“The Final Solution”
“The only good Indian is a dead Indian”
“From the River to the Sea”
There are many ways to show bigotry, prejudice, and hatred. It is another level of despicable to use terms that speak of the murder and genocide of an entire race or nationality of people.
The term, “The Final Solution,” comes from Nazi Germany’s leaders as the answer to “the Jewish problem” The problem was that the Jewish people were alive, and Hitler intended to kill every single Jew under his jurisdiction.
He didn’t succeed in his ultimate goal but, what is now known as “the Holocaust,” resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews. There are ignorant and undereducated people who contend that the Holocaust never happened but history and Allied eye witnesses make liars of them all.
It was the United States Army’s General Philip Sheridan who, in 1869, is to have said, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” The actual story is this: In January 1869, General Sheridan held a conference with 50 Indian chiefs at Fort Cobb in the so-called Indian Territory (later part of Oklahoma). At that time, Sheridan, who had gained recognition as a Union officer in the Civil War, was in charge of the Department of the Missouri. One of his duties was to oversee the Indian Territory, making sure that the Indians remained on their reservations and did not harass the white settlers.
When Comanche chief Toch-a-way was introduced to Sheridan at the conference, the Indian said, “Me Toch-a-way, me good Indian.” Sheridan reportedly smirked and replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” Later, the remark became “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” (source Trivia-Library.com)
Whether Sheridan intended genocide or not, the phrase caught on and attacks on Indian villages, deprivations suffered by those forced onto reservations, and the near extinction of the buffalo (a tactic to try to starve Indians to death), nearly did the job.
What is troubling is that, while these examples are in the past, a modern version of intended Indian slaughter and Nazi genocide is being proclaimed and promoted by great crowds of students, professors, activists, and others in the United States and abroad — as well as a sitting U. S. Congresswoman, whose message is nothing short of genocide. “From the River to the Sea” is an intended goal of radical Islamists for the destruction of Israel and the wholesale murder of Jews.
A down payment on this goal was paid on October 7, 2023, when a small army of Hamas members invaded Israel and slaughtered, raped, tortured, beheaded, and mutilated their way across several civilian communities in Israel before kidnapping over 240 people from 25 different countries. According to Reuters, this includes 54 Thia nationals. What did Thailand ever do to Hamas? But it doesn’t matter to these blood-thirsty killers.
This latest chant of genocide is being repeated in cities and colleges campuses across the nation and the world. Nazism, that part that intends to murder whole populations, is alive and well in a different package.
It is one thing to support a Palestinian homeland. It is another to support the call for a cease fire and for the freedom of those who were kidnapped. It is yet another to decry the deaths of innocents in Gaza. But to support Hamas and their evil deeds is no different than those Nazi leaders (and the people who went along with it) who called for a “final solution.”
For all my relatively long life I have believed that such a thing could never happen in the United States of America. I have contended that we would never fall into the trap of being like the German people who elected and supported Hitler and his aims.
But I was wrong. In America, our citizens are joining with radicals who support the madness of October 7, and chanting “from the river to the sea,” as though it were a mantra.
On the one hand, the U. S. House of Representatives, in a bi-partisan move, did vote to censure Representative Rashia Tlaib (D-MI) for “promoting false narratives regarding the… Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel.” (source USA Today). Astonishingly, on the other hand, 188 members of the House of Representatives voted AGAINST the measure, while four chose not to vote at all.
Throughout history, Jews have been badgered, assaulted, persecuted, and murdered. And now, in the 21st Century, a number of American young people, college educated (though the value of that education is now suspect) and living in a free and democratic nation are joining with the call for the elimination of Democratic Israel — our friend and partner.
And that, if it happens, will result in the murder of Jews on a scale that would make Hitler and his henchmen proud. One can hear the echo of a Nazism that most of us thought was long dead.
[David Epps has been a Citizen opinion columnist since 1996. He may be contacted at [email protected].]
I, too, am astonished that otherwise reasonable Americans embrace Nazi propaganda. The leading conservative presidential candidate has been quoting Adolph Hitler in his recent campaign speeches referring to political rivals as “vermin” and describing nonwhite people as “poisoning the blood of our people.”
The antisemitic on the left and the right-wing authoritarians have one thing very much in common: They propagate Nazi tropes. I realize that ideologues of any stripe will always refuse to see the truth of their misguided leaders. However, I trust that there are still enough clear thinking voters in our country who will not be hypnotized by this extreme rhetoric and never again vote for a candidate who runs on a platform of hate and promises ethnic cleansing.
We are much better than this in our great country.
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