The Cage

I. Where art thou, O Isreal?

Isreal is not a tract of land;
it is not a political state with physical borders.
Isreal is an idea, a belief, a way of life.
Isreal is an intangible;
it is a matter of the mind and of the heart:
and wherever the Jew goes, so goes Isreal
and wherever the Jew lives, so lives Isreal.

II. What shall we call this hatred?

We have a word to describe the Gentile who hates the Jew;
the word is anti-semite.
What word shall we use to describe the Jew who hates the Gentile?
How shall we describe the Jewish Settler
who looks upon the Palestinian as a pestilence, an infestation, vermin?
How shall we describe the Jew who looks at the gentile
and sees something unclean?

III. Who Will Remember?

An old man sits alone on a stone embankment.
He looks out over the rolling landscape to the far horizon.
"I remember Palestine," he murmurs sadly to himself.
He remembers a time when the land belonged to his people;
he was young then and full of life.
Slowly his thoughts return to the present;
the land now belongs to a different people.
Carefully, he rises and walks in a shuffled gate
to a house that is not a home.
The years of longing weigh heavily upon him.
And then the day arrives when the old man dies.
He was known in life as a virtuous man,
and now he stands before The One Who Is All
and he shall enter into paradise.
But the old man shall not know peace,
for, although he is in paradise,
his people have been denied the right of return.
and when the last elders of his age have died,
who will remember Palestine?

IV. The Politics of Martyrdom

So, it has come to this;
you strap explosives to your chest,
then you go to a public place and set them off.
Very clever!
And you do this for the greater glory of your people
in their stuggle against the other.
Coward! Fool! Murderer!
It requires greater courage to live for your cause than to die for it!
And what of your friends and family?
What is the measure of their suffering?
Oh yes, there are those who will shout your name in ecstacy,
while some will grieve more quietly.
Officials of the ruling council say
that there is no tradition for such violent behavior in their society.
I have news for them; there is now.
And what of the other ? Oh, I see.
In your eyes, they are not quite human.
How convenient!
And so the cycle of fear continues;
arrogance and retaliation! Smugness and revenge!
But which of you is which?
Who is more afraid?
The Other? Or is it you?

(Spring 2003)