Many are familiar with this famous quotation:
In Germany they came first for the Communists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me–and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Written by Martin Niemöller(1892-1984), this quotation has been used, almost to the point of kitsch. It is particularly popular in Jewish youth movements, used as a rallying cry against the guilt of the world (i.e. “the goyim”) because of its silence while the Nazi’s perpetrated their crimes against the Jews.
I’ve been thinking about this quotation recently, in a different context.
The future over the next few years looks bleak indeed. Sharon seems a shoo-in to win the next election, and that means more years of disaster. One shouldn’t be fooled by Sharon’s recent “moderate” statements declaring “support” for a Palestinian “state” and the Bush administrations “roadmap.”
Sharon trots out this “moderate” position every time elections roll around. After all, the majority of the Israeli public understands that a two-state solution is the only real answer. Most Israeli want to dismantle the apple of Sharon’s eye – the settlements. So Sharon caters to the public in a most cynical way, by saying “sure I support the two state solution.” But if you read the fine print, Sharon imposes so many conditions on his “support” that he knows there is nothing to worry about.
Everything Sharon has done since he has come to power (as oppossed to what he says) indicates that this is his real agenda: to retain as much land as possible on the West Bank for Israel and let the remaining Palestinians live in a truncated bantu state headed by a puppet government under Israeli control. In this way, Israel can retain the vast majority of the settlements, without any responsibility for the civil needs of the Palestinians and all the while continuing to pretend Israel a “democracy.” As part of this agenda, ethnic cleasing of Palestinians is a tactical weapon. Sharon wants to push out of Palestine as many Palestinians as he can get away with, in order to create a clear Jewish majority in those lands that will remain under Israeli control in the West bank.
The fact that the extremist Yitzhak Shamir, who believes that the borders of Israel extend from the Meditteranean to the Euphrates river (more on this another time), supported Sharon and not Netanyahu in the recent Likud primaries, should be a clear indicator that the right understands that Sharon’s two-state talk is pure marketing spin. Annexation and ethnic cleansing are Sharon’s real agenda.
As for the Bush administration’s roadmap, today it was announced that Elliot Abrams has been appointed as President Bush’s director of Middle Eastern affairs. The NY Times reminds us that Abrams, in his past life as Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs was convicted for lying to Congress. The NY Times notes that this appointment seems to signal the death knell of the “Road Map” as a serious peace plan.
“‘It does seem that the White House has decided to back off [from the road map],’ said Martin Indyk, a former adviser to Mr. Clinton. ‘If the administration were preparing for a new push on the road map, this would be an unusual appointment,’ he said, referring to Mr. Abrams.”
With Sharon continuing his war against the Palestinian people, and the Bush administration sitting on its hands in Palestine, and pursuing other criminal activities elsewhere in the Middle East, the question is: what is someone who believes in human dignity for all people to do in these dark times?
Many on the left argue we need to “moderate” what we say in order to capture the center. There are those who say that we can’t talk about Sharon’s war crimes, about ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, because the Jewish world isn’t “ready” to hear about that.
Which leads me back to Niemöller’s words:
“Then they came for me–and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Tags: Activism, Feature, Holocaust, Logic of Occupation
