Article this is response to: https://web.archive.org/web/20240722160555/https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/what-we-know-about-the-weaponization-of-sexual-violence-on-october-7th

Allegations that Hamas used sexual violence as a tactic of war on October 7th continue to stoke controversy. The article above is an attempt to try and walk back/explain some of the more extreme allegations that have either been disproven or lack proof. I'm not here to debate that. Instead, I want to point out how governments and international bodies are ignoring sexual violence committed against (Palestinian) men, and how this is being used to justify/gain support for Israeli actions. From the article:

In May, the ICC requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders alleging that they are responsible for a number of crimes against humanity, including “rape and other acts of sexual violence.” The ICC also filed arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, both of whom he accuses of a number of war crimes, including inflicting starvation on civilians in Gaza. But the ICC has not accused the Israelis of rape, perhaps creating even more motivation for them to amplify the accusations against Hamas: however inhumane the Israeli ways of waging war are, the message is, Hamas’s are even worse.

The ICC has plenty of evidence of sexual assaults by Israeli soldiers, mostly on Palestinian men and boys, but is choosing not to bring charges against Israel. As the article notes, the US State Department has "verified allegations that a thirteen-year-old Palestinian boy was raped in an Israeli prison. A recent Times report on the Israeli military base where Palestinian detainees are held included testimony of what appears to be repeated sexual torture." [note, you have to read way down before the article mentions this] Or you can read here how Palestinian men and boys are stripped naked with their pictures are disseminated on social media worldwide while women and girls are sent to hospitals. UNRWA (a UN body) released a report describing male Palestinians being raped with electrical probes that left them with burns and scarring. The UN's Human Rights Council has reported that "The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against Palestinians since 7 October across [Palestine] indicate that specific forms of [sexual and gender based violence] are part of [IDF] operating procedures. Palestinian men and boys experienced specific persecutory acts intended to punish them in retaliation for the crimes committed on 7 October." Human rights lawyers have received reports of Palestinian men being raped by dogs. Other human rights groups have also reported sexual assaults of Palestinian prisoners by Israeli soldiers and guards. The UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict has also found evidence that Palestinian men are sexually assaulted in Israeli prisons (although note this caveat from their report: The mission team did not seek to gather information and/or to verify allegations in the context of the occupied Palestinian Territory in order not to duplicate the ongoing work of other UN entities in this regard, which will inform the forthcoming annual Report of the Secretary-General on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence. The scope of the mission did not encompass a visit to Gaza, where several other UN entities are present and operating, including some that monitor and address sexual violence. Guess we will have to wait until the end of the year to get a more detailed and comprehensive report on sexual violence against Palestinian men and boys). And this sexual violence against Palestinian men and boys predates October 7th.

This is, in part, because national and international bodies systematically ignore sexual violence against men and boys. For example, the Guardian has this passage on the UNRWA report:

The report included allegations of widespread sexual assault, although not rape...“Another detainee reported being made to sit on an electrical probe, causing burns to his anus, the scars for which could still be seen weeks later,” the UNRWA report said. “He indicated that another detainee had also suffered the same treatment and died as a result of his infected wounds.”

As many of you may know, UK law defines rape solely as penetration with a penis, not a foreign object or "envelopment" and so women can not rape men. Thus, the misandric UK definition of rape also allows them to claim only Israeli women were raped and deny that Palestinian men were.

It is also because violence or potential violence against white women has historically been used to justify colonial and imperialist violence, and the ICC was “built for Africa and for thugs like Putin," not good Westerners. Anything that allows Westerner to view black and brown men as less human ("inhumane') is good, and that includes playing to stereotypes of black and brown men as rapists-in-waiting.

If you would like the ICC to take the allegations of sexual violence against Palestinian boys and men seriously, you can write them here.