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Palestine

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Submitted By elgindy
Words 1233
Pages 5
I would love to know why
Just the mere thought of you
Keeps me absolutely restless
At the oddest hours of the day,
But I know it’s because of my silence.
All those times in the past I couldn’t speak up because I was weak.
I couldn’t speak up because I was afraid that just like in the past,
I would be lynched for my color,
For my religion,
For my association.

I was afraid.

You’d cry
I’d run away.
You’d scream
I’d turn away.

I haven’t held your hand all of these years,
But…. I was scared.

I know now that
Solidarity is a weapon.
Words are weapons.
Art is a weapon.
Mahmoud Darwish, Allah yerhamou, taught me that.
Rumi, Allah yerhamou, taught me that.

So let me begin:

Zionist missiles into Lebanon,
Hezbollah blamed by Israel again
Hamas defense against occupation
Implicitly sanctioned by United Nations
Expansion in West Bank funded by the World Bank
Kids with no shoes throwing stones at the tanks
$30 billion from Obama through tax that you paid
Given to Israel in the next decade
Leaving the country is now deemed a crime
Crossing the road crosses enemy lines
Penning them in or forcing them out
Human rights law is something to flout
Gaza, a death zone, kids without homes
Crying for Daddy who will never come home.
Abused turned abuser, Zionists claim
That 'holocaust' only refers to their pain.
Recreating scenes from the Nazi Regime
What does extermination of the Palestinians mean?
Now in exile from their homeland
An exodus after a plague on the land?
A familiar story that is told of the Jews
Update the Bible, it's still in the news
Land promised by God to the 12 tribes of Israel?
All Arabs too are descendants of Ismail
Abrahim's children born of a slave
Is that a reason to dig them a grave?
Liberation for Palestine is the New World Order
And yet still, your land, it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your people, they chased away all the sanity in me.

There’s just too much that time cannot erase b/c
Where the shallow rivers cross and meet,
From upon the olive trees, she sits and weeps
Through the hills and plains, the enemy lies intent and discreet,
Let her sleep, sleep away, amongst the reality that sadly sings..
From the scenery that shall not cease, from a future she wants to bring.
Rest your soul, a soul that no bullet can break,
A soul that foreign thoughts cannot overtake Sleep, sleep, for evermore,
She dreams of the setting sun upon Jaffa’s shores,
A sleep that no soldier shall wake,
A deep embrace that no morning can break.
From upon the orange-bearing trees, only her shadow she fears.
Shed a tear… Shed a tear for the world that cannot hear… Through the open skies and the stretched horizons,
In the ever spanning Earth, she roams disinterestedly like the jet-black stallions.
Her land of sorrow, bereft of everything imagined.
A land stolen from her, a land of her grandfathers.
Through the memories that have caused her harm,
She’ll remain lost in this world, lost until she throws herself in your arms….

And I..I didn’t know days like this could exist
Hollow hole of a home
Rubble on the floor.
I feel angry having dreams of wishing I can stop them,
As they shred her livelihood to pieces
In the name of six candles,
Defying their own words.
And as they light each one of them
The red never seems to end, and my insides burn with agony
With loss, with a flame of sadness.
But they will never break us.
I hear the chanting outside
They will never break us.
That chanting is for her family,
It’s for her children,
Their innocent smiles wiped off of their faces
And replaced with sorrow.

And later,
As I watched the clouds outside my window flow
Flow across the sky rather slow
I could only wonder about the pace
The pace of independence without an ace
An ace is a leader who can move
Move a people into a groove
Nelson Mandela led the South Africans
Mahatma Gandhi led the Indians
Martin Luther King led the American Blacks
A leader of such a caliber our struggle lacks At our Diaspora, we need to reflect
To see why there has been neglect
Why are we the only people not free?
Do we not look around and see
Independence the Moroccans did gain
The Sudanese did the same
Libya won its freedom from Italy
The Algerians fought the French rather mightily What has happened in the last 80 years?
Surely, there have been many tears
Deir Yasseen lives within my soul
Sabra and Chatilla created a hole
A hole in my heart
Jenin took away any part
Any part left of my conscience
And left me without any patience In 1964 as the PLO was formed, we were hopeful
In June 1967, those hopes became sorrowful
In the 1970’s hijackings gave us a name
The label of terrorists caused us pain
Tel al Zaatar added more suffering
Our hopes were crumpling
Camp David only offered autonomy
The 1980’s provided sobriety
And we recognized the existence of the enemy
That handshake in 1993 lives in infamy
As the Peace Accords were signed on the White House lawn
We believed it was the beginning of a new dawn
Into complacency our minds did then dwell
Thinking the struggle was over and all was well
But as we were drafting and signing
The Zionists were cunning and planning They gave us limited autonomy over populated parts
Divided us in Zones A, B and C on the charts
Then they controlled our movements within these zones
And all they really gave us were bones
The time to travel between Beir Zeit and Ramallah
Has increased by 10 fold, Ya Allah! The Zionists buy time
Using American taxpayer’s dime
The longer a peace agreement they elude
The more settlements become glued
All the while, our homes they demolish
In the press they polish
Polish the truth and hide the atrocities
As they torture our people and our cities
They build a wall as our hands are tied
A wall that President Carter called apartheid The greatest hope we have known
Were the Children of the stone
But they were pre-empted in midstream
As secret negotiations in Stockholm came like a dream
Only to lead to a second Intifada episode
Only time will tell when we will again explode In South Africa Mandela did write
Something he perceived to be quite right
He said the policies of the Apartheid Government of South Africa did impose
An armed struggle as the people fought and rose
Rose up against the oppression
And so must we against the occupation To make salt Mahatma Gandhi did march to the sea
A non-violent movement he did oversee
A champion of the people was he
Fighting peacefully to set his people free Non-violence was advocated by Martin Luther King
As a bus boycott to Montgomery Alabama he did bring
He was remindful of the past
As he proclaimed that one day his people will be “Free at last” Where is our Mandela, Gandhi or King
Who can lead us out of the clouds and to sing
Biladi, Biladi, Biladi
Lecky Houbi Lee Wa Fouadi

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