The Sexual Assaults on October 7 Omitted From the White House Fact Sheet All sexual assault victims are equal – but some are . . . by Hugh Fitzgerald
Recently the White House issued a Fact Sheet providing what was supposed to be a comprehensive list of sexual assaults carried out in “conflict zones” all over the world. This Fact Sheet did indeed include a great many places where mass rapes have occurred, including sexual assault victims in Ukraine, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, Iraq, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria. But one place was unaccountably, and unacceptably, left out: Israel, where on October 7, 3,000 Hamas operatives from Gaza smashed through the border into the country’s south and proceeded to rape, torture, mutilate, and kill Israeli men, women, and children. A total of 1,200 Israelis were killed, and 260 were kidnapped and taken back to Gaza on the backs of pickup trucks, in cars, and slung over the shoulders of motorcyclists. The sexual assaults were sadistic in nature. Many consisted of mass rapes, followed by mutilation of the sexual organs of the victims, who only then were killed. In some cases, the breasts of women were sliced off and thrown about in a ghoulish game. Men, too, were subject to sexual assault and mutilation, including having their genitalia cut off. The Hamas perpetrators were having a high old time of it — what fun to rape, torture, and murder helpless Yahudim — and they proudly filmed their exploits, so as to be able to show their relatives and friends back in Gaza.
This horrifying assault became known at once all over the world. It certainly made a deep impression in Washington. Yet for reasons we do not know, when at the end of June, the U.S. government released its Fact Sheet on sexual assaults in conflict zones around the world, it left out any mention of the rapes, tortures, and murders of Israeli girls and women by Hamas.
More on this inexcusable lapsus can be found here: “White House Adds Oct. 7 Rape Victims to Fact Sheet on War Zone Sexual Violence After Backlash From Jewish Dems,” by Corey Walker, Algemeiner, June 28, 2024:
The White House has added references to the rampant sexual assault perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during their Oct. 7 onslaught across southern Israel to a fact sheet it recently released on sexual violence in conflict zones following widespread outcry for making no mention of the Israeli rape victims.
The Biden administration updated the fact sheet to include references to Hamas, the Oct. 7 massacre, and the Palestinian terrorist group’s Israeli victims after Jewish Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff (CA) and Dan Goldman (NY) sent a letter to US President Joe Biden criticizing the omission.
On Wednesday, Schiff and Goldman sent a letter to Biden sharing their “deepest concern” that the Israeli girls and women raped and otherwise sexually brutalized by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists were not mentioned in the initial version of the fact sheet. The original version mentioned sexual assault victims in Ukraine, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Iraq, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria….
After receiving the letter from the Jewish lawmakers, the White House swiftly updated the fact sheet to include detailed references of the sexual violence committed against Israeli women on Oct. 7.
The new iteration of the fact sheet mentions the Oct. 7 sexual assaults in the first paragraph and outlines the various ways in which the administration has recognized them….
Congressmen Adam Schiff and Dan Goldman were right to express their astonishment, and deep dismay, at the original version of the Fact List: how could the Israeli victims of mass rape have been completely ignored by those who compiled that list? As soon as their letter was received, the White House, without explaining how such an omission could have occurred, quickly added to the Fact Sheet a reference to the mass rapes, tortures, mutilations, and murders of Israeli girls and women.
That could be the end of the matter. But should it? Many of us would like to know who was in charge of compiling that original Fact Sheet that was made public by the White House. Was the omission of the Israeli victims indeed an innocent oversight? That seems improbable. Was someone hoping to tamp down attention given to Israeli victims of rape — the way the UN Commission on the Status of Women took a long time to react to the stories of Hamas’ rapes and murders? A number of people on the White House staff are known for their deep antipathy toward the Jewish state. Among them is Tyler Cherry, who has been the Associate Communications Director at the White House for the past month, during which time the Fact Sheet was compiled. Did he have a hand in its compilation? Some congressman, or intrepid investigative journalist, should find out And if Tyler Cherry did compile the original Fact Sheet, leaving out the Israeli victims, then wouldn’t that be one more reason — there are several already — for firing him?
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