While drifting in and out of sleep during a layover in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport this morning, I was finally brought into consciousness by a call from Lauren, a dear friend who lives near Los Angeles, California.
“I heard the updates about Gaza this morning and wanted to call you. I am so sorry.”
What more can be said at a time like this? I’ve had trouble putting any words to the images I’ve seen from Gaza since Saturday and to the feelings welling up inside of me as I think of friends in Palestine and of Palestinian friends here in the States wishing they were home with their loved ones. All of my past study on the political and historical context of the horrific events of the last few days has helped me to explain to people here what is happening, but even this doesn’t seem like enough as the bombs continue to fall.
“I don’t know what the Gaza Strip looks like, but I heard on the news this morning that the population density is similar to New York City.”
Like Lauren, I also have never been to Gaza. My first glimpse of what the Strip is like came from a friend I made during my undergraduate years. We met while I was reading the BBC in the library computer lab. At our tiny Midwestern Christian university it wasn’t common for Hassan to find someone reading news on the BBC, let alone news on Palestine. So, he struck up a conversation. Throughout that year (2002), I watched him ride a roller coaster of emotions. Calling home to Gaza to hear familiar voices was as therapeutic for Hassan as it was frightening. Practically every time he picked up the phone he received news that another friend had died or another family member was out of work. Hassan humanized Gazans for me in a way the BBC never could. They became more than numbers on a webpage: they were his obstinate mother whose strength kept the family going; they were Hassan’s depressed father who after months of unemployment was ashamed of not being able to provide for his family; they were his sister who loved learning and devoured every book that crossed her path; they were his younger brother who hated living in Gaza, but had no way of leaving. They were people sharing life with one another, hoping for better days amidst a world of pain and oppression.
“It doesn’t seem right to be heading towards Disneyland today as a war is just beginning.”
Lauren’s words echoed my thoughts. What do you do at a time like this? Living an entire ocean away, how can you adequately take in what is happening and respond in some way? These thoughts are not new, of course. Every tragedy has the power to bring such questions to the surface. I wanted to invite my friend to the protests happening in Washington, DC this week. However, knowing her pocket book couldn’t handle the expense and knowing one or two protests are not enough to move my government, I instead told her about this blog.
“Please send it to me. And I promise I’ll send it out to everyone I know. It’s the least I can do.”
And writing this piece this morning as I travel home to DC is the least I can do, and hopefully it is just the beginning. To those in Gaza, please know you are not forgotten. And to those outside of Gaza, whatever your opinion on this war, do not forget that Gazans are more than casualty numbers or the titles of “civilian and combatant”. They are human beings like you and me.
Sarah Scruggs, American
Washington, DC
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
I love Gaza
Painted last night.. off the Bruckner in the Bronx, 149th street...
everyone sees it driving into and out of the city there...
Max Uhlenbeck
Monday, December 29, 2008
Three Hundred Sunflowers
My aunt shakes,
“who told you?”
her voice bleeds through the phone,
“three hundred in one night, and we
haven’t gotten over
our one natural death.”
Before my mom died,
she hesitantly collected sunflowers.
She would contemplate ripping them from the ground,
“Everything has a mother,” she would whisper,
in the mountain’s green ear.
A girl, two-years-old,
held the hand of stranger,
her mom told her never to but now,
she is buried in the rubble
of a mosque.
They were hiding from ten thousand bombs
exploding like light bulbs,
who is kinder than God to shield them,
in his holiest house?
A boy, sleeping under the bed, dreams
of windows, the bringers
of oxygen.
He smiles, in quiet revenge of missiles
that are sucked out of breath.
There is nothing more beautiful
than air.
In the police station,
down the street from the sea,
There was a graduation.
Policemen celebrated learning the laws of traffic,
on streets were cars park in the middle
to buy bread or bananas.
Drivers yell “we didn’t wait for the Israelis
to halt our stones and you think
we are going to stop for red?”
One policeman dreamed of the day he raises
his hand and freezes a river of vehicles.
He believed in the sugar of magic.
When the doctor arrived, right after the bombs
fell everywhere, he didn’t know which arms
belonged to which body,
they were all equally toned.
A woman, twenty two,
has been putting olive oil on her hair,
every single day, these last three months.
Her grandma, whose breasts are still firm
told her that the juice of olives,
pulls the hair longer, triple
its natural capacity.
She counted months and thought,
her summer wedding would have to brace itself
for locks of curly, black hair.
When they found her, curled up under her building,
with an iron wire passing through her heart,
her plastic hat was fully intact.
There is a man the neighborhood hated.
He used to beat up his wife,
in the dim of the night.
When he got mad at her,
for forgetting to iron his shirt,
he would throw her food out the door.
Pieces of the fifth missile,
pierced through him,
and the pot.
One of the men whose ceiling
melted onto his body,
really wanted to be in love.
He said he wasn’t in it for sex,
but for the drunkenness of emotions.
He wanted to be so love struck
he would write letters to the moon.
He wanted to say things like “your
eyes are the irises of the universe,”
and not feel ashamed.
Last night, I slept with my teeth clenched
pressing news headlines tattooed
on burned bodies.
I had a dream
of a big bandage comforting
the city with mint ointment.
as ten giant men were lining
the brown parts on the smoky buildings
my mom stepped in, and shooed them away.
She put my hands together
pressed them like jars of pickles,
we can do nothing but pray for healing,
so pray baby, pray.
Tala A.Rahmeh, Palestinian
Washington, DC
“who told you?”
her voice bleeds through the phone,
“three hundred in one night, and we
haven’t gotten over
our one natural death.”
Before my mom died,
she hesitantly collected sunflowers.
She would contemplate ripping them from the ground,
“Everything has a mother,” she would whisper,
in the mountain’s green ear.
A girl, two-years-old,
held the hand of stranger,
her mom told her never to but now,
she is buried in the rubble
of a mosque.
They were hiding from ten thousand bombs
exploding like light bulbs,
who is kinder than God to shield them,
in his holiest house?
A boy, sleeping under the bed, dreams
of windows, the bringers
of oxygen.
He smiles, in quiet revenge of missiles
that are sucked out of breath.
There is nothing more beautiful
than air.
In the police station,
down the street from the sea,
There was a graduation.
Policemen celebrated learning the laws of traffic,
on streets were cars park in the middle
to buy bread or bananas.
Drivers yell “we didn’t wait for the Israelis
to halt our stones and you think
we are going to stop for red?”
One policeman dreamed of the day he raises
his hand and freezes a river of vehicles.
He believed in the sugar of magic.
When the doctor arrived, right after the bombs
fell everywhere, he didn’t know which arms
belonged to which body,
they were all equally toned.
A woman, twenty two,
has been putting olive oil on her hair,
every single day, these last three months.
Her grandma, whose breasts are still firm
told her that the juice of olives,
pulls the hair longer, triple
its natural capacity.
She counted months and thought,
her summer wedding would have to brace itself
for locks of curly, black hair.
When they found her, curled up under her building,
with an iron wire passing through her heart,
her plastic hat was fully intact.
There is a man the neighborhood hated.
He used to beat up his wife,
in the dim of the night.
When he got mad at her,
for forgetting to iron his shirt,
he would throw her food out the door.
Pieces of the fifth missile,
pierced through him,
and the pot.
One of the men whose ceiling
melted onto his body,
really wanted to be in love.
He said he wasn’t in it for sex,
but for the drunkenness of emotions.
He wanted to be so love struck
he would write letters to the moon.
He wanted to say things like “your
eyes are the irises of the universe,”
and not feel ashamed.
Last night, I slept with my teeth clenched
pressing news headlines tattooed
on burned bodies.
I had a dream
of a big bandage comforting
the city with mint ointment.
as ten giant men were lining
the brown parts on the smoky buildings
my mom stepped in, and shooed them away.
She put my hands together
pressed them like jars of pickles,
we can do nothing but pray for healing,
so pray baby, pray.
Tala A.Rahmeh, Palestinian
Washington, DC
Gaza: Lessons to Learn from Lebanon
For the past few days, I have watched the tragic events unfold in Gaza and have tried to make sense of the unfolding situation. I realize that as an American Palestinian who has friends in Gaza, I could write a very frustrated personal rant which cries out for social justice, peace, change and the like. Instead, I would actually like to take this post in a different direction for various reasons. I wish to first, share some self-conscious reflections based upon my personal experiences and secondly, shift the latter part of this post into the analytical realm.
For starters, my family is admittedly pretty distant from the events in Gaza and I will not in any way suggest that I can truly understand, grasp, or even imagine the human horror of the situation, or for that matter other humanitarian crises worldwide. During my visit to south Lebanon in January 2007 (a few months after the summer war), I still felt distant even as I gazed at the glass bits that cluttered the streets, the exposed sewage, the main roads lined with armed soldiers, the barbed wire, the UN convoys, and the children playing in bombed ruins. I recall staring up at signs which in Arabic warned Tyre’s worn residents to not venture off the streets due to the presence of cluster bombs in the area. I just remember silently asking, “Why? Why? Why? Is it all really worth it? Is it?”
Even then as I tried desperately to understand the human face behind conflicts in the Middle East, I still could not possibly say that I was able to empathize with people or share their experiences. The reality of the situation was and still is I am an American citizen who lives a relatively comfortable life a world away from the world’s conflicts and human tragedies. My family may consist mainly of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war, but we are still very fortunate–my relatives have created a comfortable middle class life for themselves in neighboring Arab countries.
What we Palestinians abroad and elsewhere then collectively share is a feeling of loss and grief–a lack of national actualization. We shed tears and grieve not because we can necessarily come to grips with the death and destruction occurring in the remains of Palestine–though many can. We distant travelers and wanderers cry for the remains of our beloved country, our homeland, and our very national identity because it has not been defined by peace or prosperity–such entities have been torn apart as they were defined by perpetual pain and loss. Perhaps this is a reason Palestinians have learned to journey through this world as permanent travelers; we are wanderers who collectively reminisce over our shared memories and experiences, yet never fit into any part of this world including a part we label ours.
I do not pretend to be an effective poet or artist who can capture our collective human spirit through creative expression. This task should be left to others who will likely perform it better than I possibly could. Instead, I would like to venture beyond self-conscious reflections to ask larger questions. Amidst inaction at the international level, individuals at a person-to-person level can try to learn from such experiences. I will thus use the remainder of this post to address the following questions: Have the parties to the conflict ignored their lessons from history? Are there parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at this stage compared to other aspects of this conflict in previous times (perhaps at the regional level)? If so, how can we analyze and address such comparisons? Furthermore, what dynamics of this conflict can we elucidate through historical analysis?
Given that this is already a lengthy blog post, I also do not pretend to offer concrete or sufficient answers to the above questions. I only ask that we consider them to reflect upon this complex situation. Consider this a basic start.
My first impression after hearing the news from Gaza is that there are quite a few parallels between this recent set of airstrikes and those which occurred during the 2006 summer war between Hizbullah and Israel. There are a few key points here to consider: Hizbullah arguably triggered the war initially through capturing two Israeli soldiers at the border, killing others, and constantly launching rockets into northern Israel. (Amnesty International’s 2006 report documented the details of the war and can be viewed here). In response, Israel launched a 34 day war of airstrikes by land, sea, and air which resulted in an estimated 1,183 casualties of which a third were children, 4,054 people injured, and 970,000 Lebanese and Palestinian people displaced. Hizbullah in turn launched rockets into northern Israel which killed 40 civilians including both Israelis and Israeli Arabs.
The Amnesty Report also provided the following insights based upon interviews with both Israeli and Lebanese officials:
“According to the New York Times, the IDF Chief of Staff said the air strikes were aimed at keeping pressure on Lebanese officials, and delivering a message to the Lebanese government that they must take responsibility for Hizbullah’s actions. He called Hizbullah “a cancer” that Lebanon must get rid of, “because if they don’t their country will pay a very high price.”
The widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hizbullah. Israeli attacks did not diminish, nor did their pattern appear to change, even when it became clear that the victims of the bombardment were predominantly civilians, which was the case from the first days of the conflict.”
There are two interesting developments here to consider: 1) based upon the above report, a few parallels exist between Gaza’s present situation and that of Lebanon’s in 2006 which merit attention, and 2) there are a few lessons that can be learned from the war in Lebanon that can be applied elsewhere. After all, Israel is not the only state that has launched airstrikes in an attempt to weaken militant or insurgent movements.
South Lebanon, like Gaza, is not only a politically volatile region, but is also extremely difficult to govern given previous humanitarian crises, frequent wars and violent skirmishes across the border, and the lack of a strong central government which enjoys full sovereignty (sounds strikingly similar to Pakistan and Afghanistan at times doesn’t it?). The end result is that non-state actors (in this case, political Islamist movements like Hizbullah and Hamas) are able to enjoy free reign in a politically unstable environment that is ripe for mobilization of new recruits.
All such movements need is a worthy cause and an extra reason to adopt politically violent resistance in the name of God and country. Israel’s fundamental error in Lebanon was not merely tactical–in my view, it would not matter whether or not they restricted their attacks to the air or pursued an actual ground raid. Likewise, in Gaza, it will not matter if they shift tactics and try to ‘learn’ from their encounter with Hizbullah. They committed the same mistake in 1982 that they did in 2006 and arguably will in 2008 in Gaza: by assuming that national security can be increased solely through military means, that an influential social movement can be defeated through sheer force or weakened, and by assuming that the local population will turn against such movements under extreme duress, Israel’s actions in Lebanon and Gaza have and will likely undermine its security and its political position in the Middle East. These airstrikes have already angered both Arabs and Muslims across the region–moderates and extremists included.
Hamas, like Hizbullah, will likely end up the unintended victor of this scenario since even moderate Gazans, other Palestinians, other Arabs, and quite possibly other Muslims elsewhere will likely support the political actor they believe opposes the state that is responsible for killing 300 civilians. I would argue the historical lesson to be learned from Lebanon is that airstrikes and sheer force will not necessarily lead to greater national security, but will instead produce the opposite result. The attacks in Gaza will not win the hearts and minds of moderates throughout the region, but will instead harden them, embolden them, and intensify their polarization at a time when negotiations are desperately needed and a comprehensive peace process is sorely absent.
In environments where central governments (or in Gaza, the inherent lack thereof) do not enjoy full sovereignty, the military intervention or attack by another state or political actor ultimately undermines any remaining sovereignty, power, and influence the central government previously enjoyed. The end result of the recent attacks in Gaza may very well be a further fractured Palestinian government, increased support for Hamas over other Palestinian political actors that embrace negotiations, and a further shift in the regional balance of power towards militant movements that have no desire to sit down at the negotiation table.
If Israel truly wanted to increase its security or to progress in the steps of restarting the peace process, its political and military establishment would rethink the lessons learned from Lebanon and pursue ’solutions’ beyond simple tactical changes. Likewise, if Hamas truly cared about Palestinian civilians, they would not commit the same mistake as Hizbullah and provoke violent responses across the border that usually result in the loss of human life.
The tragedy inherent in this situation is that both sides lack the politically courageous leadership needed to resolve conflicts and pursue tough negotiation. The Palestinian and Israeli leadership is weak, fractured, and all too willing to pursue temporary solutions that will likely fail and set us back further than initially imagined.
Nawal Mustafa, Palestinian
Washington, DC
My Journey with Shadow
I turned the TV on this morning, holding my bowl of cereal. I saw smoke, debris and bodies on the ground! But I had blurry eyes because I still haven’t washed them! I put my breakfast down without taking a bite and went to the bathroom to wash my eyes. On my way I saw a shadow in front of me! I thought I was going insane but it put its hand into my hand. We then flew.
We are fighting the cold air, the flames, smoke, and a horrible smell. I coughed until my stomach started bleeding. I saw my own blood fly in front of me. I was trying to show the shadow so we can stop for a minute until I regain strength. ‘We have no time’, the shadow said to me. We flew faster and lower. My stomach groans and squeaks from hunger.
Suddenly, I see myself standing on top of a demolished burnt building. I look around and see people crying, screaming, running. I can’t exactly see what else because the black smoke is covering my vision and a strong smell takes over my thought.
I felt my body shake; at first I thought it was an earthquake. I begged and cried to Shadow to take me back home. I told him I have seen enough. He then asked me if I knew where I am. I was so embarrassed and told him that I haven’t got a clue. I was too scared and confused to even ask that question. I just wanted to go home.
Someone grabbed my foot from underneath the debris. I screamed so loud I can hear my echo. I yelled to Shadow and asked him if this is a scene from a horror film. I told Shadow I hate horror films and commanded him to take me home.
‘GAZA, this is GAZA it is no horror film, it is reality’. Shadow said.
I can feel my body no more. I am numbed. Tears are trapped in my eyes. I unconsciously bend down and see who is holding my foot. I can’t see a face, but I can hear his voice. It is a young teenager’s voice.
This is what he said to me:
‘I saw a flicker of light in the sky…Now all I can see is darkness…I can’t even remember if I heard the blast... I was just passing by this morning…I remember my friend and I were together…I can’t see him now…I wonder if anyone of you saw him…I can give clues of what he looks like…
I do remember he only has one leg…I remember him telling me how he lost it sometime ago to a situation almost like this…
I also remember the marks he had around his body from prison torture…
I remember his hand without fingers; he lost them when he found a buried ambush …
I don’t know what he has lost now! But I do know he won’t lose his heart because it is soft no more…I recall his lecture about the heart… ‘It has many doors, all are soft, but the door of fear in my heart turned into stone’
When that young boy said that, I wondered why my heart can’t turn into stone…
I want to be as strong as him and his friend…
Here I am trying to take off burnt debris off the boy, but he insisted I find his friend first.
Shadow first said he wanted to show me something else. We flew a few minutes away into a house. The TV was open. I can hear people in power from different Arab countries saying something like ‘…and we should stop this… we should be… we will … we support…’
At that moment I just wanted to smash the TV. I can’t understand why people talk and never do… those in power show their sympathy, as if we need it…
I can tell them what we need… ‘we need you to get off your fat lazy asses and start doing something… start fighting with us… start showing concern… and stop talking…
‘We understand the necessity of this; Israel is only trying to protect themselves!’
I can never understand when I hear this on TV from foreign countries WHHHHHHHAAAT the HELL
Don’t fool me!
I am sure whoever thinks like that was born without a heart! Where is Mercy!!!
I wouldn’t wish that for any nation! That is just a sign of weakness. You just don’t want to get yourselves involved you fear everything … you fear you’ll lose that nice comfy chair and bed of yours…is that the reason!
Shadow grabs my hand and we fly back into the black smoky air with the smell of cooked bodies with fresh blood. I tell him to take me back down. But he wouldn’t he told me his time with me is coming to an end. My tears finally drop and mingle with other tears and I see my blood mingle with theirs.
I look at my stomach and the bleeding stops. I felt a part of my heart turn into stone. Suddenly, I became fearless.
But still what can I do? What have I done! Why did shadow come and take me to that journey? What is he trying to tell me? Why did I meet that teenage boy under the debris? Why did he want me to find his friend?
I wonder if you all went through that journey, will you still be sitting on your chairs and eating popcorn and watching TV?
Lema Salem / Palestine
We are fighting the cold air, the flames, smoke, and a horrible smell. I coughed until my stomach started bleeding. I saw my own blood fly in front of me. I was trying to show the shadow so we can stop for a minute until I regain strength. ‘We have no time’, the shadow said to me. We flew faster and lower. My stomach groans and squeaks from hunger.
Suddenly, I see myself standing on top of a demolished burnt building. I look around and see people crying, screaming, running. I can’t exactly see what else because the black smoke is covering my vision and a strong smell takes over my thought.
I felt my body shake; at first I thought it was an earthquake. I begged and cried to Shadow to take me back home. I told him I have seen enough. He then asked me if I knew where I am. I was so embarrassed and told him that I haven’t got a clue. I was too scared and confused to even ask that question. I just wanted to go home.
Someone grabbed my foot from underneath the debris. I screamed so loud I can hear my echo. I yelled to Shadow and asked him if this is a scene from a horror film. I told Shadow I hate horror films and commanded him to take me home.
‘GAZA, this is GAZA it is no horror film, it is reality’. Shadow said.
I can feel my body no more. I am numbed. Tears are trapped in my eyes. I unconsciously bend down and see who is holding my foot. I can’t see a face, but I can hear his voice. It is a young teenager’s voice.
This is what he said to me:
‘I saw a flicker of light in the sky…Now all I can see is darkness…I can’t even remember if I heard the blast... I was just passing by this morning…I remember my friend and I were together…I can’t see him now…I wonder if anyone of you saw him…I can give clues of what he looks like…
I do remember he only has one leg…I remember him telling me how he lost it sometime ago to a situation almost like this…
I also remember the marks he had around his body from prison torture…
I remember his hand without fingers; he lost them when he found a buried ambush …
I don’t know what he has lost now! But I do know he won’t lose his heart because it is soft no more…I recall his lecture about the heart… ‘It has many doors, all are soft, but the door of fear in my heart turned into stone’
When that young boy said that, I wondered why my heart can’t turn into stone…
I want to be as strong as him and his friend…
Here I am trying to take off burnt debris off the boy, but he insisted I find his friend first.
Shadow first said he wanted to show me something else. We flew a few minutes away into a house. The TV was open. I can hear people in power from different Arab countries saying something like ‘…and we should stop this… we should be… we will … we support…’
At that moment I just wanted to smash the TV. I can’t understand why people talk and never do… those in power show their sympathy, as if we need it…
I can tell them what we need… ‘we need you to get off your fat lazy asses and start doing something… start fighting with us… start showing concern… and stop talking…
‘We understand the necessity of this; Israel is only trying to protect themselves!’
I can never understand when I hear this on TV from foreign countries WHHHHHHHAAAT the HELL
Don’t fool me!
I am sure whoever thinks like that was born without a heart! Where is Mercy!!!
I wouldn’t wish that for any nation! That is just a sign of weakness. You just don’t want to get yourselves involved you fear everything … you fear you’ll lose that nice comfy chair and bed of yours…is that the reason!
Shadow grabs my hand and we fly back into the black smoky air with the smell of cooked bodies with fresh blood. I tell him to take me back down. But he wouldn’t he told me his time with me is coming to an end. My tears finally drop and mingle with other tears and I see my blood mingle with theirs.
I look at my stomach and the bleeding stops. I felt a part of my heart turn into stone. Suddenly, I became fearless.
But still what can I do? What have I done! Why did shadow come and take me to that journey? What is he trying to tell me? Why did I meet that teenage boy under the debris? Why did he want me to find his friend?
I wonder if you all went through that journey, will you still be sitting on your chairs and eating popcorn and watching TV?
Lema Salem / Palestine
Do not Forget
my rage is inarticulate today. i cannot believe this is happening again, not because it is not predictable, but because the Israeli state's insistence on perpetuating genocide in my generation threatens my belief in humanity. i take this personally.
i am grateful that i hold someone in my heart whose rage is articulate.
i ask that as we hold everyone in Gaza in our hearts we remember this poem by June Jordan:
Apologies to All the People in Lebanon
Dedicated to the 60,000 Palestinian men, women and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983
I didn't know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said you shot the London Ambassador
and when that wasn't true
they said so
what
They said you shelled their northern villages
and when U.N. forces reported that was not ture
because your side of the cease-fire was holding
since more than a year before
they said so
what
They said they wanted simply to carve
a 25 mile buffer zone and then
they ravaged your
water supplies your electricity your
hospitals your schools your highways and byways all
the way north to Beirut because they said this
was their quest for peace
They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery
stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors
to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys
whose bodies
swelled purple and black into twice the original size
and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby
and then
they said this was brilliant
military accomplishment and this was done
they said in the name of self-defense they said
that is the noblest concept
of mankind isn't that obvious?
They said something about never again and then
they made close to on million human beings homeless
in less than three weeks and they killed or maimed
40,000 of your men and your women and your children
But I didn't know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said they were victims. They said you were
Arabs.
They called your apartments and gardens guerilla
strongholds.
They called the screaming devastation
that they created the rubble.
Then they told you to leave, didn't they?
Didn't you read the leaflets that they dropped
from their hotshot fighter jets?
They told you to go.
One hundred and thirty-five thousand
Palestinians in Beirut and why
didn't you take the hint?
Go!
There was Mediterranean: You
could walk into the water and stay
there.
What was the problem?
I didn't know and noboby told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that
paid
for the bombs and the planes and the tanks
that they used to massacre your family
But I am not an evil person
The people of my country aren't so bad
You can expect but so much
from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch
American TV
You see my point;
I'm sorry.
I really am sorry
Jade Foster, American
Maryland
i am grateful that i hold someone in my heart whose rage is articulate.
i ask that as we hold everyone in Gaza in our hearts we remember this poem by June Jordan:
Apologies to All the People in Lebanon
Dedicated to the 60,000 Palestinian men, women and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983
I didn't know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said you shot the London Ambassador
and when that wasn't true
they said so
what
They said you shelled their northern villages
and when U.N. forces reported that was not ture
because your side of the cease-fire was holding
since more than a year before
they said so
what
They said they wanted simply to carve
a 25 mile buffer zone and then
they ravaged your
water supplies your electricity your
hospitals your schools your highways and byways all
the way north to Beirut because they said this
was their quest for peace
They blew up your homes and demolished the grocery
stores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors
to jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys
whose bodies
swelled purple and black into twice the original size
and tore the buttocks from a four month old baby
and then
they said this was brilliant
military accomplishment and this was done
they said in the name of self-defense they said
that is the noblest concept
of mankind isn't that obvious?
They said something about never again and then
they made close to on million human beings homeless
in less than three weeks and they killed or maimed
40,000 of your men and your women and your children
But I didn't know and nobody told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
They said they were victims. They said you were
Arabs.
They called your apartments and gardens guerilla
strongholds.
They called the screaming devastation
that they created the rubble.
Then they told you to leave, didn't they?
Didn't you read the leaflets that they dropped
from their hotshot fighter jets?
They told you to go.
One hundred and thirty-five thousand
Palestinians in Beirut and why
didn't you take the hint?
Go!
There was Mediterranean: You
could walk into the water and stay
there.
What was the problem?
I didn't know and noboby told me and what
could I do or say, anyway?
Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that
paid
for the bombs and the planes and the tanks
that they used to massacre your family
But I am not an evil person
The people of my country aren't so bad
You can expect but so much
from those of us who have to pay taxes and watch
American TV
You see my point;
I'm sorry.
I really am sorry
Jade Foster, American
Maryland
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