Be not intimidated… nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
— John Adams, “A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law,” No. 3, National Archives.
Victims of great crimes deserve to be memorialized. So, too, those who bravely protected them. Hitler’s genocide indeed is solemnly recognized in prominent votive memorials – in Berlin, in Russia-Babi Yar, in Washington. The heroes and heroines who put themselves at risk to save innocent souls are honored at Yad Vashem in Israel.
A decent respect for humanity and the opinion of mankind obliges us to similarly honor those who have fought against mass murder of the Palestinians – and sought to balm their suffering, who have called out the atrocities inflicted on them by the Israelis. In this case, incidents of direct physical action by outsiders are nonexistent because the victims are inaccessible. Still, they present outstanding examples of integrity and empathy that transcend parochial boundaries of ethnicity or nationality. To do so, they resisted the intemperate pressures from all sides to conform or to stay silent. Some paid a price for that temerity. Instead, they felt the imperative to fix a revealing light on the Gazan horrors, and to testify to the shameless conduct of their tormentors.
[I am not aware of a single occasion where Israeli Jews succored Arabs. Admittedly, the Gazans and Jewish Israelis were not mingled since the former already were segregated in a virtual concentration camp. On the West Bank, though, the ongoing violent ethnic cleansing has allowed for acts of decency – none appear to have occurred.]
This is not the place to identify those virtuous individually. For any attempt to compose a list runs the risk of overlooking some worthy parties. Besides, they are well known – especially so because their numbers are relatively few. The cadre include former American ambassadors whose singular accomplishments are historic landmarks of the past century, courageous commentators and independent journalists who have seized the opening created by alternative electronic media to speak truth to abusive power and specious argument, and those who amplified the damning report of Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Pride of place should be given those thousands of students who exhibited in protest demonstrations their conviction that American ideals and universal humanistic principles demanded a stop to the wholesale killing – only to be betrayed cruelly by high university officials, moral eunuchs, who chose instead to pay massive indemnities to a deranged, sordid extortionist who proclaims himself the Prince of Righteousness; why? for tolerating (briefly) public condemnation of despicable crimes against humanity. Among the “not in my name” protestors were hundreds of Jewish students whose character and conscience were formed by a blend of American civic virtue and the ideals of their religious heritage.
Equally noteworthy are the many accomplices – active or passive – in the Gazan genocide. 99 Senators, 400+ Representatives, the publishers/owners/editors of every mainstream media organization, the Presidents or Chancellors of nearly all the nation’s universities and colleges, foundation directors, think tanks, the mute churchmen, the inert professional associations of America’s vaunted civil society. All bear a measure of culpability for our country’s genocidal behavior. They forever will bear the mark of their infamy.
Where should these votive memorials be placed? Most appropriate are the South Lawn of the White House, the Capitol rotunda, the State Department courtyard, 251 ‘H’ St D.C., the foyer of The New York Times building, Harvard Square, Columbia University.