Israel/Palestine Poetry

The waves are rough in the sea of love
This Valentines Day
Crows fly into the wind
Hoping for leverage
Seeking support
Buffeted though free
They call but no one hears

Accusations fly through the air
The sounds of lovers unheard, unheralded
Fractured families longing for simplicity and rest
Comfort, unambiguous pleasure
Safe harbors to anchor in

Sometimes it feels like a kiss

Sometimes just a breeze passing by

The sea is rough in Israel

This Valentines Day

Waves crash onto the shore

Depositing beautiful shells

The tiny homes of lonely sea creatures

Onto the sandy beach

That Palestinians are forbidden to walk upon

Where a man draws names on the beach with sticks

Then draws a big valentine around the names

Then writes the words, “Free Palestine”

His heart breaking with the weight of love

He builds a wall to protect his creation in the sand

But the sea is restless and just
And softly erases it all.

I sleep with Rachel Corrie
Meditate on her message and meanings
She is smiling though dead
Her head tilted to her left
Her head tilted to her left
Her blond shoulder length hair
Tucked behind her ears
An all American girl
Who loved justice and the Palestinian people
Crushed by a Cat D9 bulldozer
With a restricted field of vision
And several blind spots
This last part sounds familiar no doubt
Now but a memory, a martyr
A poster on the door
Of a home in Palestine
Where her mother comes to visit
To see for herself what moved her daughter
Who wrote
“A massive military machine is killing
The people I’m having dinner with
I am witness to the destruction of a people.”

The older Palestinian woman
In whose home the poster I sleep with hangs
Has seen more than her share of humiliation
Jail
Her land stolen
And death
She says to Rachel’s mother
“There is a field where flowers grow in our village
That is called Rachel Corrie
There are streets and plazas named for her
Your daughter is our daughter
Our daughters are your daughters
We will never forget your daughter
She is with us every day
Every time this door slides closed
Every time this door slides opened”

An American Court found
The bulldozer that killed Rachel
Was paid for by U.S. Government funds
But declined to rule on the merits
Concluding that whether the financing of such bulldozers was just
Or appropriate
Was a political question
Not entrusted to the Judicial Branch

On the same day Rachel was killed
Nine Palestinians were also murdered by Israeli forces
Including a man aged 90
And a child aged four
While Rachel, second wife of Jacob
Who stole her father’s idols
Was cursed unintentionally
By the husband who loved her
And died
The way of women upon her
Her doors slid open
Her doors slid closed forever
Tears in her eyes
Words on her lips
Crying for the end
To her family’s suffering

© BRTaub, Ja’ayus, Palestine – Valentines Day 2008

If Hamas is a terrorist organization 
What does that make the occupying,
land-grabbing,
wall erecting,
falsely imprisoning
nuclear weapon-bearing Israelis
and the Israeli government?
The only true democracy in the Middle East? 
“Terrorist organization” is a label;
that Gaza is sealed is a fact. 
No food or medicine allowed in. 
Think Warsaw Ghetto. 
Think children starving and dying
Think “never again.”    
Besides,
Hamas saying it is going to destroy Israel
is a bit like the Sioux on reservations
saying they are going to destroy the U.S.,
when as we know,
the U.S. is destroying the U.S.,
and Israel is destroying Israel.

The court is in the police station,
That’s the first clue,
A building constructed by the British
To help contain the Arab population
Before the modern Israeli Era.
That purpose has not changed.
The judge is wearing an army uniform,
That is your second clue,
Something that suggests the outcome is foreordained.
You do not need any other clues.
But if this message is unclear
Or too nuanced
Please note that the translator is wearing an army uniform
The court reporter is wearing an army uniform
And the half dozen armed soldiers in the courtroom are wearing army uniforms.
Only the prosecuting attorney is out of uniform,
But he is still sneeringly self-assured,
For he too knows the outcome of this case,
As do the soldiers,
The court reporter,
And the prisoner,
Who has been denied access to his lawyer
for over three months.
Everyone knows the outcome,
Guaranteed and assured by hand and ankle cuffs,
By automatic weapons,
By nuclear weapons,
By the overwhelming power of the state.

The court is in the police station,

That’s the first clue,

A building constructed by the British

To help contain the Arab population

Before the modern Israeli Era.

That purpose has not changed.

The judge is wearing an army uniform,

That is your second clue,

Something that suggests the outcome is foreordained.

You do not need any other clues.

But if this message is unclear

Or too nuanced

Please note that the translator is wearing an army uniform

The court reporter is wearing an army uniform

And the half dozen armed soldiers in the courtroom are wearing army uniforms.

Only the prosecuting attorney is out of uniform,

But he is still sneeringly self-assured,

For he too knows the outcome of this case,

As do the soldiers,

The court reporter,

And the prisoner,

Who has been denied access to his lawyer

for over three months.

Everyone knows the outcome,

Guaranteed and assured by hand and ankle cuffs,

By automatic weapons,

By nuclear weapons,

By the overwhelming power of the state.

The prosecutor speaks first.

He says the prisoner is suspected

Of being a member, or associate, or backer,

     follower, fan, devotee, adherent, sympathizer,

     organizer, sycophant, protégé, or operative,

Maybe.

Or perhaps being in the known presence

Of someone, or some organization,

Perhaps the political party that won the popular election,

Perhaps he is seditious

Perhaps a supporter of terrorism by the starving oppressed

Perhaps he holds positions antithetical to the government’s.

Besides, free speech and free association are not assured

Nor is the free exchange of ideas assured

And although no formal charges have yet been brought

And none are known to exist

Not to the defense

Not to the prisoner

Not to his lawyer

Not even to the judge

We are conducting an investigation,

Says the prosecutor,

And the investigation is not complete

And we need more time

Because during the time we had the prisoner

Chained and interrogated twenty one hours a day

For six straight days –

We rested on the seventh –

And he was most cooperative

Our prisoner

But we learned no thing

So the investigation must continue

And we need him in prison to do so

And an extension of his detention is needed

Away from his family and young children

Away from his students and his neighbors

Just like the hundreds of others we arrested and detained this week

Or was it last week, or the week before that,

On suspicion of being Palestinian.

The prisoner is allowed to speak

May it please the Court, the prosecutor,

The members of the army here today

And others in the courtroom, he says.

I am professor of law Hassan A. Gassan.

There are six Hassan Gassan’s at my university.

How does the prosecution even know

It was I, this Hassan Gassan, who was meant to be arrested?

That it was me intended to be dragged from his home

At two A.M.

My wife and children made to wait in the cold

My home searched without a warrant.

I have told the investigators everything I know,

Answered every question they have asked.

I know nothing more than the investigators now know,

Do not even know what the charges against me are

Or what separates me from my two month old daughter,

My son, my anxious wife

Other than the arbitrary power of the state.

Thank you.

Yes, yes, says the judge, tired of this tedium,

And who are these other people in the court with you,

It is unusual for anyone to attend these proceedings

Because the families of Palestinians

Are not permitted into Israel

And why would anyone else care?

Perhaps they will identify themselves.

We are Israeli friends of the prisoner and his family, we say,

We are international peace activists,

Educators, lawyers,

We are observers, 

We are here to see how justice will be rendered in this case.

Very impressive, says the judge,

And most unusual.

That said, the ruling of this court

Is that the government’s request for an extension of detention

Is completely reasonable in this case and hereby granted.

It is really that brusque, that arbitrary

And that fina,l

Again and again

For Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli courts of justice

In the democratic Israeli state.

© B.R.Taub, Feb, 2008

The Palestinian terrorists

Offer us food until we are full

And then offer more

In order to explode us

Serving us tea, coffee, juice, soda, milk, water

Until we are sprouting

Force us to say things

Only people being tortured say,

Like please, I can’t take any more, I will tell you anything

Only please stop forcing such kindness and hospitality on me

Please, no more meats, greens, rice, falafel

No more olives, lemons, grapefruit,

Or four different kinds of oranges we must learn to distinguish the tastes of

The bitter, the sweet, the Spanish, the French collaborationist

The zatar, the hummus, home made cheeses, bread

Admiring pictures of our grandchildren

As if such caring will cause us to drop our guard

Quoting Wordsworth to make us cry

Introducing us to their daughters

The teachers and the poetesses

Their grandchildren

The artists and the singers

Their son in laws

The professors and the engineers

Who must go through four checkpoints

To get to work

A twenty minute trip

That takes two hours

Their entire family

Terrorists all

Offering us a bed, a roof, a song

A drive on the tractor to their occupied fields

To plant olive trees with us on a hillside.

 “And why are you not afraid?”

Asks the distracted Israeli soldier

At the wall and the gate to our fields

His fingers tracing absently over his machine gun

“They are terrorists.

They kill people.” 

And you say nothing

Having noticed well

Who holds the power

And who the real terrorists are.

While our hosts tell us tales from Byzantine days

And sing to us, all of them, in English,

“We Shall Overcome.”

I am Musab, six years old
Two days ago Israeli soldiers surrounded our house at 2 A.M. shooting
Helicopter gunships illuminating the night
Their rotors like giant fans hung from the sky
The whine of their rockets like angry birds
Here four bullet holes through the door of the room where my brother sleeps
Here the shattered windows
“Take your clothes off, all of you, even the women” the Israeli soldiers yelled
Then father was handcuffed
Taken as a human shield to the apartment of uncle Hussan
Where their bullets pierced his door
and the chest of the old man opening it
Who bleeds to death for want of an ambulance.
After his body is removed
The soldiers withdraw
But brother is still crying
My city, Nablus, is still occupied
The old man remains dead
And I am Musab, six years old.

It is a beautiful sunny morning

At apartheid gate 927

The Israeli soldiers are listening to rock music

They are in their 20s

They have automatic weapons

Uniforms, walkie-talkies

Humvies, tanks

F16 fighter jets, a nuclear arsenal.

We are Palestinian farmers

With donkeys and tractors

With seed, fertilizer, and lunch in plastic bags

We are four Americans over fifty

With cameras, cell phones, and bottled water

We are Bedouin with sheep and goats and identity cards

We dismount from our donkeys and tractors

And wait

Wait long enough to see the falcon hunting,

To see the wild dog with the stolen chicken,

Wait to be admitted through the small gate

To the turnstile

Then into the concrete bunker

To wait at the counter, to show our passes,

To be released into a holding area

To go back through a sliding gate

To get back on our donkeys and tractors

To pass through the big gate

Opened only certain hours

On certain arbitrary days

To get onto our land – our own land –

On the other side of this abominable fence

That separates us from our fields

From our trees and fruit

From our grass, our rocks, and our graves

On the other side of this fence

That separates us from our brothers and sisters

We stand in the sun waiting two hours

On the side of this fence

That separates us from our livelihoods

On the side of the fence

That separates us

© brtaub – 02/08