A New Kind of Denial
Two of the internet’s most controversial figures, Norman Finkelstein and Candace Owens, have crossed a new moral line. In a November 1, 2025 episode of The Candace Owens Show, Finkelstein claimed there was “not a single shred of evidence of even one rape on October 7.” Owens, nodding in agreement, dismissed Israeli reports as “propaganda.” Their exchange went viral, but what they dismissed as “lies” has already been documented by multiple independent investigations, including the United Nations, NBC News, The New York Times, and Israel’s own Ministry of Health.
Their denial is not just ignorant; it is the digital-age revival of the blood libel, the ancient smear that Jews fabricated atrocities to justify their survival.
The Facts They Ignore
Every credible investigation reaches the same grim conclusion: Hamas and Islamic Jihad systematically used rape, sexual torture, and humiliation as calculated tools of terror on October 7 and throughout the captivity that followed.
Rom Braslavski, a 25-year-old, recently released hostage was held in Gaza for 738 days. In a jarring interview, he told Ynet that Islamic Jihad terrorists stripped him naked, tied him up, and subjected him to sexual humiliation. “It was the most horrific thing,” he said. “It’s something even the Nazis didn’t do.”
Amit Soussana, an Israeli lawyer kidnapped on October 7 and held for 55 days, described to The New York Times being beaten, sexually assaulted, and forced at gunpoint to commit sexual acts on her captor. She returned home with fractures in her face and body, physical proof of the torment she endured.
Independent Investigations Confirm the Atrocities
Pramila Patten, the United Nations Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, reviewed 5,000 photos and 50 hours of video. Her March 2024 report found “clear and convincing information” that hostages were raped and “reasonable grounds to believe” multiple gang rapes occurred on October 7. NBC News covered the findings, which left no doubt about the crimes’ scale.
The Israeli Ministry of Health documented rape, sexualized torture, starvation, and abuse of both male and female hostages. UN Watch submitted detailed evidence to the UN Human Rights Council, recording Hamas’s use of rape, genital mutilation, and sexualized torture, including the rape of male victims.
The legal report Screams Before Silence, produced by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in late 2024, concluded that Hamas’s sexual violence met the international definition of crimes against humanity.
Why Denial Is Dangerous
For Israel’s Deputy Head of Mission Rotem Segev, denying these crimes is a moral catastrophe. “Ignoring these crimes murders the women a second time,” she wrote. “Until there is universal condemnation of the sexual violence directed at Israeli women, no woman is safe.”
Yet Finkelstein and Owens, speaking to millions of followers, chose to weaponize skepticism, not to uncover truth, but to protect terrorists. Their claims serve only to delegitimize Jewish pain and erase the suffering of Israeli women and men who were brutalized simply for being Jewish.
The Pattern Behind the Propaganda
This is not new. For centuries, antisemites have accused Jews of inventing horrors to manipulate sympathy, from medieval blood libels to Holocaust denial. The Finkelstein-Owens exchange is that same hatred, rebranded for YouTube. It is not “analysis.” It is complicity.
Hamas’s crimes are not in dispute; they are documented fact. What is in dispute is whether the world will have the moral courage to believe them.
