You Couldn’t Keep Silent About this: And how about this?

“You couldn’t keep silent about this: And about this?”

Leaflet, 1971

The Israeli Socialist Organization aka “Matzpen” after the name of the magazine, active 1962-82

You couldn’t keep silent about this:

And how about this?

You couldn’t keep silent  when Jews were restricted from leaving the Soviet Union to come back to their “homeland”, in the name of democratic principles.

 

When the rights of the numerous Palestinian Arabs born in Haifa, Jaffa or Majdal, to return to their homeland is being denied?

 

You couldn’t keep silent in the name of democracy and the right of people to self-determination when Prague was conquered by the Soviets.

 

When Nablus, Hebron and Jerusalem were conquered?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when Black Hebrews claimed to have a right to live in this land in the name of history, divine promise and the bible.

 

When Zionists dispossess another people in the name of these same rights?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when you heard of Jewish cemeteries being desecrated around the world.

 

When you heard that Agron Street in Jerusalem and the Hilton hotel in Tel-Aviv are built on ruined Muslim graveyards?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when you heard of dozens of Jews being jailed in Iraq and Syria.

 

When hundreds of Palestinians are tormented in jails in Israel and the occupied territories, some without trial?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when American youths had to escape or be jailed for refusing to fight for the army that oppressed the Vietnamese people.

 

When Israeli youths are jailed for refusing to serve in the army that oppresses the Palestinians?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when you heard that the identification papers of Jews in Iraq bear the nationality Jew, for easier identification.

 

When in an Arab’s identity card the nationality is stated to determine the identity and the treatment to be had more easily?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when a brutal police force employed guns and batons against all forces in the movie “Z” under Greek dictatorship.

 

When a brutal police force employs violence and batons against the demonstrators of the Black Panthers, the New Left, Matzpen and the communist party on the streets of Jerusalem?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when the prisoners’ rebellion at Attica State Prison was violently quelled.

 

When prisoners in Ashqelon Prison are rebelling for not being able to endure the conditions and abusive treatment any longer?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when hand grenades were thrown and bombs placed in public places in Israel.

 

When Israeli agents placed bombs in Cairo and Alexandria in 1954, in public places and American institutions, in order to generate conflicts between Egypt and the US?

 

You couldn’t keep silent when white supremacists fight to discriminate against blacks in the USA and South Africa.

 

When Rabbis and Zionist missionaries fight against mixed marriages of Jews and non-Jews in Israel and around the world?

 

Even if you chose not to regurgitate you still have to chose between honesty and hypocrisy, ethics and “national ethics”, individual thought and institutional definitions, a helpless silence and a raising a voice of protest.

If you’d like to subscribe to Matzpen or join our political discussion group, or to invite our speakers contact us at the address on this page.

STUDENT CELLS OF THE ISRAELI SOCIALIST ORGANIZATION (MATZPEN)
November 1971

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Content from It’s All Lies