The Holocaust of the Jewish people demonstrated the crucial significance of timely international reaction, as early as the declaration of intent to commit genocide. During the Holocaust, the world was slow to respond and mostly did not react to the news of the murder of millions of Jews: The international reaction did not come at the time of declarations of intent or the genocide's implementation.
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| World is silent, and so are we / Rabbi Yuval Sherlo |
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Israel's silence in face of Darfur killings undermines us morally |
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It appears that states have not changed their response patterns to this day. In the 1990s Rwanda experienced genocide that received little international attention. In the last two years, such murders are also taking place in Sudan's Darfur region.
The Arab Janjaweed militias, acting under the Sudanese government's auspices, are undertaking ethnic cleansing of Sudanese of African decent.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum has called on the world to do something against the Darfur genocide, expecting that after the Holocaust and in the face of the silence of governments, civil society in Western countries will engage in an all-out, loud protest to stop the murder.
Yet this didn't happen. Such protest could have aroused decision makers in those countries and led them to act against the Sudanese government with determination.
The United Nation also failed in handling this issue. This failure was also expressed in the farewell speech delivered by outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in a special session of the Security Council. The speech was dedicated to the state of the Middle East and saw Annan voicing uncommonly harsh criticism against the organization he was leading.
He reprimanded the Human Rights Commission for focusing on condemning Israel while a humanitarian disaster is taking place in Darfur. This apathy dishonors the agreements and conventions the world swore to uphold.
When I engage in self-examination today, I feel that we have failed. This failure also constitutes a flawed message to our youngsters, who discover that basic values are forgotten when put to the test.
We must not stand on the sidelines and remain silent while men, women and children are being murdered; doing nothing while millions are being exterminated means sacrificing humanity's future.
It's too late to save the thousands who have already been killed, but it isn't too late to save thousands who are facing mortal danger. Perhaps then it would be possible to salvage something from the few remnants of our sense of morality.
The writer is the chairman of the Yad Vashem directorate
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