content warning: involving discussion of rape/sexual assault although as the title implies, there is no convincing evidence that any of this has actually occurred.
note: and I promise you person about to link something, it’s not convincing evidence, I read a lot of news including mainstream news, there is none as of the time I am posting this and if you believe some of the lurid, unsubstantiated (and frankly racist) atrocity propaganda fantasies spun up then propogated by the BBC among other outlers, I have a bridge to sell you.
The lack of any evidence of “mass rape” perpetrated by Hamas members on October 7 hasn’t stopped Israel from weaponizing these accusations to legitimize its genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.
and the closing paragraph
But it extends further than that. The reliance on lazy Orientalist caricatures of Arab men as savage sexual predators is both cunning and destructive. The implication that brutality and sexual depravity are intrinsic characteristics of Arab men and Arab people suggests that Palestinians are, inherently and irredeemably, an evil race, and their total annihilation, therefore, is justifiable. Manufacturing consent for a genocide works only when the genocide of a people is not regarded as a loss, and the eradication of their culture, their history, and their humanity is an act that renders the world a better place. The stigmatization and dehumanization of indigenous men and men of color is not new. It is an agenda that is all too familiar, and we must resist it.
Perhaps there is something between “do nothing” and “do a genocide” which might have actually been appropriate. Who knows.