Melanie Joly’s “believe Israeli women” post is actually a justification to slaughter more Palestinian women. But it’s not the first time Canada’s foreign minister has hyped rape allegations to enable violence.
By any criteria, Israel has unleashed sheer horror against the women of Gaza. Over 5,000 have been killed and 20,000 injured. Another 4,000 Palestinian girls have been killed and nearly a million women and girls have been displaced. There are horrific reports about Israeli snipers shooting pregnant women.
To justify its stunning level violence, the Israeli propaganda machine recently began hyping claims about rape during Hamas’ October 7 incursion into Israel. On Thursday Joly joined the fray. On X Canada’s foreign minister posted, “Using sexual violence as a tactic of war is a crime. We strongly condemn SGBV [sexual based violence], including rape, perpetrated by Hamas against women in Israel on October 7. We believe Israeli women. Canada will always stand against SGBV and advocate for justice for all victims.”
Joly’s post received significant media attention and it was followed up by former Conservative minister Lisa Raitt, Ontario NDP MPP Cheri DiNovo and former Ontario Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne holding a press conference to support Israel’s “Believe All Women” campaign. The former Canadian politicians asked Ottawa to commit $1 million to Israel’s investigations into Hamas’ sexual violence.
(To illustrate Canada’s hypocrisy about “believing” women, when a Lancet study revealed extremely high levels of sexual violence after the 2004 Canadian-backed coup in Haiti the researcher was vilified and the allegations diminished. After a 2019 CBC investigation detailed at least six Canadians with the international mission in Haiti who engaged in sexual misconduct then Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said the criminal code should be modified to allow Canadians on UN missions to be prosecuted. But, four years later no new legislation has been announced to remedy the situation.)
While no Israeli rape victim(s) has been presented and war propaganda often uses sexual violence to justify further atrocities, it is a fact some that male soldiers rape. It is also a fact that women should be believed when they make allegations of sexual violence. On the other hand, no decent feminist would use either allegations or proven rapes as justification for harming (likely including rapes) other women and children in further fighting.
But this isn’t the first time a Canadian foreign minister has hyped rape allegations to justify violence. Ottawa pushed obviously outlandish rape allegations during the 2011 NATO bombing of Libya, which was led by Canadian Lieutenant-General Charles Bouchard. Canada gave $1.75 million to the International Committee of the Red Cross as well as $250,000 to the Red Crescent Society “to protect women and girls from gender-based violence—including sexual assault—and provide critical care to survivors in Libya.” A number of Foreign Affairs press releases cited this aid disbursement. One described “an additional $2 million in humanitarian assistance to respond to the needs of conflict-affected populations, including survivors of sexual violence” while another mentioned “$2 million in … dedicated funding to assist victims of rape—which is being widely used as a weapon of war in the conflict.”
Devoting funds to combating gender-based violence is usually a worthy cause but in this case it was part of an attempt to justify NATO’s intervention. The rebels accused Gaddafi’s forces of mass rape, a charge that was repeated by western media and politicians. According to the Guardian, “tales of raping sprees by sub-Saharan African mercenaries — fueled in one version by Viagra doled out by Gaddafi — abound in Libya.” Incredibly, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, cited the obviously outlandish (and racist) Viagra allegation at a closed session of the international body. Then Canadian foreign minister John Baird was still repeating the mass rape justification for bombing Libya months after Gaddafi was killed. At the end of 2011 he told CTV: “When you talk about rape as an instrument of war, women being raped in Libya, it’s a very uncomfortable issue. Just ignoring it, throwing it under the carpet, it’s not an option.”
But did Gaddafi’s forces engage in mass rape? Probably not, according to experienced human rights investigators. Amnesty International’s senior crisis response adviser Donatella Rovera, who was in Libya for three months after the start of the uprising, said: “We have not found any evidence or a single victim of rape or a doctor who knew about somebody being raped.” Liesel Gerntholtz, head of women’s rights at Human Rights Watch, concurred. “We have not been able to find evidence [of mass rape].” According to a June 24 report in the London Independent, Amnesty’s specialist on Libya, Diana Eltahawy, met the most reputable source for the mass rape claim. Libyan psychologist Seham Sergewa said she distributed 70,000 questionnaires in rebel-controlled areas and along the Tunisian border. The psychologist claimed 60,000 were returned with 259 women volunteering that they were raped.
According to Sergewa’s account, she then interviewed 140 of the victims. Yet when Amnesty’s Libya specialist asked to meet some of the women Sergewa said “she had lost contact with them” and could not provide documentary evidence.
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch’s lack of documentary evidence does not, of course, conclusively disprove that rape was employed by Gaddafi’s forces. It does suggest, however, that the rebels (at minimum) exaggerated the claim, which would fit within a long-established history of lying during war.
The rape allegations were used to justify NATO’s destruction of Libya. More than a decade after the foreign-backed war Libya remains divided between two main political factions and hundreds of militias operate in the country of six million. Thousands, probably tens of thousands, have been killed since 2011.
While the starting premise should be that women must be believed, history illustrates we should be skeptical of rape claims by governments seeking to justify violence. War to punish rapists only creates more violence in which women and children will be innocent victims.
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