During one of my recent biweekly drives to pick up incredibly sweet freshly-picked local strawberries, I listened to a report on BBC news about the war. The BBC, of course, is renowned for its anti-Israel bias (never, for example, referring to Hamas as a terrorist organization as a matter of policy).
The report described the way hundreds of thousands of civilians had fled for safety to the city, but then, as an attack against the city appeared imminent, tens of thousands had left. Now, however, troops had surrounded the city, and civilians were no longer being permitted to leave, even though indiscriminate aerial bombardment attacks had begun that were resulting in thousands of deaths of the indigenous civilians now trapped in the city. The report also mentioned that this attack was just the latest in a war that had already produced over 10,000 civilians deaths in one city alone — a war that has included several verified ethnic-cleansing massacres of the indigenous population of the region.
Gaza? Rafah?
NO. Darfur.
The report was about the civil war in Sudan, in which Arab forces have been massacring civilian black African Sudanese men, women, and children. A few links to recent news reports are below:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c51n5lppw8vo
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crgy3e1pgn9o
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cw4dk2kzy5wo
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-69052769
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67356375
This conflict has it all. Tens of thousands of recent civilian deaths (and hundreds of thousands during the past twenty years). Ethnic cleansing and genocide of an indigenous population. Millions displaced. BUT, there is one important element present not present in the war in Sudan that is present in the Hamas-on-Israel war: Jews. So of course --
There have not been any protests on American university campuses related to the Sudanese conflict. No calls for university divestment from companies that do business in Sudan. No demands that university presidents issue statements condemning the ethnic cleansing and military targeting of civilians. The city of Chicago has been eerily quiet about the Sudan war (and, of course, while condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza continues to experience an abhorrent rate of homicides within its own borders). PEN America has seen no boycotting of their annual meeting by those wishing to bring attention to the racist genocide in Sudan. Mark Ruffalo has not called for an immediate ceasefire because of his support for the oppressed in Darfur. Michael Roth, the president of Wesleyan College, who wrote, in his statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza that would functionally reward Hamas for its barbaric atrocities on Oct. 7, that “ Silence at a time of humanitarian catastrophe isn’t neutrality; it’s either cowardice or collaboration.” has had nothing to say about recent crimes against humanity in Sudan. He does not believe in the principle of institutional neutrality. But about Darfur? Crickets.
And when the genocidal colonizers are Arabs – the “anti-racists” and “decolonizers” amongst university professors seem to have nothing to say. Except, of course, that their criticism of the ways in which Israel is defending itself against a genocidal death cult is not in any way antisemitic. No at all. Well – except that when a different standard is applied to judgments about the one Jewish country in the world from the standard used when making judgment about all other countries – actually, it is.
There’s several other conflicts like this which get zero protesters. Very interesting…