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Dunking on woke leftist strawmen might be a fun past time, but I'm not sure the NYT qualifies in this particular instance. From the opening paragraph of the article:
It seems the author was one step ahead of your critique.
Both sides claim rape is a horrible crime when committed against them. To reiterate the point: Should all parties not be against rape then? And to pontificate further, if we believe one side is not against the rape of their enemies, does that make it OK for us to rape them?
I don't see a double standard. I see two backwards third world populations making appeals to morals and standards that have nothing to do with them. They both play the shivering hurt animal and as soon as they think no one is looking the teeth and claws come out.
I wasn't critiquing the Grey Lady in particular here. I very much doubt the author of this specific article would dispute that Hamas committed sexual violence on October 7th. I'm critiquing the double standard among woke leftists, who demand exhaustive beyond-reasonable-doubt proof when a member of their in-group is accused of sexual misconduct, but when a member of their out-group is accused of sexual misconduct, even hearsay is deemed sufficient to condemn them.
None of this requires you to support Israel, think Israel isn't committing a "genocide", think Israel isn't a settler-colonial apartheid state, think the Palestinians don't have a legitimate grievance etc. You're welcome to think the IDF is just as bad (or even worse) than the people they're fighting. You can sympathise with the Palestinians (even sympathise with Hamas) while acknowledging that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. But you do, in fact, have to acknowledge that Hamas committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on October 7th. That part is not open for debate.
And it is absolutely not a strawman to say that some woke leftists, pro-Palestinians or Joo-posters will deny to this day that Hamas committed any sexual violence at all on October 7th. I have personally met these people. I may have been dunking on a weakman, but I was not dunking on a strawman and I quite resent that accusation.
Ontological status: If you rape your enemies, they win.
You're not describing a double standard insofar as you can observe this exact same behavior from JIDF posters. Where mass rape on Oct.7 definitely happened and is super important, but these rapes did not, or don't really matter. It's just the standard.
So maybe we are looking at some motivated reasoning that can afflict us all. Rather than a specific trait of the woke left. And perhaps you're not dunking on a strawman, but what are you dunking on, and to what end? The motivated reasoning of one side irks you, but not the other?
So no, the woke left don't have to acknowledge that Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed acts of unspeakable cruelty on Oct.7 anymore than the JIDF has to acknowledge that Israel is a a genocidal nazi state that commits acts of unspeakable cruelty in their prisons. You hold no leverage to make that claim. You are just asserting a one sided rhetorical frame on woke leftists. They would be right to recognize what you are doing, call you a genocidal zionist and continue on inside their bubble where Israel is bad and Palestine is good.
Rape denialism is inexcusable coming from anyone, but particularly hypocritical coming from individuals whose catchphrase was "believe women" for the better part of a decade.
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