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Indifference is key in the fight against oppression
Suddenly everyone is worried about the rule of law in Israel.
When the government is coming for the rights of even parts of the Jewish community, for example, women’s rights, everyone suddenly cares.
Seemingly every article is about how the government is in a crisis and how we are doomed along with the state itself. All because of the incoming government. Because ignorance finally demands a price to be paid. And the ones who will have to pay will either be the ones turning a blind eye, or our society’s most vulnerable.
“Voting doesn’t make a difference” has a chilling echo when your inability to put a piece of paper into a box causes your country’s fate towards fascism to accelerate. The voices of the people not affected by a government’s actions and policies will never be as loud as the ones suffering. The feeling of indifference among Israeli Jews towards both Israeli Arabs and Palestinians caused this chaotic crisis.
When someone who’s living comfortably says that they’re not going to vote, they already did. And it was for Bibi and his careless, selfish governance. Finally, the wider public is affected and sounding the alarms. At last, they can try and begin to understand what it’s like for the millions of Arabs to suffer under a discriminative, oppressive regime.
Exactly like the state the United States was in six years ago; leftists, progressives, Hispanics, Black people, and women were all united against Donald Trump. But their cries were not heard, at least not in time.
The same indifference, the same result; fascists gaining power. Both results were preventable, yet both happened, and both had and will have severe consequences. Indifference is key to the ability of the fascists of our time to gain power.
This same indifference caused the Holocaust to happen; the German people wanted simple solutions to their problems, solutions they could not get. Blaming a tiny minority of Jews wasn’t going to solve Germany’s problems, but the masses agree to anything as long as it’s presented in a nice and agreeable way.
A similar phenomenon is present in Israeli society. It is more of a marginal standpoint, but again, if there are enough bystanders who are not willing to intervene, just about anything can happen anywhere.
A survivor of the Holocaust once said: “Be a moral guide for the world, and don’t let the same things happen to your friends like the things that happened to you.” A time has come to take these words to our hearts. The State of Israel is not made up of Holocaust survivors anymore, we have not experienced the things they experienced.
We are not oppressed anymore, and it is time we stop oppressing our friends.
Progress will never be made as long as those who are suffering won’t be able to count on anyone besides themselves. As long as we don’t stand up against oppression as a society, we can never be worthy of the countless sacrifices made for us, the next generation during the Holocaust.
And while for the Jewish majority it’s a new thing to be scared, oppressed peoples around us know that the rule of law being in danger is far from the greatest threat we face.
The greatest threat Israel faces is indifference.