
On the ground in Darfur, the overwhelming emotion is a mix of sorrow, frustration, and a disbelief that what is happening is not being stopped somehow. Six or eight months ago, it was more common to hear someone ask what Darfur was, or to have no idea. That seems to be growing less common now. —Winter Miller, author of In Darfur
By now, most of us know that we're three-and-a-half years into the first genocide of the 21st century. We know that four hundred thousand lives have so far been extinguished six decades after we first said “Never Again.” We know that the Sudanese government orchestrates this racist slaughter of black African Muslims. And we know it will continue to do so until the world summons enough political will to compel it to stop.
In the hope of bringing that day closer, Jewcy entered into a partnership with the Public Theater, the Genocide Intervention Network (GIN), and the Save Darfur Coalition (SDC). We sponsored the Public's production of In Darfur, a play written by Winter Miller after her travels in Darfur with Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
In Darfur is an innovative fusion of activism and art: a brilliant play that conveys the human tragedy of Darfur, as well as a tool with which to convert an audience's moral ire into collective action. Donations made at the Public will go to SDC, GIN, and other non-government organizations working to relieve and publicize the suffering of the people of Darfur and bring political pressure to bear on those with the power to stop the genocide.
As part of our association with In Darfur, we also decided to create this anti-genocide platform, where you can find quick but effective ways to make a difference. In the "Get Involved" column to the right, you'll see links to programs run by our partners. For example, you can sign a petition for divestment from Sudan, or pressure the U.S. mission to the U.N. to speak up on Darfur. At our partners' sites you can also learn more about the genocide, and find out how to get more actively involved.
Here we'll also collect our own Darfur-related content, and present new content as we publish it. We'll also point you toward some of the best and most illuminating material from elsewhere on the web.
View the Trailer for The Devil Came on Horseback. Find out more about this groundbreaking Darfur documentary, here.
"Stop Darfur or close down the Holocaust memorials"That’s what we said in our profile of Ruth Messinger, the head of the American Jewish World Service who has worked tirelessly to bring the Darfur genocide to an end.“The expression ‘Never again’,” Messinger says, “cannot be reserved only for Jews.” For that simple observation, and for the abundant proof that she means it, we named her Jewcy’s “tikkun olam radical.”
Who doesn’t want to Save Darfur? “Are you against genocide or not?” is about as easy a question to answer as “Cake or Death?” But when Jewcy Associate Editor Izzy Grinspan attends a rally for Darfur, she discovers that both questions are much tougher than one might think.

Brian Steidle is a U.S. Marine who was assigned to Darfur as one of three American “military observors” in the region. He was armed with only a pen, a waterproof notebook, and a camera. His pictures and reflections are hosted at the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial.
“If blame for domestic violence rests in part with neighbors who sit idly by, then the slaughter of 400,000-and-counting Darfuri African Muslims in Sudan is a pan-Arab disgrace.” So says Jewcy contributor Joseph Braude, after traveling to Qatar and meeting a modern day “Righteous Gentile,” a Sudanese expatriate who refuses to remain silent on Darfur.
If we can't tell future generations we didn't know what was happening in Darfur, no one is more responsible for this than Nicholas Kristof. The crusading New York Times columnist challenges Americans’ conscience on Darfur much as I.F. Stone once challenged it on the eradication of European Jewry. In an interview with Tikkun, Kristof explains why he just can’t leave Darfur behind.
Darfuri Refugees in Israel? There aren’t many. And yet if Israel has airlifted Jewish refugees from the Sudan, why not rescue Darfuris, today? A more alarming question: Why aren’t the few Darfuris who’ve made it to Israel eligible for asylum? The answer makes Faithhacker Tamar Fox want to break something.
Moshe Pipik
Of course, "Never Again" never meant "Never Again."
In the case of most Jewish leaders, it's meant "Never again to us."
See the essay: "The Need to Forget" by Yehuda Elkana that appeared in "Ha'aretz" on the 2nd of March 1988.
Anonymous
Never Again
Not true!!! The preponderance of assemblies against the rape of Darfur have been Jews of all denominatons.
Anonymous
More antisemitic shit from retarded jewcy.com 'jews'
I swear, jewcy.com writers are real pieces of shit. No, don't "close down holocaust memorials" if we can't stop what's happening there. All human beings should try to help other innocent human beings, but the burden is not on any one group. I genuinely hate you stupid piece of shit ultra-leftist morons. This site is honestly great fodder for jew-haters around the world. You find it "cute" to write this sort of stuff. I guess to you, it's "edgy." It doesn't make you edgy and antisemites would happily pop you in the face as you smile your obnoxious smirks as they would to anyone else.
Matt
Send Troops
The only realistic way to "help" the situation in Darfur is to send in troops. Do you suggest that the IDF send an army to Sudan? I think they've got enough on their hands as it is. The US Armed Forces are stretched thin as well, and I don't hear calls for US military involvement.
All of the rallies and vigils in the world will not stop what is happening. Sadly, only a military solution will. Unfortunately, no one else in the world is stepping up either.
mmausner
we have enough problems...
it's a classic psychological symptom of the martyr complex when someone feels the need to help ALL the suffering people of the world, and neglects themself.
It's unhealthy and unrealistic, and is likely to perpetuate problems for both the helper and helpee, in many cases.
Jews have our hands full with our own problems. Do we so quickly forget that we had one million refugees of our own only one year ago? Seeking refuge from Katyushas, Israeli residents of Israel's north had to run for it while the monsters of Hezbollah rained death down indiscriminately on 'the zionist entity', even killing many arab israelis-- remember? or did everyone forget already?
Israel is still struggling to absorb the tens of thousands of Ethiopian immigrants-- some essentially refugees as well. And so many million other Jewish israelis were made refugees from their homes in the Arab world or in Europe-- scars which in some cases never heal.
And we are surrounded by the problems generated by the insane 60-year perpetuation of the Palestinian refugee problem, the decisions made by both enemies and friends to allow the initial population exchanges of the '48 war to fester and grow malignant, to turn a temporary human tragedy into a permanent one.
It's a big, big world and Israel has many more problems than most other countries. One can go on and on about absolutes, but just about damn near any other country on earth is in a better position to help Darfur than Israel.
Anonymous
I kind of feel for the
I kind of feel for the postings above. Sure, I'd love to pitch in and end the mass killings in Darfur. But that's what anybody'd say.
What can I do that would actually make a difference? If I should send money, where to? (I did, at some point, to I can't remember where, and have no idea what that did.)
Joey Kurtzman
What can I do?
Anon, if you click on anything in the "Get Involved" column on the right of this page, you'll find something you can do.
asia kissko
Sudan 'resumes bombing in Darfur'
BBC News 7/13/07
Sudan's government has resumed bombing in the country's troubled western region of Darfur, says US special envoy to Sudan Andrew Natsios.
Anonymous
Lunacy about Darfur (in Monthly Review)
http://jeffweintraub.blogspot.com/2006/05/lunacy-about-darfur-in-monthly-review.html#links
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/furuhashi300406.html
I feel almost embarrassed to be paying attention to this idiotic, pernicious, and disgusting pair of articles by editor of the on-line version of Monthly Review (MRZine), one Yoshie Furuhashi--except that the paranoid fantasies being presented here are not an isolated aberration, but instead one more sad sign of the times. Monthly Review is a long-established US Marxist intellectual journal started over a half-century ago by Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy. Whatever one can say about its errors and flaws over the years (there have been many), it was always an intellectually serious publication. Now one of its editors has published two pieces that combine the defense of a regime engaged in racist genocide with crackpot conspiracy theories in which--you guessed it--Jews play a major role. (The first of these pieces--"'Save Darfur': Evangelicals and Establishment Jews"-- was also posted on the Engage website, with an appropriate illustration.)
I am neither making this up nor exaggerating. Both of these pieces approach self-parody. The more recent of the two, "Who Wants Peace in Darfur," begins by charging that Sunday's Save Darfur rally in Washington DC was "designed" and scheduled to "scuttle" peace negotiations between the Khartoum governmment and rebel groups.
The "Save Darfur" rally today was aired on C-Span. [....] The timing of the rally was perfect, designed to coincide -- and scuttle -- the Abuja peace negotiations between the rebels and Khartoum brokered by the African Union, whose deadline is midnight today.
Why would nefarious US imperialist forces want the negotiations to break down? Of course, we know a priori that it must be All About Oil. Yes, there is the small complication that there are practically no known oil reserves in the Darfur region of Sudan, whereas the US government has put enormous time and effort into trying to broker a peace accord between the Khartoum government and southern Sudan, where there is a lot of oil. Furuhashi's attempt to finesse such difficulties blends a bit of ingenuity, a bit of dishonesty, and a bit of outright absurdity. But I will leave the oil-based pseudo-analysis offered here to interested readers.
What is even more puzzling is how these imperialist plots are supposed to be connected to the role of Furuhashi's more immediate villains, "Evangelicals and Establishment Jews"--the twin forces, she explains, behind the "Save Darfur" conspiracy.
Who is behind this astonishing pro-war rally in war-weary America (war-weary as far as the Iraq War is concerned, that is)? A rag-tag coalition of evangelicals and establishment Jews (those whom the corporate media designate as official leaders of Jewish communities) [....]
The eagerness of "Establishment Jews" to drag us into another unnecessary war is also peculiar since, as Furuhashi notes in her second piece,
The conflict in Sudan, which pits Islamists (the Justice and Equality Movement [JEM]) against Islamists (the government of Sudan), is the last conflict in which Jews would want to get involved in any way, the least of all side by side with evangelical Christians, especially given that the leader of JEM [Hassan al-Turabi] is said to be a fan of Osama bin Laden:
What are those Jewish conspirators up to?
It does not seem to have occurred to Furuhashi that the people who organized and participated in the Save Darfur rally are not especially interested in taking sides between the Khartoum government and the various rebel groups. Instead, by its tactics, the Sudanese regime has turned the conflict into an all-out, indiscriminate assault on the African civilian population in Darfur (see, for example, here and here and here), and the point of the rally was to take their side. The fundamental question here is whether the genocidal mass murder, mass rape, torture, ethnic cleansing, and deliberate starvation of civilian populations should be regarded as legitimate tactics of military and political conflict.
I happen to believe that the answer should be no. Furuhashi's remarks about Darfur and Bosnia suggest that she thinks otherwise. But be that as it may....
It happens to be quite true that American Jewish groups have played a very active role in mobilizing public protest against the slow-motion genocidal mass murder of African Muslims in Darfur. Unlike Furuhashi, I see this as a cause for pride and hope. We should all be doing more to stop this atrocity--not inventing reasons to change the subject, protect the criminals, and attack those who sympathize with the victims.
Yours for sanity,
Jeff Weintraub
[P.S. See the follow-up commentary by Marc Cooper, "It's Those Jews Again":
I share Jeff's dismay and disgust with this garbage from Monthly Review. There was a time in my life when I made sure not to miss an issue of MR. I never shared its always orthodox Marxist perspective, but the mag -- in its heyday-- could be counted on always to be of the highest intellectual caliber. To this day I still vividly remember pieces I read in MR 25 and 30 years ago (Economist Samir Amin's circa 1975 essay on Australia and California stands out most boldly).
What a long, long, long, long way down. From a sparkling theoretical journal of the intellectual left, to an agit-prop rag unintentionally (I hope) flirting with anti-semitism and soaked in conspiracy mongering. [....]
This ugly episode is nothing but one more crude manifestation of the knee-jerkish "my enemy's enemy is my friend" axiom. In this case, whatever the Bush administration is for (no matter how half-heartedly or ineffectually) some "anti-imperialists" are totally against -- even it means siding with a genocidal dictatorship in Sudan. Man, does this stink.
Right. --Jeff Weintraub]
Anonymous
You are misinformed
Genocide against black african muslims? How can a media entity have such a misconception? The situation in darfur is about land and conflicts between agriculturalists and nomads. Race and religion play no part in it, and those that are doing the killing look identical to those that are being killed, they just refer to themselves as arabs. Please do your research.
JewcyCraig
Genocide against black african muslims
I was confused about that too, since I thought it was pretty well-established that this was not a race issue.. However, I discussed this with other Jewcers, and here's what we came up with.
We don't think that's well-established at all, the Arabic-speaking tribes involved in the conflict have supposedly been influenced by Arab supremacist ideology from Libya and they often use racist language during attacks on the Darfurians. But there are other issues involved besides race, and their own racial categories doesn't correspond to our own, since all of them are "black" by American standards, even while the racist language employed relates to the blackness of the Darfurians. All very complicated.
Despite all this, Joey (who compiled this originally) doesn't know why the term "racist slaughter of black African muslims" is in there, he didn't write it, and he wouldn't have used it as my primary description of the conflict. He says he originally described it in more general terms about the government murdering a problematic minority and was making an implicit Holocaust comparison. But during the editing process someone changed it to "racist slaughter of black African Muslims," presumably because they thought the Holocaust comparison wasn't strong enough to warrant the more general language.
mmausner
racism in darfur
certainly to the participants, there's a perceptible racial difference between the Sudanese Arabs and Darfur non-Arabs being massacred. Within Sudan, Ethiopia, and Somalia, apparently, there's more racial-genetic variation than in most of the rest of the world put together. From remnants of the Ituri-Pygmy 'old people' to the tall lighter Iman-type to compact Ethiopians and a variety of Bantus, apparently there's greater genetic differences than there are between all other groups of humans. The genetic literature is controversial to be sure, but I read this in a series of articles debunking 'race' as a simple genetic category. Africa definitely has more variation than even the differences from Australian Aborigines and Polynesian Islanders to Caucasian-Americans and native Americans.
But in the Darfur conflict (as in Rwanda) surface ethnic or alleged racial categories mask some much deeper antagonisms and socio-economic stresses which led to violent conflict.
asia kissko
Darfur- photo essay
Found from MotherJones.com- a Photo essay on darfur
RandallJones
genocides are occuring in many countries
Many more have been killed in Iraq and there are many more refugees fleeing the country the United States bombed and is countrolling.
The Congo is the country with the most killings and rapes, but for some reason there doesn't seem to be too much concern about this. Is it because the United States, Israel, and Europe benefit from the diamonds, other natural resources, slave labor and sale of weapons that the plight of the Congolese does not really matter.
Somalia also has become a humanitarian crisis worse than Darfur, thanks to the U.S. support of Ethiopia in taking unnecessarily harsh military actions against the country.
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