The Hypocrisy of Silence: When Believing Women Stops at Jewish Women

On October 7, the world witnessed an atrocity that should have shocked every conscience and mobilised every defender of human rights. Hamas militants stormed into Israel, leaving behind a trail of blood and horror. Amid the litany of barbarities—murders, kidnappings, and desecrations—there is one grotesque aspect that deserves particular attention but has been met with an unnerving silence: the sexual violence perpetrated against Israeli women.

For any society that claims to stand for justice, the mere existence of such crimes should provoke universal outrage. Yet, what has followed is not just silence but an active campaign of denial and dismissal. In an age where we are told to “believe all women,” where claims of sexual violence are met with deserved seriousness and sensitivity, the cries of Jewish and Israeli women are met with shrugs, with sneers, or worse—with outright justifications.

How has this become possible? How has the world’s moral compass become so warped that Jewish and Israeli women, subjected to unthinkable violence, are denied even the most basic recognition of their humanity? The answer lies in the perverse intellectual laziness that treats Jewish identity as a repository of all the sins of the world.

Jewish women, particularly Israeli women, are seen not as individuals but as representations of the Grand Other—a construct upon which every grievance, every resentment, and every perceived historical injustice can be pinned. To many, they do not suffer as victims; they are cast, grotesquely, as agents of oppression, even as they endure acts of unimaginable cruelty.

This dehumanisation operates with a chilling efficiency. It allows people who would otherwise champion women’s rights to turn a blind eye, to rationalise, or to simply move on. The intellectual classes, so often eager to dissect power dynamics and oppression, find no discomfort in dismissing these women as collateral damage in the pursuit of their political narratives.

What is particularly galling is the brazen hypocrisy. The same voices that proclaim, “All violence against women is violence against humanity,” suddenly develop a case of moral laryngitis when the victims are Jewish or Israeli. These women, it seems, must first pass a political litmus test before their suffering can be acknowledged.

We live in an era of relentless outrage, where the faintest whiff of injustice sparks protests, hashtags, and think pieces. Yet, when the victims are Jewish women, the righteous fury dissipates. These victims are not invited to the global table of solidarity. Their stories are not amplified. Instead, they are quietly erased, their pain inconvenient to the prevailing political narrative.

How can this be reconciled with the lofty ideals of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women? This day was established to spotlight the universal nature of violence against women, to say unequivocally that such acts are intolerable, regardless of the perpetrator or the victim. Yet here we are, watching the international community fail spectacularly to live up to its own principles.

Instead of outrage, we see moral relativism. “But what about Gaza?” they say, as if the suffering of one group of women negates the suffering of another. This grotesque balancing act, where empathy for one victim comes at the expense of another, is not only intellectually bankrupt—it is morally obscene.

Let us be clear: this silence does not only dishonour the victims of October 7. It emboldens the perpetrators and paves the way for more atrocities. When Hamas terrorists see their crimes met with denial or indifference, they learn that their actions carry no cost. When Jewish women’s suffering is ignored or justified, the message is sent that some violence is permissible, even excusable, as long as it targets the right group.

And what of the broader implications? If the world can ignore or rationalise the brutalisation of Israeli women today, who will it abandon tomorrow? This is not just a Jewish issue or an Israeli issue. It is a human issue, and the silence we hear now will echo through future atrocities if it is not broken.

The international community must acknowledge what happened on October 7. It must call out the sexual violence inflicted upon Israeli women for what it is: an atrocity, a war crime, a crime against humanity and an affront to every principle of human decency. And it must hold accountable not only the perpetrators but also the enablers of this denial—those who excuse or justify such crimes under the guise of political advocacy.

The International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women is meant to remind us that violence against women is a universal scourge. To exclude Jewish and Israeli women from this universal principle is to render it meaningless. If we are to believe all women, as we claim, then we must believe these women too. If we are to condemn all violence against women, then we must condemn this violence too—unequivocally, unapologetically, and immediately.

The fight against violence admits no exceptions. To remain silent in the face of such atrocities is not neutrality—it is complicity. The world must now confront a stark question: does it genuinely stand against violence inflicted upon women, or only when it aligns with political convenience? The choices made today will echo through history, and history will not forgive those who chose silence over justice, who muted their voices when they were needed most.