For Gaza (Poem)

Gaza is clearly                      an open-air prison,

A side effect of                   a Zionist vision,

Resistance is met                 with military might,

As colonisers expect            no-one to fight,

 

Children on a beach have    been bombed to bits,

And illegal weapons fall       as families sit,

Schools and hospitals shelled by Israeli tanks,

And yet Gazans are expected to give their thanks,

 

Expected to accept                         economic blockades,

To believe the Israelis        are coming to save,

The people from Hamas,     which resists their attacks,

(As, when civilians are killed, who wouldn’t fight back?)

 

Sure, empathy’s required,        to understand,

Why the State of Israel controls the land,

How Jews across Europe     fought to escape death,

And after the Holocaust,   only a third were left,

 

Zionists, in their search,     for a Jewish State,

Were responding to centuries of bigotry and hate,

But with nationalist politics, focussed on “race”,

They sought to colonise      an inhabited place,

 

After the Second World War, they exploited the fear,

Of Jews who hoped freedom from torment was near,

And so many were convinced that the Holy Land,

Was destined by God          to lie in their hands,

 

Born in fire, though, Israel            would never be free,

From aggression (or resistance) to what was seen,

As continuing colonial      land control,

After the rule of ‘great’ empires had taken its toll,

 

We must thus comprehend             Palestinian needs,

In the search to understand Israel’s current deeds,

The support that’s received by a group like Hamas,

Has its roots in the treatment suffered back in the past,

 

For Ben-Gurion, “politically,            we are the aggressors”,

And Palestinians “defend themselves” against their oppressors,

“The country is theirs”,       because they live here,

Thus their struggle is logical – their reasons are clear,

 

Resisting with home-made rockets and rocks,

Until oppression, occupation, and injustice stop,

They’re met with bombs, bullets, and tanks, they can’t win,

Israel’s advanced weaponry            destroys everything,

 

The context’s complex,       but look at the facts,

See civilian residents           have all been attacked,

And how only in Gaza      have thousands ‘expired’,

And how Israeli ‘restraint’ has not been applied,

 

Ethno-centric politics     have divided and killed,

Israel’s nationalist rule,      has seen fascism build,

Imperialists, Nazis,              religious extremes,

Focus efforts not on peace but on military means,

 

To end all the hate,               and increase empathy,

We need boycotts, and dialogue, and then liberty,

Peace can be obtained,        and war restrained,

We’re supposedly ‘sapiens’,             so let’s use our brains,

 

And see support for Palestine isn’t anti-Semitic,

Rather shock at a massacre that’s simply horrific,

And disgust at the powerful’s clear disregard,

For the innocent, the powerless – the maimed and the charred,

 

So as Israeli F-16s               thunder past overhead,

And Palestinians cry             as they count up their dead,

We must not, and cannot, justify Israel’s acts,

Or allow propaganda            to conceal the facts,

 

Let’s oppose the support     that our nations provide,

For the Zionist violence      and Zionist lies,

And let’s boycott their businesses, show our elites,

That what we want’s freedom and justice and peace!

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