One hundred days ago, the world changed. October 7 has proven to be many things: the opening salvo in a brutal war between Israel and Hamas; an attack that could precipitate a broader, regional war; the beginning of a global, ongoing orgy of antisemitism; a wake-up call regarding the rot inside the West’s once-great sensemaking institutions; a possible realignment of our politics.
One of the things it has also been is a test. A moral test that many in the West have failed. That test of moral conscience is a continuing one considering there are still 136 hostages in Gaza. Two of them are babies; close to 20 of them are young women.
Across the Western world, these hostages have faded from view. And when it comes to the fate of the many young women abducted by Hamas and taken to Gaza, the silence from some corners has been deafening.
Today on Honestly, Bari argues that the groups you would expect to care most about these women and hostages—the celebrity feminists who are always the first to speak up in times of crisis, the prominent women’s organizations who protested loudly when it came to #MeToo, Donald Trump, or Brett Kavanaugh, and the international, supposedly “nonpolitical” human rights organizations—have said and done next to nothing about the murder, kidnap, and rape of Israeli girls.
What explains their silence—or worse, their downplaying or denial?
When Michelle Obama, Oprah, Malala Yousafzai, Angelina Jolie, Kim Kardashian—and the rest of the civilized world—saw the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Nigeria by Boko Haram in April 2014, within days they took to Twitter and demanded “Bring Back Our Girls.”
Why isn’t the world demanding the same now?
It’s been one hundred days in captivity: bring back our girls.
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I don't believe there is only one reason - but amongst those that may explain this response is fear. These are prominent people that you list - but do they have a past demonstration of courage and leading - leaning against common beliefs to make their point or is it bluster along a path already in place and clear? Taking on terrorists for the one set of girls seems pretty straight forward and of little or no personal negative consequence. Taking on the identity and victim nonsense crowd for these women is difficult - and so fear explains their lack of voice in the case of women captives from Israel.
Bari is relying in large part on the Jeffrey Gettleman piece in the NY Times released on Dec 28 2023 called "Screams Without Words". I think it's worth pointing out the claims in that article have been contested by Max Blumenthal in a piece called "Screams WIthout Proof"
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/01/10/questions-nyt-hamas-rape-report/
https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1740641517847335009
Neither Gettleman nor the NY Times have responded to these questions thus far.