Anti-Israel groups show ‘willing blindness’ to sexual violence on Oct. 7, allegations in their ranks, experts say

"Groups ostensibly devoted to protecting women have been accused since Oct. 7 of prioritizing attacking the Jewish state over that mission.

UN Women took some eight weeks to note ’numerous accounts’ of Hamas’s gender-based violence, Amnesty International did not fully acknowledge such violence until December 2025 and feminist and human rights activists wrote in February 2024 of Israel ‘weaponizing the issue of rape’ after Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, the Gaza ‘flotilla’ and other anti-Israel entities are said to have overlooked sexual violence in their ranks, and Hamas is accused of sexually abusing children as a recruitment tactic and sexually extorting widows for aid or money.

David Azerrad, assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale College’s graduate government school, told JNS that people who purport to care about women show their true colors when they prioritize attacking Israel.

‘The cause is so important to them that they will overlook injustices for fear that drawing attention to them would hurt said cause,’ he told JNS. ‘More importantly, it reveals what bad people they are.’

‘They hector and claim the mantle of justice while committing vicious acts and preying upon others,’ Azerrad added.

Mika Hackner, research director at the North American Values Institute, told JNS that anti-Israel activists overlook sexual misconduct accusations, because they have ‘a necessary and willing blindness, so that they can continue to believe that the cause is just.’

‘Any action in its service must be just, too,’ she said. ‘They have fully accepted the idea that it is not for the privileged or the oppressors to question how the oppressed ‘resist.’’..."