There are many testimonies currently being given and circulated in media about incidents of mass rape of Israeli women on Oct 7.
This market will track whether an independent investigation is done and will resolve to yes if such investigation determines that these sexual crimes against women did in fact occur.
This is a timed market and ends end of 2024.
Independent organization means any recognized human rights org or other orgs that do not have direct ties or interests with Israeli security apparatus.
A single isolated case of rape will not resolve this to yes. What must be shown by the investigation is that multiple people were involved and multiple women were raped.
1,000
3.00Here we have a written report of Human Rights Watch, but since we can't independently corroborate it, we can't say for certain if the report really exists.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/07/17/october-7-crimes-against-humanity-war-crimes-hamas-led-groups
At page 67, HRW recounts the allegations in media, before concluding:
Human Rights Watch was unable to independently corroborate these accounts.
HRW’s ultimate conclusion is at the beginning of the report:
Human Rights Watch was not able to gather verifiable information through interviews with survivors of or witnesses to rape during the assault on October 7.
Human Rights Watch requested access to information on sexual and gender-based violence in the possession of the Israeli government, but this request was not granted.
The question defines independent as “any recognized human rights org or other orgs that do not have direct ties or interests with Israeli security apparatus”.
The intent seems to be to exclude an investigation by any entity with a vested interest in a finding of rape, which makes sense.
If a Hamas-led investigation concluded that there was rape, then that would seem to fulfil the question. (Even if their investigation concluded that it was not Hamas partisans who did so.)
Heads up for people to check out @Accuracy 's history, his whole thing seems to be to post "just asking questions bro" questions likethis then resolve them in the pro-hamas direction regardless of evidence.
Well it's more like "will there be X standard of evidence for this allegation against Hamas" where X is some impossibly high standard. In this case the rapes definitely happened but there have not actually been any "independent investigations" of the kind that could trigger a Yes resolution. Nor are there usually such "investigations for the use of rape as a war crime". Would a similar market for any other rape as a war crime have resolved yes? A fact-finding mission that determines there is probable cause is not enough.
@Accuracy Given that you opened the market and that you are the 2nd biggest NO holder, how are you trying to balance that conflict of interest?
And I'm out of the market. I'm considering the profit loss as a penalty for myself to keep in mind to always thoroughly check the market creators.
I am blocking @Accuracy so I won't accidentally bet in any of their markets in the future.
No that's not what you should be doing. I bought a small amount of yes, just so I can give @Accuracy one star. Bet 1 Mana on all of the markets and rate them one star.
Is this enough to resolve yes? I don't know if "there are reasonable grounds to believe" reaches the bar necessary to resolve this market as yes.
https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15621.doc.htm
There are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence — including rape and gang-rape — occurred across multiple locations of Israel and the Gaza periphery during the attacks on 7 October 2023, a senior United Nations official reported to the Security Council today, as she presented findings from her visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank.
Following allegations of brutal sexual violence committed during and in the aftermath of the Hamas-led terror attacks, Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, led an official visit to Israel from 29 January to 14 February to gather, analyse and verify reports of sexual violence related to the 7 October attack. Due to ongoing hostilities, the Special Representative did not request to visit Gaza, where other UN entities that monitor sexual violence are operational.
Both of those refer to the Patten Report, which is discussed in a comment thread below. The conclusion is that it is unlikely to be sufficient for this market, as it is explicitly stated to be “not investigative in nature”. [0]
You can also see we went through the reports of the UN bodies that do hold investigative mandates, and they fall short of concluding that rape occurred.
This is a really bad market. The October 7 rapes definitely happened, but there needs to be some "independent investigation" by EOY 2024, with the definition of "independent" and "investigation" determined by the market maker, since Israeli sources apparently are not "independent" even for a crime committed in Israel. I expect this market to resolve as "no".
So @Accuracy is there any independent international investigation of whether there was rape in previous war crimes of the kind that would have triggered a yes resolution for a similar question? If so, how long did this investigation take? International bureaucracies are even slower than normal court system. Is this question actually meant to get at the truth of whether there was rape? It seems like this has a good chance of resolving no even though these rapes definitely did occur. Is there even going to be an "international investigation" of the kind you describe here?
I also would take issue with characterizing "international human rights organization", i.e. very left-wing NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and so on, as "independent". They are more politically biased as the Israeli court system and have no accountability. The leader of HRW blasted his own organization for its bias.
Will such an investigation actually occur by EOY? I'm confident that these rapes happened and an investigation would find them. I am not so confident that there will be such an investigation at all. Have rapes in other wartime situations been investigated? Even well documented ones? Anyway, it takes time to investigate rape.
I suggest making the market untimed and conditional on whether there is an investigation at all.
I don't bet on any of @Accuracy 's markets and rated a previous market as 1 star. The problem is that these markets take some allegation by Israel and they say, will this be verified by some kind of independent outsider with a very high standard of evidence. Even when the allegations are correct the market will resolve no. I am fairly confident that this market will resolve no even though I am confident there were rapes and there is evidence and documentation.
@nathanwei the conclusion of the UN expedition based on the Israeli evidence collected was that there was sexual abuse but they can't determine if it was rape (I mean come on).
I really doubt there will be any separate investigation anytime soon if at all and almost all of the evidence has to come from what Israeli groups gathered due to how long it has been since the attack.
So I just guess this will resolve as NO since no group is showing interest or intent in this as far as I'm aware and the creator is a large no holder and not responding regarding further clarifications from what I can tell.
Personally I sold my shares in this at a loss as the way this is phrased requires non Israeli/Jewish organizations to be actively involved and it seems none of them are interested in doing so.
Conditional on there being rape, how exactly could an investigation find this beyond a reasonable doubt? I mean, do we need some freed hostage to say that they were raped?
I would guess that hostages who were raped were generally subsequently killed, because the Hamas rapists would not want rape survivors to speak up. Hamas got cold feet on releasing young women at some point.
I would guess that if Noa had been kidnapped by people who raped her, they would have murdered her soon after, rather than take the chance that she could escape Gaza at some point.
I'm tempted to buy no as I think this market is going to resolve no, but I don't want to contribute to unethical markets like this one. The market creator is a no holder and a propagandist, and the market asks for a ridiculous standard of evidence. An international bureaucracy determining that there was rape beyond a reasonable doubt in a war zone? I'm sure there was but the rape victims were killed and did not live to tell the tale. People who are gang raped in Gaza would be gang raped again until they're dead.