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This month, Roger Waters repeated the malicious fiction that there was "no evidence" of Hamas raping or committing sexual violence against Israeli women on Oct. 7.
For me, the erasure of the victims of Oct. 7 is personal. Over the past several months I have been working with the Dinah Project to help process the evidence of these very crimes so that Israel can prosecute Hamas suspects in Israeli criminal courts. There is plenty of it.
The "no evidence" argument can be summarized simply: Israeli women, eyewitnesses and first responders said Hamas committed sexual violence. Independent investigators from the United Nations and others reported widespread evidence of sexual violence. Misogynists in the West say that everyone is lying.
It's clear that Mr. Waters isn't actually interested in evidence. This is not someone who understands how reports or court cases on sexual violence in conflict work. His sole interest is to spew venom at Israeli women and those who care for them.
The movement he helps to lead has spent nine months both denying the existence of evidence and excusing sexual violence as a legitimate means of "resistance." And yet Waters' twisted idea of how to help the Palestinian cause will harm many Palestinian women in the long run.
The situation for women in Gaza was already dire before the current war. Under Hamas' rule for the past 17 years, women face sky-high rates of domestic abuse and sexual violence, with human trafficking and child marriages both on the rise. In Gaza, female participation in the workforce is among the lowest in the world, depriving women of agency, while modesty laws restrict core freedoms.
When the dust settles after this war is finally over and the remaining hostages are returned home, it is the women in Gaza who will be left to face the rape culture Waters helped to normalize. Hamas, its allies across the region, and its sympathizers across the world will all be encouraged to see support for rape on ideological grounds. We will see the results in future conflicts and in the day to day lives in the societies where these groups control the lives and safety of women.
While this will be felt deeply in Gaza, it will not be restricted to the Middle East. In France, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was brutally gang raped last month while being pressured to convert to Islam. A new age of ideologically driven rape threatens to imperil women's rights and safety across the world.
The pro-women response to Hamas' sexual crimes—no matter your view on the conflict—is to oppose the threat that Hamas' rule poses to women and girls in Gaza and Israel alike. Sexual violence in conflict is a plague that has spread in war zones around the world. The last thing that women need, from Gaza to Ukraine to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is the normalization and politicization of rape.
If Hamas can be removed from power at the end of this war, both Israeli and Palestinian women will sleep a lot more soundly in their beds. No thanks to the advocacy of Roger Waters.
Ayelet Razin Bet Or is an expert on women's rights and gender-based violence. She is a member of the Dinah Project, investigating sexual violence on Oct. 7.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
