This is what broke me.

 

This is what broke me. 

Silly fool me, I figured I'd 'catch up' on what's happening in the world by checking Twitter (I mean X) before heading to bed, a few days ago. I saw this report on how women had been raped by the Hamas terrorists on October 7th. Not just one rapist, but many. Not just a man or multiple men using their body parts to do the rape, but evidence that they used other things as well. I believe the report mentioned knives, and other things too. Evidence that women were alive when that happened, or alive for at least part of it. 

It broke me. It made me scared to go to sleep in my own bed. Scared because I was worried that I'd have nightmares based on what I'd read, and scared because being asleep means being unable to run from possible attackers. No, I'm not in Israel. But I'm still a woman, and there are fanatics the world over. Fear isn't necessarily rational, it just is.

Let me be honest: As a person and as a human being, this report was hard to read. As a woman, it hurt to read it. So. Very. Much. Just to think that someone could do this to me, to friends and family members, or to total strangers I've never even met... Just thinking about the possibility horrifies me. Terrifies me. Yet, this is what happened to captured Israeli women, many of them innocent civilians, on the 7th of October. Because why? Because some men decided that rape would be an acceptable weapon to use? A way to scare people? A punishment? A reward for the terrorists? I don't understand it. And maybe I never will.  

 When I started writing this, I intended to find the post on X and attach it to this post. Now, I've changed my mind. I'm not adding the post. Not because I don't want to share it, but because I don't want to see it again. I am actively avoiding it.  

Now, let me be clear: There are, so I believe, many innocent CIVILIANS in Gaza who are being hurt, being killed, simply because they can't leave. Simply because they can't get away. Simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Simply because terrorists won't allow them to leave, or simply because Hamas forces them to be somewhere, serving as human shields. As numbers, as statistics, instead of as people. That is wrong. Period. It is not right, never ever right, for innocent people to be caught in between two opposing armies, two opposing ideologies, and to suffer because of it. Just as it is wrong for men to use rape as a weapon, as a scare tactic, as a deterrent, as a warning... Because no matter how they try to justify it, the truth is: They can't. Not ever.

On the 7th of October, some 1200 people were killed while at home, while at a music festival, while going about their daily lives, while serving their country. Men. Women. Children. Babies. Not soldiers for the most part, but civilians. Innocent, normal,  regular people just living their lives. Gunned down. Murdered in cold blood. Killed, simply for who they are and for where they happen to live. 

The babies and children who were killed, they never served in an army, they were not combatants. They were innocents. And yet... They were still killed by men who invaded their cities, their communities, their homes, bent on killing as many Jews as possible. Because face it: What happened on October 7th was a hate crime. 

When will "Never again" actually mean "Never again"? 

My parents' generation, born in the years after World War Two, they promised the world "NEVER AGAIN" after SIX MILLION Jews and many more people of other minorities were killed during the war. Yet "Never Again" seems to have turned into "Just, oh you know, when we feel like raping and killing innocent people and call it 'resistance' in an attempt to justify our actions and garner support from others for our cause while pretending we're not some of the most vile human beings on the planet." How is that right? How is that just? And how can so many in the west actually buy that rape and torture are acceptable because the ones doing the raping and killing call themselves freedom fighters?

Let me be clear, once more. I am categorically opposed to the rape, torture and slaughter of other human beings because they do not share my opinions, my preferences, my language, my culture, my beliefs, my religion... 

Be they Israeli or Palestinian: I stand by my words.

Be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian or another religion: I stand by my words.

Be they male or female, old or young: I stand by my words.

Slaughtering others because of who they are, who they were born to, where they were born, what they think, what they feel or what they believe,  is never the answer. It is not, and will never be the answer. It is not, and will never be the way to achieve peace, understanding, mutual cooperation, mutual understanding & respect. 

As a woman, and as a person who pretty much has always thought that 'when I am home, I am safe' yet got confronted with reality only a few weeks ago... This is what broke me.