JK Rowling's silence on Gaza's murdered women

The children's author has spent more time ridiculing my ADHD symptoms than condemning Israel's crimes against Palestinian women

Why is JK Rowling, who presents herself as a champion of women’s rights, silent on the mass slaughter, maiming, torture, abuse, dispossession, bereavement, sexual assault and rape of Palestinian women?

Look, a confession - I normally try to steer well away from the relentless psychodrama involving this children’s author, despite her intermittently making random attacks on me, which I’m cool with - anything to distract her from her useless obsessions.

This weekend, however, she popped up to respond to my interview last week on Piers Morgan’s show, which was about Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Rather than deal with the substance of what I was saying, she instead decided to - and no, I am not exaggerating here - promote claims that I had snorted cocaine before my appearance.

As it happens I have ADHD, and filmed a video about this a couple of years ago which some of you found helpful.

But my neurodivergence isn’t the issue here, or shouldn’t be. Israel is committing a genocide, facilitated by the government which represents both JK Rowling and myself. That’s what I was discussing in the interview she was mocking - a genocide which has inflicted unimaginable apocalyptic ruin on Palestinian woman and girls.

And yet JK Rowling, the self-professed champion of women’s rights, has had more to say about me, more to say about my ADHD symptoms, more to say implying that I go on TV whilst high on drugs, than she has to say about the suffering of Palestinian woman and girls at the hands of Israel’s Western-facilitated genocide.

And to be fair to her, that isn’t hard, because she has said zilch, zero, nada, about the suffering of Palestinian women and girls in this genocide.

JK Rowling has one of the biggest platforms on earth. Here’s what she could have used her platform to talk about, but chose not to.

As Oxfam noted, in the first year, Israel’s genocide exterminated more women and children in Gaza than in any comparable conflict in the 21st century.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Pregnant Palestinian women have been repeatedly murdered by the Israeli military.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Palestinian women are having C-sections without painkillers. Girls are using tent scraps as sanitary products.

JK Rowling says nothing.

In March, the UN issued a report detailing Israel's sexual, reproductive and other forms of gender-based violence against Palestinian women.

Joanne could have used her huge platform to share this hideous report. But:

JK Rowling says nothing.

Israel's deliberate starvation of Gaza has had a devastating impact on pregnant women.

According to the UN report, it’s led to: "anaemia, pre-eclampsia, haemorrhage, maternal death, newborn death and premature birth."

JK Rowling says nothing.

Israel's deliberate starvation of Gaza meant that, as per the UN report: "Among households with lactating mothers, 55 percent reported health conditions impeding their ability to breastfeed and 99 percent reported difficulties developing enough breastmilk."

JK Rowling says nothing.

By October 2024, according to the report, "16,500 pregnant and lactating women were reported to be in need of treatment for acute malnutrition."

JK Rowling says nothing.

As the report notes, Palestinian women are dying of ovarian, cervix and breast cancer because of Israel's war on Gaza's healthcare system.

JK Rowling says nothing.

The number of miscarriages amongst Palestinian women has surged by up to 300% because of Israel's genocide, according to the report.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Israel destroyed maternity wards and an IVF clinic in Gaza, destroying 4,000 embryos and more than 1,000 sperm and egg samples.

The United Nations rightly called these "genocidal acts".

But what does JK say? Oh, that's right.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Israel is blocking baby formula from getting into Gaza, leaving babies to starve.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Israeli soldiers repeatedly photograph themselves mocking the underwear of Palestinian women they've driven from their homes, traumatised, abused, starved, maimed, bereaved and indeed killed.

JK Rowling says nothing.

Palestinian women aren't just being beaten up by Israeli soldiers.

They're being sexually abused, as the UN report details.

Those who claim to be great champions of women's rights could have told you this. But unfortunately:

JK Rowling says nothing.

The Israeli military have not just been filmed gang-raping Palestinian men on camera.

Palestinian women have reported being raped by the Israeli military, as another UN report last year detailed.

JK Rowling says nothing.

We could go on. Palestinian women and girls are suffering the most hideous, apocalyptic suffering imaginable.

JK Rowling has one of the biggest platforms on earth, whilst claiming to be a champion of women’s rights.

She could have listened to Arab feminists, like the brilliant Maryam Aldossari, who have demanded that the silence over Palestinian women and girls must end. She didn't. Why?

She has portrayed the movement for trans rights as a mortal danger to women, and completely ignored the greatest crime against women and girls of our age - that is a crime perpetrated by our own rulers, with weapons and diplomatic and political support offered by our rulers.

Yet she has tweeted more about me than she has about the hideous impact of Israel's genocide since it began 638 days ago.

Maybe she thinks me, a clumsy neurodivergent geriatric millennial from Stockport, is more of a threat to women than the Israeli military.

If someone with a platform as huge as JK Rowling used it to speak out about what Israel is doing to Palestinian women and girls, the impact would be colossal. So that's my challenge to her:

End your silence.

Your voice, more than your cash, would be so important here.

Can you unequivocally denounce the criminal responsibility of Israel for the abominations it's inflicting against Palestinian women?

Can you do it without 'BUT HAMAS!!!' Our country is arming - and allied to - Israel, not Hamas.

These crimes against Gaza's women are OUR crimes. Do you have the courage to condemn a crime facilitated by your own country?

An appeal to o-called 'Gender Critical' activists, too.

Some of you have been in touch to say that while you strongly reject my position on trans rights, you are angry about the silence of leading self-described feminists on Palestinian women and girls.

Why not say this publicly?

In the interests of accuracy, it’s not actually true that JK Rowling has been completely silent on this genocide. In 2023, she tweeted in support of an article condemning celebrities who signed a letter in support of a ceasefire.

These were celebrities trying to use their platform to oppose what they knew would be a great crime - a crime that would inflict unimaginable horror on women and girls - and yet JK Rowling used her platform to condemn opponents of this bloodbath.

In response to her latest comments, many Palestinians have spoken up.

The brilliant Palestinian analyst Muhammad Shehada - who is from Gaza, and who has lost so many loved ones to Israel’s genocide - wrote:

You claim to care for women, yet never said a single word about Israel murdering, maiming, starving & abusing Gazan women in numbers unseen anywhere in today’s world, & you’re mocking one of the most prominent people doing the very thing you cower from (he has ADHD). Disgraceful!

Many of my friends & family whom Israel killed in Gaza had believed in this woman; loved her books, found solace in the Harry Potter universe, & trusted her principles for justice & against racism

She threw them all under the bus; not one word in 20 months! Hope she sleeps well!

As the Pulitzer winning Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha - who has also lost so many loved ones - wrote:

Are you a serious human? A serious writer?

Shame on you for never speaking up on behalf of women and mothers who are slaughtered daily for over 600 days.

What does it take for JK Rowling to speak out about the horrors inflicted on Palestinian women? Given her obsession, does Israel need to come out as trans?

Shame on those who claim to stand for the rights of women and girls who say nothing as Palestinian women and girls suffer mass slaughter and suffering at the hands of a genocide armed by our own government.

History will remember those who chose to be silent in the face of this barbarism.