Israel in Gaza: “A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal”

Michael Ratner is a human rights attorney and the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He wrote this on the celebration of Dr. King's birth:

Just Left » Blog Archive » On the Celebration of King’s Birth: Israel in Gaza: “A Time Comes When Silence is Betrayal”.

This brings me to Gaza and role of American Jews and, in fact, of almost all Americans. For too long, and I do not exempt myself, most of us have stood silently by or made only a marginal protests about the massive violations of Palestinian rights carried out by Israel. I recall a conversation I had some years ago with the political artist Leon Golub, famous for his outsized oil paintings of torture carried out by American mercenaries in Central America. Leon told me that he had been invited to attend a panel to address what it meant to be a Jewish political artist. He said he had never thought of himself as a “Jewish political artist” but only as a “political artist.” Then he thought some more. Of the works of art he had made, none concerned Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. And then he knew, at least for himself and probably many others: to be a “Jewish political artist” was to be an artist who avoided depicting the horrors inflicted on Palestinians.

The sign of hope is that Ratner writes this. Awareness dawns in this country among people who have the power to change our discourse and ultimately our policy.

Hat tip Philip Weiss, who is fighting the good fight while I rest.

Comments

[Richard Silverstein]

Thank you so much, Leila for making me aware of this wonderful post. It's good to have a new ally like Ratner. I've written to him asking him to sign our American Jewish statement against the Gaza disaster.

Now to read Siegman's piece on Israel's lies...