Israel's Best Heroes. America's Best Heroes.

Grace Siegelman

(Photo credit: Oren Ziv/AFP)

Israel's national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has stated the Israeli soldiers accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner are "[their] best heroes" and denounced their arrest as "nothing less than shameful." With these statements comes dozens of protests and mobs from all political parties violently defending Israel's right to rape, pillage, and assault Palestinians and their land. With little reporting from Western mainstream media, this, like most attacks on Palestinians, goes unnoticed amidst an election cycle fastened in 'feminist values' and buzzwords.

These reports confirmed testimonies we already knew to be accurate, that rape and sexual violence is a rampant tactic used against Palestinians, against Mothers, Fathers, Daughters, Sons, and anyone accused of what seems to be the most sinister crimes: being in the way, being in their own homes, being a woman, being a Palestinian. 

And as I look for more testimonies of this, my browser search is bombarded with articles that instead ask, "Is Hamas using rape as a tactic of war?" "Are Palestinians using sexual violence against Israelis?" Keeping their feet steadfast in the lies and debunked rumors that have killed Palestinians for 75 years and have killed over 400,000 since October 7. As I watch the mob try to enter a military court and protest the arrest, I cannot help but hear the Israeli Prime Minister's words echoing behind them from Congress last week, "Give us the tools, and we'll finish the job faster." The protesters were banging down their door for their right to finish the job, just as the world applauded them for a week prior. 

I also cannot watch these videos and read these statements without thinking about what is happening in the belly of the beast. Sonya Massey was killed in her home by police, who she called in fear of someone outside. Upon the police's arrival, she pleaded, "Please don't hurt me," to which they replied, "Why would we hurt you? You called us." Sonya Massey, a Black schizophrenic woman, called upon the systems that we have in this country to keep her safe. I watched a video last week from Maya-Ayooni, a Palestinian creator, recalling the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 in which so many of the outside responses to the murders of Black women, men, and children were "wait until you need the police, wait until the moment you need the police and they are not there to come running." And now another Black woman is dead in her own home. And now another Palestinian is dead, disabled, displaced at the hands of Israel - at the hands of America.

This election cycle is already so entrenched in what it means to be a feminist in this country and the world. What does it mean to be a feminist in the belly of the beast? Does feminism look like incarcerated birth-givers chained to their beds without medical assistance? Does feminism look like stabbing a Palestinian child 26 times? Does feminism look like Palestinian fathers identifying their children by their teeth? Or the wounds they already had? Does feminism look like a woman being murdered in her own home by the police she called? I've had incredibly devastating conversations with folks casting to the side Palestinians, BIPOC folks, Yemenis, incarcerated folks, undocumented folks, for the sake of 'democracy," or their new definition of it.

I find myself overwhelmed and, most times, filled with rage. Building off what our social media team already posted, I continue:

• Feminists are not cops.

• Feminists do not approve of rape and sexual violence as a tactic of war.

• Feminists do not let rapists become our best heroes. 

Sign this petition telling Vice President Kamala Harris we need a ceasefire and arms embargo NOW!

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Grace Siegelman is CODEPINK's Feminist Foreign Policy Coordinator & Administrative Support.

Grace completed her Master's Degree in Women and Gender Studies and Bachelor's Degree in Peace, Justice and Conflict Studies (with minors in International Studies and History of Law) at DePaul University. She has been organizing for over 6 years in Chicago. Her organizing and research focus on prison and police abolition, queer theory, gendered violence and anti-war efforts. She connects own her work to the communities in Chicago and communities across the globe, in Palestine, Yemen and Cuba. She has led youth campaigns on Ban the Box, a national movement to remove the question of criminal history from college applications and led letter writing and education initiatives to incarcerated survivors of domestic violence.