Just one day after Israelis commemorated the Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948, Palestinians around the world mark their Nakba Day, the anniversary of their mass expulsion and exodus from what is now Israel with protests and other events at a time of mounting concern over the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Nakba, Arabic for "catastrophe," refers to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel before and during the "War of Independence in 1948." (The Times of Israel, May 15).
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LXIII: "the day after 'Independence Day,' "Nakba Day"
giant Stars of David
and "Together We Will Win" signs
fill Tel Aviv's sky ...
Gazans flee to nowhere
in a desert of rubble
Against the Drowning Noise of Other Words, LIX: "health crisis"
the Grim Reaper waits ...
Gazan children in danger
from the smoky sky
disease on the ground
and death from hunger and thirst
It's because the Holocaust dwarfed all other instances of 20th-century injustice and illegality, Edward Said, exiled American Palestinian scholar and probably the world's most famous literary critic claimed, the Palestinians became "Victims of the period's most tragic victims."
However, he made the following special emphasis:
You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a LIMIT.
And most importantly,
Haaretz, Analysis, May 13: What Will Happen When the Holocaust No Longer Prevents the World From Seeing Israel as It Is?
For anyone who wanted to see, the truth was already abundantly clear in 1955: "They treat the Arabs, those still here, in a way that in itself would be enough to rally the whole world against Israel," wrote Hannah Arendt.
In the real world, a real country serves a purpose other than just as a haven from persecution.
-- Anshel Pfeffer, "Israel's Foundational Conflict Is Playing Out in the Gaza War," Haaretz, Opinion, May 10
For peace-loving people around the world, I would like to share the following relevant part of a powerful speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave on Vietnam. What he said then is totally applicable to our times now.
There comes a time when "Silence Is Betrayal..." Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter....In the end, we will not remember the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
grinding sound of tanks ...
Never Again, Never Again
for everyone
Peace vigil
our candles flicker and hold
in the wind
Frogpond, May, 1988
Peggy Heinrich
To conclude today's post, I would like to share with two poems by Palestinian poets:
I The following is the last stanza of one of the most read/popular Palestinian poems, "Identity Card," written by Mahmoud Darwish, poet of Palestinian resistance (1941-2008) and author of The Butterfly Effect, 2008, who died believing in the power of his poetry to make a difference.
Therefore!
Write down on the top of the first page:
I do not hate people
Nor do I encroach
But if I become hungry
The usurper's flesh will be my food
Beware ...
Beware ...
Of my hunger
And my anger!
II Watch the Scottish actor Brian Cox read Refaat Alareer's poem, “If I Must Die,” posted on December 1, 2023 on Twitter/X, a heartbreakingly prophetic farewell poem that has now been translated into more than 40 languages.
“If I Must Die”
If I must die,
you must live
to tell my story
to sell my things
to buy a piece of cloth
and some strings,
(make it white with a long tail)
so that a child, somewhere in Gaza
while looking heaven in the eye
awaiting his dad who left in a blaze –
and bid no one farewell
not even to his flesh
not even to himself –
sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up
above
and thinks for a moment an angel is there
bringing back love
If I must die
let it bring hope
let it be a tale.
(FYI: Refaat Alareer was killed on December 6, around 6 PM local time in Gaza, in a targeted Israeli airstrike that also killed his brother, his sister, and four of her children)
FYI: For the Israeli side of the story, see Haaretz, Analysis, May 13: This Independence Day, Israel Has Split Into Two Incompatible Jewish States
There is an elephant in the Israeli room – and no, it's not occupation, though that is its main cause.
The elephant in the room is Israel gradually but inexorably being divided into the State of Israel – a high-tech, secular, outward-looking, imperfect but liberal state – and the Kingdom of Judea, a Jewish-supremacist, ultranationalist theocracy with messianic, antidemocratic tendencies that encourage isolation.
Never in the proud 76 years of Israel's sovereign existence has there been a sadder, more somber, depressing and acrimonious Independence Day than this year … But above and beyond pondering October 7, there is a growing realization that 'unity,' 'one destiny' and 'we have no choice and no other country' have become meaningless and hollow clichés. Instead, more and more Israelis on both sides of the divide see their country as essentially split into two distinct entities: Judea and Israel"
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