Pleasant Politics

Here's what happened:

On and after October 7th, Hamas combatants invaded Israel, committing rape, gang rape, and sexual torture among other crimes as they went.

Then, the Israeli government exaggerated what had happened, fabricating outlandish stories to accompany the genuine ones, because lying and demonizing Palestinians is in their DNA.

Then, the New York Times published a story featuring both true and false accounts of sexual assault, ignoring people within their organization who were trying to raise the alarm that some of the information they were relying on was not credible.

Then, supporters of Palestine seized on the inaccuracies in the Times's reporting to try to pretend that no sexual assault had ever happened. Hallmarks of this type of disinformation include zeroing in on irrelevant questions. Were the widespread rapes that occurred during the invasion officially ordered by Hamas leadership? What sorts of evidence did Pramila Patten's investigative teams find, and what sorts did they not find? Did the Israeli government lie? By focusing in on these questions, it's possible to produce answers which create a strong impression that the question you have asked is, "Did Hamas commit widespread rape on and after October 7th?" and that the answer is no. But the answer to that question is clearly yes.

Here are Pramila Patten's findings: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147217

They speak for themselves. She's very open about her methodology, her sources, her conclusions, and the boundaries of her conclusions. The rhetorical methods of the people who seize on or exaggerate those careful boundaries, as a way of attempting to argue that she didn't actually find clear and convincing evidence of widespread sexual assault, also speak for themselves.