In 2017, in reaction to the revelations about the sexual misconduct of Harvey Weinstein that led to the creation of the #MeToo movement, feminist activist Eve Ensler (“The Vagina Monologues”) wrote the following:

“I’m over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren’t you standing with us? Why aren’t you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?”

My response, that I kept to myself, was that in 2017, I was preoccupied by more important catastrophes than some disgusting Hollywood executive behaving in the same manner that disgusting Hollywood executives have since the 1920s. Donald Trump had just been elected president with his determined assault on the free press and other necessities of a true democracy.

The “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville gave us the spectacle of white supremacists and neo-Nazis with swastika flags marching proudly in the streets of an American city and, oh, scientists were predicting that global warming would soon reach the point of dooming the human race to extinction. In view of this, I had little madness to spare on the likes of Harvey Weinstein.

I recently Googled Ms. Ensler (now known as “V”) and saw numerous sites of her condemning the entire male gender for their abusive behavior over the span of history, and demanding apology and accountability. I then typed in her name along with the date “October 7th,” the day of the murderous Hamas assault on Israel and got nothing except this excerpt from an interview:

“The horrible events of 7 October, they grew out of something,” she says. “And we haven’t reckoned with it. So now, it’s escalated into this horrific situation where the world is being forced to witness mass murder. It’s a perfect example of how, when we don’t reckon with given situations, they produce more and more violence.”

Since Oct. 7 there have been reports that Hamas didn’t just kill Israeli citizens. They deliberately subjected women and girls to vicious incidents of mass rape, gang rape and sexual mutilation. A recent two-month investigation by The New York Times into the sexual violence perpetrated by members of Hamas on that day reads like some medieval horror epic. This being a family newspaper, I will spare you the details which demand a strong stomach but the link is as follows: http://tinyurl.com/eh8hx838.

Hamas was quite proud of these assaults as they recorded them on their body cams and cellphones. Recordings show them laughing and giggling amid the screams of their victims.

Ensler doesn’t mention any of this but obliquely suggests this somehow was to be expected. Inexplicably, other American feminists have either denied or deflected these reports, citing them as Israel Defense Forces propaganda or excusing them as the natural result of Israel’s brutal occupation and mistreatment of Palestinians. In fact, aside from some vague obligatory lip service, I’ve seen no condemnation at all.

Likewise, I’ve seen no public outcry from local women in the Valley who pride themselves on their feminist credentials. No signs or slogans on the Greenfield Common every Saturday decrying the horrific abuse that these women suffered for the crime of being women. No guest editorials in this newspaper. This deliberate silence unintentionally reinforces the awful response visited on any woman who was ever raped and then not believed or told that she somehow “deserved it.” Did these Israeli women deserve it as well?

To be fair, when my wife listened to this account on NPR a month ago, she was too traumatized to even discuss it with me. But I believe that those with a public voice have a moral obligation to voice it.

The unspeakable crimes committed by Hamas on Oct. 7 have been sidelined by Israel’s overwhelming destruction of Gaza and the killing of tens of thousands of their citizens. While not a true definition of genocide, a word activists love to fling at a nation of Jews and Holocaust survivors, it is indeed a war crime and I, for one, would love to see Benjamin Netanyahu hauled before The Hague.

But if the sexual atrocities of Hamas are justified as a reaction to oppression, then the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi are weeping in heaven. Back here on earth, however, Harvey Weinstein is laughing with glee. As has been noted before, “Silence is Violence.”

Daniel A. Brown lived in Franklin County for 44 years and is a frequent contributor to the Recorder. He lives outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Lisa and dog, Cody.