Obscuring the Truth

Rape.

It’s one of the most horrific words in the human language. Simply reading it immediately evokes images of trauma and absolute terror.

It’s an unimaginable act of violent assault against a person’s body, mind, and spirit. Surely, it is one of mankind’s most inhumane and vicious acts purposefully perpetrated against another person.  And it’s unfathomable to think that a child of any age is victimized by rape at the hands of an adult.

Rape.

No one could or should justify rape of any kind. Ever. Yet, one of our nation’s elected officials did just that during a televised interview with Dana Bash on Sunday, December 3.

When asked about multiple reports of the unprecedented use of rape and sexual violence by Hamas against Israeli women, Rep. Pramilla Jayapal (D-WA) warned Americans to “be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians.”

Granted, when pressed repeatedly by Bash during CNN’s State of the Union show, Jayapal finally stated, “I said it’s horrific, Dana. And I think that rape is horrific. Sexual assault is horrific. I think that it happens in war situations. Terrorist organizations like Hamas obviously are using these as tools.”

Note that she never completely condemned Hamas or their rapes of Jewish women as horrific; she just condemned rape in general. And then, Jayapal quickly turned the tables back to Israel by issuing a call for balance in emotional responses to the acts of Hamas. 

Well, actually, Jayapal quickly rearranged the rhetoric and replaced the word Hamas with the term Palestinians. Was this her subtle tactic to try and make the terrorist butchers seem more humane, more personable? Surely not!

Whatever the case, she swiftly moved from her smiling, generic statement against rape in general to her more specific, deflective call for Americans to focus on the deaths of Palestinian women.

“However,” Jayapal gently rebuked Bash, “I think we have to be balanced about bringing in the outrages against Palestinians,” she continued, adding, “Fifteen thousand Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes, three-quarters of whom are women and children.”

Bash responded directly: “And it’s horrible, but you don’t see Israeli soldiers raping Palestinian women.”

Bingo!

But again, Jayapal refused to acknowledge this stark truth. She had no rebuttal to defend an army of terrorists raping torturing, beheading, and even carving babies from their mothers’ wombs and then beheading them.

Instead, the representative of the people of Washington state simply resorted to a one-liner that should be a line in the sand for her voters and for this entire nation.

“Well, Dana,” quipped Jayapal, “…I don’t want this to be the hierarchy of oppressions.”

Of course not, Congresswoman. There is no “hierarchy of oppressions” when it comes to systematic, violent rape (often, gang rape) of women and children.

Rape.

Try and think of a higher form of oppression, brutality, domination, subjugation, tyranny, or outright terrorism against another living, breathing human being.

For most of those innocent victims, death may have seemed more merciful at the time of their televised, celebrated rapes at the hand of Hamas. Those assaults were part of a surprise attack by Hamas terrorists against Israeli citizens living near the Gaza Strip on Saturday, October 7 – the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

And yet, despite social media videos, reports from eyewitnesses, and the anguished testimonies of survivors of these planned and purposed rapes, there are those who still say that these sexual assaults and other atrocities by Hamas militants against Israeli citizens never happened.

Their loud and often vicious denials join the cacophony of voices still refuting the more than six million deaths of Jews during the Holocaust. But despite that guilt-ridden, distracting noise of naysayers, the truth continues to stand.

In fact, various individuals and groups have made official statements criticizing Jayapal’s call for balance in response to these horrific rapes. Even fellow Democrats have denounced Jayapal’s comments, including Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY).

Also speaking with CNN’s Bash on Monday, December 4, Torres declared: “Look, there’s often been a double standard against Israel when it comes to condemning the sheer butchery and barbarism of Hamas.”

Then, he added that American officials are morally obligated to speak with “clarity rather than caveats” when discussing this issue.  

“For me,” said Torres, “this is not about politics. This is about decency. It is indecent to deny or downplay or ‘both sides’ the rape and sexual violence against Israeli women on October 7.”

And he is correct. Because no matter whether it’s Democrats or Republicans, this entire disastrous and appalling discussion comes back to something Benjamin Franklin often said: “A lie stands on one leg, truth on two.”

Therein lies the crux of Rep. Jayapal’s deflections and half-truths on the crimes of rape perpetrated against Israeli women and children by Hamas terrorists: Her comments only have one leg to stand on.

And there’s not much balance in a one-legged stance. It usually falls and falls hard.

Perhaps Jayapal is the one who needs to search for and seek the unfaltering balance of truth.