Speaking at a conference on combating weaponized sexual violence in the Knesset last week, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slammed “useful idiots” abroad who “believe everything they see on their phones, but do not believe the horrific testimonies of sexual abuse by Hamas terrorists.” “Throughout history, there has been a conspiracy of silence surrounding sexual violence during war,” he said. This silence, he argued, was a prime culprit in allowing these rapes to continue occurring.
“We came here today to cry out against silence,” he declared. The May 20 meeting, which took place in a packed hall in Israel’s parliament, was convened by MK Shelly Tal Meron of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party, who is seeking to establish an international alliance to deal with issues of wartime sexual assault in the aftermath of the October 7 attack — the Global Women’s Coalition against Gender Based Violence as a Weapon of War. “We are declaring today the establishment of an important historical coalition, of acknowledging sexual violence as a crime of war,” the freshman lawmaker declared.
She argued that, while international law has already recognized this, work remains to ensure that “the cultural and political perception” of such violations changes as well. According to Tal Meron’s office, delegates from France, Ireland, Denmark, the UK, and other countries took part in the discussions, which were co-sponsored by ELNET, an organization working to build ties between I.
