Like most Israelis, the country’s First Lady is refreshingly down to earth. Welcoming me into the stylish house in Tel Aviv where she and her husband, President Isaac Herzog, live when not at their official residence in Jerusalem, she asks how I’d like my coffee, then makes it herself.
But behind the warm welcome lies a core of steel. When she starts her exclusive JC interview, Herzog accuses international human rights and women’s organisations of a “painful betrayal of women” by refusing to condemn the organised sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 attacks.
First Lady Michal Herzog embracing Noam, survivor of the NOVA music festival shot on October 7 at Levinstein rehabilitation center Photo credit: Bar Netzer
On Monday, the day our interview took place, it emerged that at the end of this month — almost four months after the atrocities — the UN is finally sending Pramila Patten, its special rapporteur on sexual violence in conflict, to Israel. But so far that is all, and, according to Herzog, the wider world’s lack of reaction “clearly shows the worst double standard against Israel”.
Herzog, a former criminal lawyer who is Israel’s highest-profile First Lady for years, first raised what she called the “devastating silence” of international rights groups over the rapes of Israeli women in an article she wrote for Newsweek in November. But her comments to the JC are her most outspoken yet, following claims by anti-Israel activists that allegations of rape by the terrorists have been “fabricated”.
Among the most extreme was a statement signed last week by 19 Middle East women’s and human rights groups and hundreds of individuals, some in Europe and America, saying a recent New York Times investigation into the rapes was “propaganda for an unlawful occupation” designed to silence opposition to “the genocide in Gaza”.
First Lady Michal Herzog visits injured Israelis in Ichilov Hospital following the October 7th attack. Credit: President’s Spokesperson
Herzog points out that the evidence of orchestrated, gender-based violence was “overwhelming”. It included eyewitness testimony, the horrific injuries of victims who were raped and then murdered, videos shot by perpetrators, admissions by captured terrorists, and, perhaps most compelling of all, the Hamas “instruction manuals” recovered from fighters killed by the IDF, which set out the Hebrew for phrases such as “take off your pants” and “open your legs”.
“The double standard in this is astonishing,” Herzog says. “Of course, antisemitism is embedded in it, but it’s also a product of this shallow discourse that makes people side with the supposed underdog. But in this case, it was the Palestinians who attacked, and we know it was pre-planned.
“I cannot stomach the hypocrisy. It’s not just a betrayal of Israeli women, but women at large. What was the Me Too movement? It was about believing women. That they don’t is very painful.”
Before becoming First Lady, Herzog worked closely with Natal, an Israeli charity that supports those afflicted by mental illness resulting from trauma caused by terrorism and war. This, she said, led to a deepening friendship with Olena Zelenska, the First Lady of Ukraine.
When Russia invaded in 2022, Herzog offered Israel’s help in dealing with the trauma this caused, and a Ukrainian team visited Israel for training. And then, after October 7, “Olena called me and asked: ‘How can we help?’ ”
Herzog says: “Israel is a small country and October 7 directly affected everyone. Everyone knows someone who was raped or murdered or taken hostage, or has close family members in the IDF.
“Even in normal times, this is a tense place, and people now are still very sad. But there is always a high sense of involvement in society. In the previous months, people found the strife caused by the government’s attempted judicial reforms very difficult. Families were having bitter arguments around the Shabbat dinner table that they could not resolve.
“That disappeared within minutes of the Hamas attack. In other countries, when a war begins, people try to flee. But thousands of Israelis who were abroad when Hamas attacked did all they could to get on the first plane home.”
Michal Herzog Credit: Igal Slavin
Herzog says the war is still causing much trauma and anguish. She cited the example of a reservist mobilised to fight in Gaza, who would be given 24 hours rest and recreation — what the IDF calls “freshening” — back home with his family. “This can be very difficult and painful — the soldier has been living intensely with his other family, his unit, but his wife might be struggling to cope with the burdens of a job and raising several children.”
But when a soldier was killed, Herzog said, news travelled fast, and when it came to the funeral, “people stand in great numbers on the roads, waving Israeli flags. You can’t help but be proud of our people, and their solidarity.”
According to Herzog, in the wake of the massacre Israel had no only mobilised its military but its sense of “mutual responsibility”, and this, she said, gave her hope for the country’s future: “Our Arab citizens have shown tremendous responsibility, although it can’t be easy for them when they see pictures from Gaza, where they may have relatives — and yet, they choose to remain Israeli.” This, she says, was partly because Bedouin Arabs were murdered and taken hostage. “The terrorists did not differentiate between Muslims and Jews. Anyone living in Israel was a target.”
Herzog says she was also hopeful that the war would bring the Charedim closer to Israel’s mainstream: “I think you will see them becoming much more involved”, in both the economy and, she said, perhaps in time the IDF, in which few currently serve.
It was, she said, still too early to talk about a possible negotiated peace, despite the efforts of America and its allies, Britain included, to put it on the agenda: “It’s not something the public is ready to hear while we have our trauma to deal with.”
Nevertheless, she said, “After the trauma, life goes on. You see it in the health sector: Palestinian doctors doing their training in Israeli hospitals. They are our neighbours, and we employ each other. In the media, you hear those with loud voices, not those who get up in the morning and go to work and simply want the best for their families.
“That’s what drives life forward. And in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, concerts are back, theatre is back, life is back. Israelis are a life-loving people, and we are very determined.”
