"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
