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By Morton A. Klein
National President, Zionist Organization of America
(June 23, 2024 / Israel Hayom) We were initially pleased to see Vice President Kamala Harris screen parts of Sheryl Sandberg's film; condemn Hamas' "horrific acts of sexual violence" against Israeli women, and call for accountability for all perpetrators of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) at the White House event marking June 17 as the International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict.
VP Harris stated: "We cannot look away, and we will not be silent," and "I saw images of bloodied Israeli women abducted. . . Hamas committed rape and gang rape at the Nova music festival, and women's bodies were found naked from the waist down, hands tied behind their back[s] and shot in the head." VP Harris also called for all "governments, international organizations, civil society, and individual citizens . . . to do what is necessary to hold perpetrators accountable," and concluded that "the bottom line is the use of sexual violence as a tactic of war is unconscionable, and any failure to hold perpetrators accountable is a failure to live up to our common humanity."
But we were horrified that the Biden-Harris Administration simultaneously took at least four hypocritical, discriminatory actions that excluded Israeli women and/or rewarded Hamas instead of holding Arab Islamic Hamas terrorists "accountable."
First, the Biden-Harris actual actions to address CRSV – described in the White House "Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration's Actions to Address Conflict-Related Sexual Violence," (June 17, 2024) – omitted Israeli victims and Arab Hamas perpetrators. The Biden-Harris actions to address CRSV include: helping victims in Ukraine; sanctioning perpetrators in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Haiti, South Sudan and Sudan; renewing and strengthening UNSC sanctions against ISIS and Al Qaeda; and providing more funding to the United Nations ($2.15 million), Sudan ($2.72 million), and Sri Lanka ($1.5 million).
How is excluding Israeli victims of Islamic Hamas' sexual atrocities "living up to our common humanity"?
Notably, evil Israel-haters tweeted that the Biden-Harris actions fact sheet omitted Israeli victims and Arab Hamas perpetrators "because no one was raped." Thus, the Biden-Administration's exclusion of Jewish victims and Hamas gave fuel to the antisemitic, libelous lying deniers of Islamic Hamas' massacre and sexual violence.
The White House discriminatory, exclusionary actions remind us of the saying, "Me too, unless you're a Jew."
Second, VP Kamala Harris used her CRSV event to promote the Biden administration's ceasefire deal, which is likely to lead to Hamas Arab terrorists committing more sexual violence. VP Harris declared: "Hamas needs to accept the ceasefire deal on the table, which would bring the hostages home and lead to a permanent end to hostilities." The ceasefire deal that the Biden administration put on the table leaves Israel with no protective buffer zone in Gaza, enables weapons to freely flow into Gaza within years, and releases approximately 6,000 (!) convicted Jihadist Hamas and other Palestinian Arab terrorists, rapists, torturers and murderers. We shudder to think of the sexual atrocities that these unrepentant terrorists will perpetrate if they are released. How is this holding Hamas "accountable"?
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