The Killing Silence 

3.9.06

Dedicated to the Palestinian people.

Only a painter can lay bold on canvas
this fundamental suffering
in black and white
a blush of weeping blue
mother with child
home carved in half
parents lying dead
beneath debris and cement
country bombed back
to the last onslaught
(however many years before)
just yesterday re-built
now bombed again -
this Guernica

only a painter can deliver the invisible
Munch's unending silent scream
or catch in slashes of black
ancient olive groves
bulldozed back to final insult
the random scatter of cluster bombs
regurgitating mayhem
long after they cease to fall
relentless - this Guernica

how do mere words express
values inherent in the sober old books
of International Law
who can remain silent confronted with this
how do mere words tell of atrocities
of war crimes mounting
only to gather decades of dust
under lobby-group pressure
little more than criminal bullying -
this Guernica

and so it goes on and on Sabra and Shatilla
spotlit like vermin for quick easy kill
West Bank, Gaza, the concrete wedge
higher and tighter trapping all but sky
an airy prison fermenting death
human rights ignored
Geneva Conventions broken
collective punishment flaunted
slow motion genocide -
this Guernica

witness Lebanon bombed: bridges, airports,
roads, power, sewage, water
witness bombed: one red-cross ambulance - bull's eye
witness bombed: white-flag peace cars
witness bombed: schools, creches, hospitals

fleeing civilians carefully targeted
then the rub - salt in the wound
access denied, to the injured
the dying, and the dead
access denied to food and water
bombing 's not quite finished
we must all wait
for destruction to be complete -
this Guernica

only a painter can speak of slaughter
shock us into wakefulness
help us find courage enough
demand 'justice now' for a people
who live and die generation upon generation
denied justice - 60 years denied justice
only the tiniest of minds still wonder
why the resistance ?
why Hamas ?
why Hezbollah ?
but words are useless
spinning around this deaf blind world
struck dumb with lack, allowing -
this Guernica

if I were a painter I'd scratch in black
a charcoal charnel-house of ash
but how do you paint a world turned it's back
how do you paint a void
United Nations frozen by veto
how many complicit in this shameful injustice
so we all wait, gutless 'til the world's leader
of 'freedom & democracy' decides
'enough, might just be enough' -
this Guernica

as in New Orleans
too little, too slow, too late
words, impotent, unwanted
grind in circles, return to empty echo
as brothers on borders sit mute
no support for the besieged
(out of fear or expediency)
they just watch -
this Guernica

can paint on canvas
banish this perpetual war
this torpor of world inaction
while those who feel weep from afar
as a TV siege of terror unfolds
offending human sensibility -
this Guernica

then, heart warmed
as weary humanitarians return
clean up yet another human travesty
but even these peace workers
fall under bombs
as cease-fire's declared in 48 hours
bombing intensifies burgeons to blood-lust
lost in the brutal fury infant, child, adolescent,
the aged - no difference
completely 'off the leash' frenzied beasts
they rampage devastating fellow humans -
this Guernica

then reflections come
wondering why some can't feel
can't imagine the blind loathing
causing these bombs to fall
or to be - even built
sanctimoniously shipped out
gifted from the 'land of the free'
high tech bombs of every description
fast tracked, loaded, triggered
to deliver a cold oblivion -
this Guernica

yes, if paint can imagine...perhaps...
but how do you paint a people
(once persecuted beyond human imagination)
who've now become jailer, torturer
plunderer of their own gene pool
almost their next of kin
how can they sink –
to this Guernica

"Our lives begin to end,
the day we become silent
about things that matter"

Dr Martin Luther King

Recognition

( Zionism's 'Greater Israel' borders -

never spoken of in Western media)

So Israel says

Palestinians must recognise Israel

before ‘peace’ can be ‘considered’

some reading of the Talmud

(Jewish Book of Law)

would not go astray

and note carefully

how 'we'

all ‘others’

are called goyim

goyim means all of us

(except Jews)

are 'lowly cattle'

you, I, and the Palestinians

that is

most of the rest of the world

are all 'lowly cattle' -

such is the 'under-the-carpet'

never spoken of

perception of 'us'

'we' are 'apparently'

way beneath zionists

beneath those crazy-born-again-Jewish

extreme-right settlers

beneath the ultra-right

religious fundamentalists

who all believe

their holy book to the letter -

as many 'in power' do -

blinkered

indoctrinated

unseeing beyond their credos

racist -

almost too gentle a word for these cretins

sorry almost the feeling

for these misguided 'believers'

who can't see past

their own narrow bloodlines

their ancient scripts

setting out apartheid rules

supposedly

from the voice of some 'god'

Zionists insist on 'all the land back'

they call ‘Greater Israel’

have you ever looked at the map ?

Greater Israel is all of Palestine

all of Jordan, all of Lebanon

large parts of Syria, Jordan & Egypt

some rabid purists

even believe they are entitled to

Iraq, Saudi Arabia & Turkey

for many

'Greater Israel' reaches

quite simply

from the Nile to the Euphrates

meaning (literally)

not a scrap of land is EVER intended

to be returned

to the long suffering Palestinians

it's time recognition was insisted upon

from BOTH parties simultaneously

as absolute equals

'Greater Israel'

must have no part

in any agreement

it is long past time

Israel admitted mutual recognition

equality of humanity

'lowly cattle' or goyim

must be banished

as mediaeval flat-earth thinking

belonging to the dark ages

Israel must recognise

right of return

Palestine

her borders

her people

her dignity

Pamela Sidney 2007 (December)

Essential reading:

Loewenstein's 'My Israel Question'

http://www.safecom.org.au/israel-question-report.htm

Bring the Settlers Home

http://www.liberationgraphics.com/ppp/Bring_settlers.htm