that some hostages taken to Gaza have been subjected to various forms of
conflict-related sexual violence.”
Smearing ceasefire campaigners

It also asserts that there is “reasonable grounds to believe” that sexual
violence against Israeli prisoners in Palestinian custody “may be ongoing.”

Again, the report does not explain what these “reasonable grounds” are.

Nor does it explain what this “convincing information” is or where it comes
from.

Patten’s report does say her team spoke to returned “hostages” – the
Israeli prisoners released by Palestinian armed groups since 7 October –
but, crucially, *does not* say that any of them claimed to have been
sexually assaulted.

The claim that Israeli captives are being raped does serve a key Israeli
narrative about the need to continue the genocidal war against Gaza.

In a statement <https://twitter.com/giladerdan1/status/1764749418417238155>
on Tuesday Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan made clear one of the motives
for Israel’s intense misinformation campaign seeking to portray
Palestinians as rapists: “The meaning of a ceasefire is to lengthen the
suffering of the hostages. Any call for a ceasefire is blatant support for
Hamas to continue their sexual violence!”

In other words, Israel is trying to smear those calling for an end to its
genocide in Gaza as rape apologists.

Notably, the Patten report repeatedly speaks of “clear and convincing
*information*,” as opposed to *evidence*.
[image: A group of people talk outdoors]

Pramila Patten accompanied by Israeli fabricator and Jewish extremist Yossi
Landau. The UN official reportedly expressed “solidarity” with Israel
during her visit to the settlements. (Israel MFA
<https://twitter.com/IsraelMFA/status/1754899518296887454>)

Considering Patten’s apparently preconceived “solidarity” with Israel, it
is perhaps not surprising that she seems determined to launder the debunked
“mass rape” atrocity propaganda through the UN system.

During Patten’s visit to the Israeli frontier settlements and army bases
that were the target of the Hamas-led military assault on 7 October, she
was accompanied by controversial Israeli figures.

Photos released by Israel’s foreign ministry show that Patten was
accompanied by Yossi Landau, the regional head of ZAKA, a Jewish extremist
group which has been responsible for fabricating
<https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/zaka-is-not-a-trustworthy-source-for-allegations-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7/>
some of Israel’s most lurid debunked atrocity stories since 7 October.

These have included the disproven claim that 40 babies were beheaded by
Hamas.

As *The Grayzone* has revealed
<https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/06/scandal-israeli-october-7-fabrications/>,
Landau was also personally responsible for fabricating the claim that an
Israeli baby was killed after being ripped out of its mother’s womb.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with ZAKA members
<https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/event-zaka231123> in November and
emphasized their important role in Israeli propaganda.

“We need to buy time, which we also buy by turning to world leaders and to
public opinion,” he told the group. “You have an important role in
influencing public opinion, which also influences leaders. We are at war;
it will continue.”

Landau has described his work as a “holy mission.”
Anti-UN campaign

According to a second *Yedioth Ahronoth* article on Wednesday
<https://www.ynetnews.com/magazine/article/ryuruob6t>, ambassador Erdan is
quite pleased with the Patten report.

“Finally, there is someone within the UN who is willing to listen to Israel
and take these concerns seriously, rather than brushing them off and
focusing almost exclusively on the situation in Gaza,” the paper’s
diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner, summarized.

He wrote that “Israeli officials are cautious about openly embracing and
praising Patten for her report,” however “behind closed doors there is
great admiration for her professionalism, advocacy and attentiveness to the
Israeli perspective.”

Patten’s report even admits that it was based on information that was “in a
large part sourced from Israeli national institutions.”

These “institutions,” the report explains, included the Israeli military,
the internal intelligence agency Shin Bet and the Israeli national police.

In other words, the UN is taking the word of the same Israeli armed forces
and spies carrying out the genocide in Gaza, even while Israel uses
provably false allegations about “mass rape” to justify its actions.

These are the same state forces shown to have lied repeatedly, that have
killed more than 150 UN personnel
<https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2024-01-15/secretary-generals-statement-the-press-the-middle-east>
– the largest number of the world body’s staff to be killed in any conflict
– and that have leveled accusations of “terrorism” against UN workers without
producing a shred of evidence
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/unrwa-funding-pause-employees-october-7-hamas-attack-claims-no-evidence-un>
.
“No tangible indications of rape”

Although widely reported in the corporate press as bolstering Israel’s
claims about a Hamas campaign of sexual violence, the Patten report is a
deeply flawed document that makes very vague accusations and recycles
already debunked Israeli propaganda talking points.

But at the same time, it contains multiple admissions about how weak
Israel’s claims are and how some of them are demonstrably false.

The bottom line is that – despite months of intense Israeli propaganda
parroted by a compliant Western press – the report admits that “in the
medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos,” undertaken by the
UN team, “no tangible indications of rape could be identified.”

It also concedes that the UN team saw “no digital evidence specifically
depicting acts of sexual violence” in their own “open source”
investigation, despite reviewing “extensive digital material.”

Not a single specific victim of sexual assault has been positively
identified, living or dead.

In other words, although the common refrain when it comes to allegations of
rape is to “believe women,” in this case, there are still no women to
believe.

The report decries that Patten’s team had a “lack of access to first-hand
testimonies of survivors/victims of sexual violence.” It says that “despite
concerted efforts to encourage them to come forward, the mission team was
not able to interview any of these survivors/victims.”

It asserts – without evidence or details – that “a small number of those
[victims] who are undergoing treatment are reportedly experiencing severe
mental distress and trauma” but does not explain how UN officials know that
such victims really exist.

These vague claims that a handful of victims exist, hidden away, are
reminiscent of those contained in the debunked *New York Times* article
<https://youtu.be/0VvGF9vYnlw?si=Aee2qp-RG4AFJIhq&t=2363>, based on Israeli
government sources.

The Patten report concedes that the number of such alleged survivors
“remains unknown.”

Rather than “evidence,” which Patten’s team did not have the mandate to
collect, the report makes the distinction that they “received information.”
It does refer to “circumstantial evidence,” including the claim that
Patten’s team found that there were “naked or partially naked bodies.”

But the report does concede that “at least two allegations of sexual
violence widely repeated in the media, were unfounded.”

It disturbingly ignores how atrocity propaganda has been weaponized by
Israeli officials, instead treating their claims with unwarranted credulity.

For example, the report recounts that “claims were made in the public
domain” that Hamas had issued pamphlets to its fighters “with instructions
on pronouncing phrases in Hebrew such as ‘Open your legs’ or ‘Take off your
pants.’”

The report concludes that “the mission team was not able to substantiate”
these claims, but ignores the role of the Israeli army in disseminating
this atrocity propaganda
<https://twitter.com/MarioNawfal/status/1724076950967210304>.
Israel’s threats to the UN

Patten’s visit to the Gaza-area settlements came after an unprecedented
Israeli government assault on the UN, accusing the body of not taking the
claims of sexual violence seriously.

But if sending Patten to Israel was Secretary-General António Guterres’
effort to appease Tel Aviv, it predictably has not worked.

Unsatiated by Patten’s report, this week Israeli ambassador Erdan escalated
his country’s threats against the UN.
Speaking on Israel’s Channel 12 he threatened “severe action” against the
UN, including closing its Jerusalem headquarters and deporting UN
officials, if the secretary-general does not now invoke Article 99 of the
UN Charter. Guterres invoked the article in December
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/12/7/israels-war-on-gaza-can-guterress-use-of-uns-article-99-bring-peace>
– a rare move aimed at formally warning the Security Council of the global
threat from Israel’s war on Gaza.

Israel clearly now wants Guterres to invoke the same measure *against* the
Palestinians.

Pramila Patten’s report has done nothing to uncover any evidence to back up
Israel’s claims. It has only handed Israel more deceitful propaganda to
further its genocide against Palestinians and its attack on the UN.

*Ali Abunimah is executive director, and Asa Winstanley is associate editor
of The Electronic Intifada.*
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20240307/5de09d03/attachment-0001.htm>