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Jayapal, who has been a leader on the left on the issue of sexual violence against women, including during the "Me Too" movement, seemed to find the moral equivalence, bordering on justification for rape in what she described as Israel’s “war crimes” against Palestinians: “morally, I think we cannot say that one war crime deserves another. That is not what international humanitarian law says."
Leaving aside the fact that there's no evidence of Israeli war crimes, Bash pointedly noted Jayapal’s diversion.
“OK, with respect, I was just asking about the women, and you turned it back to Israel. I’m asking you about Hamas,” Bash said.
“I already answered your question, Dana. I said it’s horrific,” Jayapal shot back. “And I think that rape is horrific. Sexual assault is horrific. I think that it happens in war situations. Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools.”
“However, I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians,” she continued.
Many credible accounts of widespread rape and sexual assaults by Palestinian terrorists against Israeli women on October 7 have emerged in recent weeks. These accounts are too graphic, detailed, and descriptive for me to quote here but I urge you to watch this report from three weeks ago on CNN. In fact, there are no shortages of reputable outlets where these horrific accounts are available, such as HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
State Department spokesman Mathew Miller even said it seemed that the reason Hamas refused to release all the women who it held hostage was because the terror group didn't want them to tell what they went through while in captivity in Gaza.
So vile was Rep. Prayapal’s dodge on the question of rape and sexual assault in her CNN interview that several prominent Democrats even spoke out against her.
“Hamas terrorists raped Israeli women and girls. The only ‘balanced’ approach is to condemn sexual violence loudly, forcefully and without exceptions. Outrageous for anyone to ‘both sides’ sexual violence," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) wrote Sunday evening on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) also weighed in, saying: "Rape and sexual violence against Israeli women calls for nothing less than unequivocal condemnation. Israel did not invade Palestinian homes and rape and sexually violate Palestinian women. Hamas did invade Israeli homes and did rape and sexually violate Israeli women," Torres said. "There is no ‘balance’ or ‘both sides’ or ‘moral equivalence’ here. Period."
Even the daughter of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) slammed Jayapal: "Do not minimize, excuse, ‘balance’ or ‘both sides’ sexual assault – that is victim blaming we have spent decades trying to undo in the laws, the courts and the hearts and minds of the people," Christine Pelosi wrote on X.
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