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Debunking “Screams Before Silence,” Sheryl Sandberg’s 7 Oct. “mass rape” film [1]

['Ali Abunimah']

Date: 2024-05-04 07:39:15+00:00

But it is a total fraud. Seven months after that day, Israel has still not identified a single survivor of the alleged mass rapes on 7 October, nor a single credible eyewitness.

While Israel claims that many Israeli women and even some men were raped and sexually tortured in horrific ways on 7 October, before being killed, not one deceased victim has been identified either.

We debunked the film’s sensational but demonstrably false claims on this week’s Electronic Intifada Livestream and showed how many of the “witnesses” Sandberg interviewed are lying.

You can watch that segment in the video above or in the video embedded in this tweet:

Flagrant lies and vile fantasies: Sheryl Sandberg's new film Screams Before Silence (@ScreamsBefore) is the latest attempt to revive Israel's debunked and discredited Oct. 7 "mass rapes" atrocity propaganda. We dissect this blatant fraud: pic.twitter.com/Xi02kgQDoY — Electronic Intifada (@intifada) May 3, 2024

Uncritical media

There is no forensic evidence to support the rape claims nor does Israel say it has a single video showing the allegedly systematic, widespread and pre-planned sexual attacks actually taking place – even though Israel says it has retrieved tens or even hundreds of thousands of videos and photos from that day.

And yet Sandberg’s film is being heavily promoted by such figures as former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ostensibly progressive Congressman Ro Khanna and of course the Israeli government.

Sexual violence has no place in peace and conflict. The new documentary #ScreamsBeforeSilence is a powerful story illustrating that fundamental truth. https://t.co/fZDEsF4TQm — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) April 26, 2024

Thank you, @sherylsandberg, for creating this powerful documentary and shedding light on the sexual violence Hamas committed on October 7. At a time when the world is more divided than ever, we should all be able to unequivocally condemn sexual violence.https://t.co/zapoix010t — Rep. Ro Khanna (@RepRoKhanna) April 26, 2024

Writing in The Washington Post on 29 April, columnist Ruth Marcus urged her readers, “You should watch it and speak out, about how rape and gender violence were deployed as weapons of war. About breasts cut from bodies. About nails driven into a woman’s vagina.”

But as we show, even a UN team which wrote a report largely favorable to Israel, said it could not find any credible evidence for these atrocity claims in the materials presented to it by Israel.

New documentary exposes Hamas’ use of sexual violence. Watch the full vide here: https://t.co/kdXsZsYTfH pic.twitter.com/6y2yZ9hwtm — The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) April 30, 2024

Justifying genocide

Sandberg’s film has become the latest vehicle to push Israel’s claims of mass rape on 7 October – claims that Israel supporters continue to use to either distract from or justify Israel’s ongoing US-armed genocide in Gaza.

Since its release, it has garnered almost 700,000 views on YouTube alone.

We also talked about the latest developments surrounding “Screams without words,” reporter Jeffrey Gettleman’s equally fraudulent New York Times article published in December.

Sandberg has described the Gettleman article as the “definitive piece on the sexual violence” of 7 October.

Despite praising the Times article, many of its sensational claims were omitted from Sandberg’s film – a tacit admission that they were false.

The scandal around the Gettleman article continues to mount.

This week more than 50 tenured professors from top journalism schools wrote to The New York Times, urging the newspaper to “immediately commission a group of journalism experts to conduct a thorough and full independent review of the reporting, editing and publishing processes for this story and release a report of the findings.”

You can find all of The Electronic Intifada’s reporting on the “mass rapes” hoax at this link.

Articles and sources referenced in the video:

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[1] Url: https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/debunking-screams-silence-sheryl-sandbergs-7-oct-mass-rape-film

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