Finkelstein's analysis of the new October 7 sexual violence report
A new 300-page report claiming Hamas used rape as a systematic weapon on October 7 is being picked apart as evidentially empty — bad news for the report's high-profile backers, and a boost for critics of Israel's war narrative.
- The report runs nearly 300 pages, but most of it is quotes, blurbs, and footnotes, with the same handful of witnesses recycled over and over.
- Its own claim of 10,000 photos and digital files from that day contains not one image of rape or sexual violence, despite bodycams, dashcams, CCTV, and phone footage.
- That undercuts the core thesis: if the point was to terrorize Israelis with the images, the images would exist and would have been posted.
- Witness accounts are thin — no survivor says they were raped, and the star witness only claims she *heard* several rapes at once from inside a windowless room.
- The method itself blocks scrutiny: witnesses were never questioned or challenged, because the report puts their feelings ahead of its own documentation.
Outlook: Expect the report to keep circulating on the strength of its length and its endorsers — Sheryl Sandberg and Rahm Emanuel among them — rather than its evidence, while critics push the rebuttal into wider view.