My Dear Friends and Readers:
I FACTS:
1 [Israel's oldest and sociopolitically progressive newspaper] Haaretz Opinion, Gideon Levy, June 9: Israel Is on the UN Blacklist of Countries That Harm Children, and Justifiably So
2 Democracy Now, September 20: U.N. Panel Accuses Israel of Unprecedented Violations of Children’s Rights in War on Palestine
A U.N. committee on Thursday [September 19] accused Israel of engaging in unprecedented violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child over the past 11 months.
Ann Skelton, South African jurist and Chair of UN Committee on the Rights of the Child:
More children have died in this war than men or women. That is massive. And I think when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law, that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law, as well. And children are always civilians.
3 Oxfam International, September 30: More women and children killed in Gaza by Israeli military than any other recent conflict in a single year.
Israeli explosive weapons hit civilian infrastructure in Gaza - including schools, hospitals and aid distribution points - once every three hours.
Conservative figures show that more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months. Data from 2004-2021 on direct conflict deaths from the Small Arms Survey, estimates that the highest number of women killed in a single year was over 2,600 in Iraq in 2016.
Records - which are not comprehensive - show that Israeli explosive weapons hit on average:
Homes every four hours
Tents and temporary shelters every 17 hours
Schools and hospitals every four days
Aid distribution points and warehouses every 15 days
These staggering figures are both appalling and heartbreaking. Influential actors in the international community have not only failed to hold Israel to account, they are also complicit in the atrocities by continuing to unconditionally supply it with arms. It will take generations to recover from the devastating impacts of this war and there is still no ceasefire in sight.
-- Sally Abi Khalil, Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa Director, Oxfam
4 Reuters, Oct. 6: UN refugee chief says airstrikes in Lebanon have violated humanitarian law
II Biting NOT Barking Poetry
My published poems are selected for your reflections on "CeaseFire Now" and "Saving the Children:"
In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, "poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty."
-- Seamus Heaney
What poetry can, must, and will always do for us: it complicates us, it doesn't "soothe."
--Jorie Graham
And
Poetry acts as a witness in, to, and most importantly, through troubled times.
Chen-ou Liu, An Interview with Dimitar Anakiev, editor of Bulgarian-English Tanka Handbook
between blood of birth
and blood of death
a new life
on the hospital floor ...
a Gazan mother's last look
NeverEnding Story, April 4 2024
written on World Children's Day
after Michael McClintock
hazy twilight ...
rain washing a mother's blood
into her children's blood
NeverEnding Story, Nov. 20, 2023
aid
out of reach air ops
dr
and a dead child’s stare
NeverEnding Story, March 5, 2024
a teen waves his bloodied keffiyeh becoming Flag
NeverEnding Story, December 23 2023
(FYI: For many Palestinians, the keffiyeh symbolizes their yearning for freedom and serves a nod to their history. For some non-Palestinians, it's a show of solidarity)
slanted moonlight
on a half-collapsed school wall
chalk poppies bloom
NeverEnding Story, August 3 2024
(FYI: "The Palestinian poppy (Anemone coronaria) is a non-official but more recognizable national symbol of Palestine. It's red, with black center and green leaves, evoking the primary colors of the Palestinian flag. And it symbolizes the relationship between Palestinians and their land, the bloodshed they have endured, as well as their resistance against Israeli occupation")
A Corner of This Broken World
After a long pause, her voice cracking on the phone, my Israeli friend tells me, "I don't know how to calm my two girls. We're near the border, and they're frightened by the piercing sound of fighter jets constantly flying over our community. Sometimes, they can hear the boom, boom, boom from a distance just minutes after fighter jets fly past our house. I can only comfort them by saying that these are good booms. I feel guilty, I... " My friend hangs up the phone.
the sunset
in a blaze of orange and red
across the sky ...
Gazan children's faces raw
with fear of the unknown
Ribbons, 20:2, Autumn/Winter 2024
it’s peaceful now
M-16 rifles are blooming, 2000-pound bombs singing, and Merkava tanks sweeping the streets.
Gaza is cleaner than ever, clean of blood-covered children. Yet, somewhere among the rubble the only moving thing is a boy’s eyes that look up to Heaven.
a mural
on the separation wall
of the West Bank:
in midair a girl grasps
a bunch of rainbow balloons
contemporary haibun online, 20:2, 2024
(for detailed analysis, see To the Lighthouse: A Rhetorical Device, Sarcasm)
To conclude today's Special Post, I would like to share with you another sarcastic tanka:
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CV: "the sounds of death"
First "thought experiment" tanka to George Berkeley's ghost
if one-ton bombs fall
on housing blocks, but no Israeli’s there
to hear them ...
in a mobbed pub I muse
does they make the sounds of death?
FYI: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is George Berkeley's philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception. And this tanka could be read as a sequel to the following:
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, XVIII: "Rafah"
attacks on Rafah ... (now on both Gaza and Beirut)
will the sound of bombings
echo, echoing
in the ears of the World
thousands of miles away
NeverEnding Story, February 12 2024
And
Haaretz, Oct. 3: When Doves Cry: How and Why Did 'Peace' Disappear From Israeli Popular Culture?
Until the 1990s, singing about peace was commonly associated with the best Israeli artists. Nowadays, though, only a few are willing to mention 'the P-word' in any artform
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cited 2 Samuel 2:26: "Shall the sword devour for ever?" Then he answered his own question: "In the Middle East, without the sword there is no forever."
Added: Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, CVI: "one year on"
One Year On
this silent scene
spins in a mother's mind
like a kaleidoscope:
smashed blood-stained photo frames
cover lifeless kibbutz children
shrapnel wounds
on the faces of Gazan kids
who look for mothers ...
another US-made bomb falls
to finish all that remains
an old man
crying out, where should we go?
the Heavens blocked
by a swarm of fighter jets
and the fire-smoke of Death
this endless loop:
October 7, October 7 ....
[and yet
the decades before
and the day after...] bloodshedding
No comments:
Post a Comment