On Sexual violence and… Silence - with Shari Mendes

Call Me Back - with Dan Senor

Ark Media

Society, Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Israel, News Commentary, News, Politics, Elections, Palestine, Dan Senor, Government

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 18 January 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Having recently passed the 100 day-mark of Hamas’s massacre against Israel, two events in recent weeks occurred that should have occurred some time ago. The New York Times published a major investigative piece on the details and the scale of Hamas’s use of sexual assault in its warfare against Israeli women. And, in recent days, Pramila Patte -- the U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict -- has finally agreed to come to Israel to lead an investigation of what Hamas did on October 7. In this episode, we are joined by Shari Mendes (who was quoted in the New York Times investigation and also spoke at the U.N. on Hamas and sexual violence). Shari is an immigrant to Israel who has raised four children in Israel. She is an architect, the founder of an innovative non-profit in Israel to help cancer patients, and an IDF army reservist who serves in the unit responsible for preparing the bodies of female IDF soldiers through all the steps in advance of burial. Shari has seen firsthand what the world seems to want to ignore. In our conversation, she shares some of her observations, as well as her broader take on Israeli society as we pass the 100-day mark.

Transcript

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0:00.0	There were two rooms we worked in. One was the identification room where there was a lot of activity.
0:05.8	So it was our job to remove clothing if needed, to take off jewelry to give back to the families.
0:13.1	This was the medical professionals didn't do this.
0:15.2	We did this.
0:15.9	We would wash off blood.
0:17.6	But once the body was cleared for burial,
0:20.9	we went into a different room. and that room was our room. It was just for our team.
0:27.0	It was just for the women attending to these other women, and it had a very different atmosphere in that room. Most of us had or
0:36.8	have army-age children and these could have been our daughters and we loved
0:42.3	them so much. We knew we would probably be the last people to see them.
0:47.0	We had to give these women the love and the honor that they were not showed by these barbarians in their death.
0:56.8	And it was important to us to pay homage to them. It is
1:15.0	5 a.m. on Wednesday, January 17th here in New York City.
1:17.0	It is 5 a.m. on Thursday, January 18th in Israel as Israelis get ready to start their day.
1:25.0	As we have recently passed the 100 day mark of Hamas's massacre against Israel,
1:30.0	two events in recent weeks occurred that, well, it should have occurred a long time ago.
1:37.0	The New York Times published a major investigative piece on the details and the scale of Hamas's use of sexual
1:46.5	assault in its warfare against Israeli women.
1:51.5	And in recent days, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence and Conflict has finally
1:58.0	agreed to come to Israel to lead an investigation of what Hamas did on October 7th and hopefully an investigation
2:05.7	of what they have been doing in the tunnels of Gaza since October 7th. That these
2:11.6	events are even newsworthy is a sad statement. After all, they are obvious and
	...

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