It’s a contradiction that’s hard to ignore. A man whose government has systematically bombed hospitals, flattened homes, starved civilians, and overseen one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes in modern history stands on a global stage and declares:
“You know what the women in Gaza are? They’re property. They’re nothing. They have no rights.”
These aren’t the words of a fringe extremist or generated by AI. They were spoken by the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Let that settle for a moment. The same man whose military has dropped bombs on maternity wards, blocked food and medical aid, is the same man now pretending he’s fighting this war to save Palestinian women.
Liberation Doesn’t Come with Airstrikes
In his world, the logic goes something like this: Muslim societies inherently oppress women. Therefore, the only way to liberate them is by killing them. Airstrikes are a form of emancipation, forced starvation is a tool of justice, and death is the ultimate freedom.
But has anyone stopped to ask the women of Gaza what they think of this?
Because no one is saving the women of Gaza, they are targeting them. Airstrikes reduce their homes to rubble as their children die before their eyes. In what universe is this liberation? He talks like he has a mission. That he’s here to free them, the “lesser evil” would be to bomb them before their society can “oppress” them.
Throughout history, occupation has always begun with the same tired rhetoric: We’re doing this for your own good. From colonial empires to modern military regimes, the excuse remains eerily consistent. Oppression is masked as protection, and violence is virtue.
Starvation Isn’t Justice
In the 21st century, one might hope that such reductive, dehumanising narratives would no longer hold power. When a world leader accused of overseeing what many human rights experts and UN officials describe as genocide speaks condescendingly about women’s rights, it reminds us how easily history repeats itself.
Since October 2023, the people of Gaza have endured conditions that defy comprehension. Entire neighbourhoods erased. Bombs buried families under debris. Israeli forces cut off access to food, electricity, and medicine. And yes, they didn’t spare women and children. They killed Palestinians queuing for flour, imprisoned them, brutalised them, and treated them as collateral damage in a war they never chose.
This Isn’t Liberation. It’s Erasure
So when Netanyahu talks about women having “no rights,” but that is not only false, it is erasure. The question that must be asked: Who took those rights away?
It’s not Palestinian men, it wasn’t their culture, and certainly not their religion, who made access to food a daily gamble. Who severed their access to healthcare? Who turned schools and shelters into mass graves? Because it wasn’t their culture or their choice. It was war, it was the occupation. A system that has deliberately, methodically stripped women of their most basic dignity. Netanyahu now has the audacity to claim moral superiority.
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But the fact of the matter is, Gaza’s female literacy rate stands at 97% well above the global average. Women in Gaza are not cloistered in silence. They are scientists, journalists, teachers, doctors, engineers, activists, and artists. Gazan women are leading protests and raising generations. They are writing and resisting.
Because real empowerment does not come from the barrel of a gun. And no amount of political spin can mask the simple truth: You cannot bomb a woman into freedom and call it liberation. You don’t get to starve children and call it justice. You don’t get to paint yourself as a saviour while burying people under rubble.
If Netanyahu truly cared about women’s rights, he would let them live. But it’s never been about that, has it?
It’s about power. It always has been.
