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NEW YORK, New York (CC) - Israel’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations led an event, attended by hundreds of people at UN headquarters on Monday. The gathering was designed to help raise awareness about the sexual crimes Israelis insist that Islamic Hamas committed against Jewish women during the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Jerusalem has been at odds with UN leadership, in general, for the last few years. Israel's diplomats have consistently accused the world body of blatant bias against Israel, while the UN denies the accusations.
Recently, Israel has accused the UN of ignoring sexual crimes against Jewish women.
"Hamas used rape and sexual violence as weapons of war. These were not spur-of-the-moment decisions to defile and mutilate girls and parade them while onlookers cheered; rather, this was premeditated,” Israel's UN Ambassador, Gilad Erdan, said near the beginning of the gathering.
“Sadly, the silence of international bodies who are supposedly defenders of women has been deafening."
Israel says the evidence of Hamas using rape as a weapon of war is mounting.
But Hamas claimed, on Monday, that the accusations of sexual violence belong to “Zionist campaigns which promote unfounded lies and allegations to demonize the Palestinian resistance.”
Hamas is a terrorist organization, designated by the U.S. and several other nations. Meanwhile, the Gaza-based group also has its supporters, including Russia, Syria, Iran, Qatar and other Arab nations.
Erdan, who initiated the special session at the UN, reportedly told the Times of Israel that he picked UN headquarters for the event to “highlight the hypocrisy and double standards of UN Women and other UN agencies that completely abandoned Israeli women assaulted by Hamas.”
Outside the event, demonstrators and protestors gathered to support both Israel and Hamas.
December 4, 2023: Demonstrators during a '#MeToo unless you are a Jew' protest outside of UN headquarters in New York City. (Charly Triballeau / AFP)
The fog of war continued to gather, as it is not clear which side is telling the truth. If there is a middle ground between truth and lies in the current Arab-Israeli war, then that is foggy too.
If Israel has evidence, then it would help its cause to show it to the world. Likewise, for Hamas.
Until then, Christians continue to watch and pray for the nation of Israel, because they are our brothers and sisters in the Gospel of Peace that unites believing Jews and Gentiles under the reconciling, saving grace and eternal life-giving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
These are violent times in the nation where the Lord God of Israel both chose a people to worship Him and to be their God. The place where Jesus Christ was born, ministered and conquered brutal death.
“On October 7, Israel suffered its most brutal massacre since the Holocaust; the atrocities were more barbaric than ISIS, some say more than the Nazis,” Erdan said. “Families were burned alive, children executed in front of their parents and parents executed in front of their children."
“I have been representing Israel here for the past three-and-a-half years, and have never witnessed such terrible behavior from UN agencies. They are openly discriminating against Israeli women,” he continued.
UN Women, the UN branch for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, has been wishy-washy in its support for Israel, according to Jerusalem. Jewish officials say that the women's advocacy organization appears to be playing both sides of the fence in the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel's Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, recently called on UN Women’s executive director Sima Sami Bahous to resign.
Democratic US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand attended the event that was keynoted by former Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, founder of Lean In, a women’s rights and advancement group.
“It’s important that we are giving a voice to the women raped and murdered on October 7, and it is important that we are speaking truth to power in this place at this time,” said Gillibrand. “When I saw the list of women’s organizations that said nothing I was shocked. Where is the solidarity for women in this world?”
“The horrific acts by Hamas are indescribable, I’ve seen much of the raw footage. The sheer level of evil, you can’t unsee it; it haunts you,” Gillibrand continued. “While it is hard to tell these stories, we must collectively ensure that the world knows the heinous, barbaric nature of Hamas. We must ensure this is engraved in history for all time.”
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