Sheryl Sandberg Screens & Discusses Documentary on Oct. 7 Sexual Violence
Sheryl Sandberg Screens & Discusses Documentary on Oct. 7 Sexual Violence
Sheryl Sandberg said that filming a documentary about the sexual brutality of Hamas’ attacks on Israelis on Oct. 7 was the most important work of her life and that she wants to turn the world’s attention to the inhumanity that took place.
Sheryl Sandberg, former Chief Operating Officer of Meta and founder of LeanIn.org — an NGO dedicated to empowering women and girls — told a Stanford audience that the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and sexual violence against women drew her back to the spotlight with a message for the world:
“What is at stake is actually important for all of humanity,” she said at a Nov. 19 film screening of her documentary, Screams Before Silence. The event was hosted by the Visiting Fellows in Israel Studies program, housed at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, and Hillel at Stanford.
The film included eyewitness accounts from released hostages, survivors, and first responders. During the Hamas attacks on Israeli towns and at the Nova Music Festival, women and girls were raped, assaulted, mutilated, and killed. Released hostages have revealed that Israeli captives in Gaza have also been sexually assaulted.
Yet, as Sandberg noted, the atrocities have received little scrutiny or attention from human rights and feminist groups, international organizations, and others. Some denialists have even said Hamas’ sexual violence never took place or that it was invented by Israel itself — an echo of 9/11 denialism and antisemitic conspiracy theories. So, Sandberg undertook the challenge of creating a 60-minute documentary, which has now registered almost three million YouTube views while also being screened around the world.
‘Make people see this’
Sandberg interviewed survivors and witnesses and survivors and traveled to the site of the Nova Music Festival, where 364, mostly young revelers, were murdered in the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. She viewed hundreds of photos of dead bodies of women who displayed clear signs of sexual abuse and harm.
She noted that even war has rules of law and that what she discovered while making the film was often incomprehensible, tragic, and heartbreaking.
Rape should never be used as an act of war, she said, and silence is complicity. “We know we have to keep fighting and trying to make people see this.”
‘A Moral Eclipse’
In his introduction of Sandberg, Amichai Magen, the inaugural Visiting Fellow in Israel Studies at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), explained the film’s title.
“There is the obvious meaning, capturing the silence of death after the acts of violence. But there is also the silence of the international community, the complete shock experienced by Jewish communities all around the world, that on Oct. 8, some people denied this ever happened … After the screams, we experienced a moral silence, a moral eclipse. And then there is the silence of the invisible wounds, the broken minds, the broken souls, the broken families,” Magen said.
After leaving Meta a few years ago, Sandberg said she was completely committed to being private and not public anymore. “I'd had it, and it was done.” And then, Oct. 7 took place, and subsequent reports about sexual violence seemed to be met with an eerie silence.
Why the silence? Sandberg offered that people are so politically polarized today that they want every fact to fit into their particular narrative. And for some, sexual violence may not fit into their narrative.
“What is happening is that politics — polarization and extreme politics — are blinding us to something that should be completely obvious. I shouldn't even have to say this. Rape is not resistance. Never. Under any circumstances. Rape is not resistance. It never has been, it never will be,” she said.
Anyone who has a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, or a friend should join together to unite against rape in war or elsewhere, she added.
“It threatens all of our values,” Sandberg said about Hamas’ massacres of Israelis.
In one interview that Sandberg conducted, she spoke with Ayelet Levy Sachar, the mother of 19-year-old Naama Levy, whose kidnapping that morning was filmed by Hamas. The horrific sight of her pajama bottoms, drenched in blood at the back, was a clear indicator that sexual brutality was carried out by Hamas.
‘He’s just a hero’
After the film concluded, Sandberg joined Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, and Rabbi Idit Solomon for a conversation and question-and-answer session with the audience. Gundar-Goshen is a clinical psychologist who has personally treated Nova survivors. This quarter she is lecturer and artist-in-residence at Stanford’s Taube Center for Jewish Studies. Rabbi Idit Solomon is the interim associate director at Hillel at Stanford.
Sandberg expressed heartache over the current situation in Gaza and said she is a supporter of a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians.
“War is a terrible thing. Terror is a terrible thing. Oct. 7 is a terrible thing. What happened after that is a terrible thing. None of this should happen. We have to believe in peace. We have to get to peace. But in order to have peace, you need two people who are willing to let the other side live in peace,” she said.
In the film, she spoke with Rami Davidson, who heroically saved over 100 lives at the Nova Music Festival.
“He's just a hero,” Sandberg said about her interview with Davidson near the spot of the Nova festival. They stood close to the trees where he recalled seeing naked and mutilated bodies tied to them on Oct. 7.
“And he starts crying. He said, ‘I could have saved them. He rescued over 100 people, mostly from the Nova … For 10 hours, he went in and out in his little car, rescuing people, risking his own life. And he was just crying about the ones he didn't get to.”
‘A threat to our values’
Sandberg urged the audience to embrace the point that such terror will never have a place in a civilized world.
“It may take time and it may take a lot of work by people like you and all the brave people who are here today. But we are going to persuade people that this is terror. We are going to get to a world where people don't tolerate this terror and recognize the threat to our values that this is,” she said.
The documentary was released for private and public use without any licensing fees. “We're trying to get everyone we can to see it,” she said. It can be viewed for free on YouTube.
Sandberg recalled a discussion with Denis Mukwege, a Congolese physician who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. Mukwege said the most horrible aspect of sexual violence as a war tool is that it's incredibly effective and free.
“It doesn't just take real lives, but it destroys communities in many places around the world. When a woman is raped, in some cultures, she's then outcast from her society. It systematically destroys the fabric of communities. You have the single most effective tool of war, and it is available for free. You don't have to buy a bomb or a gun. That is so devastating because you realize what we're up against,” Sandberg said.
She concluded, “We will come through this. Not everyone will come through this. These people, some of these people will not. But we will come through this. And so, this event gives me hope.”
If you are someone you know has been affected by sexual violence, the following resources are available for support:
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