Tag Archives: genocide

The Two-State Dissolution (3): Smith, Burch, Foster, McCarthy, Helweg-Larsen, Bales

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J.D. Smith, ‘Apology in Siege’

I hope you will forgive me
for having given you hope—
Too late for youthful indiscretion, though
I believed my story and felt young in it
until the metal facts fell.

I’d still like to imagine some god
would help, but that line looks broken
like the water, the gas and electricity.

What we have is hours, and in them
you should have the bread and fruit
before they feed the rats.
I am keeping the wine for myself.
It is piss-poor, anyway, and I have
far more to forget.

J.D. Smith, ‘Slant Psalm’

My right hand has never known cunning,
yet I remember thee, O Jerusalem,
not as others’ sacred city
but capital and emblem of loss,
origin of far wandering
without prophecy of return.

My right hand has never known cunning.
May I have, as recompense, forgetting.

Michael R. Burch, ‘Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch’
for the Religious Right

Love, with a small, fatalistic sigh
went to the ovens. Please don’t bother to cry.
You could have saved her, but you were all tied up
complaining about the Jews to Reichmeister Grupp.

Scratch that. You were born after World War II.
You had something more important to do:
while the children of the Nakba were perishing in Gaza
with the complicity of your government, you had a noble cause (a
religious tract against homosexual marriage
and various things gods and evangelists disparage.)

Jesus will grok you? Ah, yes, I’m quite sure!
Your intentions were noble and ineluctably pure.
And what the hell does THE LORD care about Palestinians?
Certainly, Christians were right about serfs, slaves and Indians.
Scratch that. You’re one of the Devil’s minions.

Gail Foster, ‘On The Heights Above Jezreel’

War’s harvest then is of these bitter fruits
Hot shards of shrapnel buried in the flesh
Of children, olives ripped up from the roots
The horrid cries that fly from the nephesh
And blinded eyes. Who benefits from this?
Warmongers, metal forgers, men who plan
Whole cities while still smoking ruins hiss
Black marketeers and strategists. Who can
Sleep peacefully while others have to hide
Their families beneath their mothers’ skirts
And bury them before their tears have dried?
When will this harvest of these bitter hurts
Be over? On the heights above Jezreel
The storm clouds gather. Over soon I feel

Martin McCarthy, ‘The Unkillables’

There’s no great reason here to sing,
but still they sing and play once more …
the filthy, ragged children of the poor,
who shall, as always, inherit nothing.

There’s no beckoning paradise
beyond these war-torn streets of dirt,
where chalked slogans outline their hurt,
and yet, the unkillables rejoice!

Robin Helweg-Larsen, ‘Photo of a Dead Palestinian’

Hard to describe blown-off-ness of a head:
no head, neck, shoulder – only flopping flesh,
unfinished ending of a smooth-limbed, fresh,
strong, naked body on white-sheeted bed;
a tangled, mangled churning; then, instead
of the anticipated face (serene
as marble statue, Christmas figurine)
instead, disorganised meat, spilling red.

No face or brains or hair. We’re sick, confused.
The torn-off torso seems to have the calm
proportions of an adult – look again:
the genitalia of a boy of ten.
“Collateral damage” is the term that’s used.
Beside the body, on the sheet, an arm.

Marcus Bales: Right-Wing Semite-Murderer’s Song

Netanyahu:
I am the very model of a right-wing Semite-murderer,
Since I’m a Semite, too, the thing cannot get much absurderer.
My people were abused by every tribe and nationality,
So I, instead of empathy, embraced provinciality.
Because we were oppressed I’m now oppressing weaker other folks,
It gives me cover that we’re killing our Semitic brother-folks.
It isn’t ethnic cleansing if I swear that in my piety
I’m killing and I’m maiming only folks of my variety.

Nazi Chorus:
It isn’t ethnic cleansing if we swear that in our piety
We’re killing and we’re maiming only folks of our variety.
We’re killing and we’re maiming only folks of our varie- riety.

Netanyahu:
The same way each religion has its zealots kill for true-ishness
Islamic zealots have declared that they’ll erase all Jewishness,
And we have trained our own to act with criminal lethality
To counterbalance enemies of lethal criminality.

Nazi Chorus:
And we have trained our own to act with criminal lethality
To counterbalance enemies of lethal criminality.
To counterbalance enemies of lethal criminali- nality.

Netanyahu:
I play the left against the right. My politics are strenuous.
I say “If you hate one Jew …” Well, the rest is disingenuous.
That propaganda works so well is not much of a mystery
By pointing out how badly Jews were treated throughout history.
We’ve rarely had an easy time, with ghettos, rape, and slavery,
Our holidays still celebrate the mass of unmarked gravery.
But we survived because we had our own ulteriority —
And now we’re in a place at last where I am the authority.

Nazi Chorus:
But we survived because we had our own ulteriority,
And now we’re in a place at last where we are the authority.
And now we’re in a place at last where we are the authori- thority.

Netanyahu:
The Stern Gang and the Irgun were the Hamas of their day and time
They killed and maimed the British, and they justified dismaying crime,
And now my brave Israeli right-wing zealots take that bow for theirs,
And use exactly those excuses Hamas uses now for theirs.

Nazi Chorus:
And now our brave Israeli right-wing zealots take that bow for theirs,
Exactly with the same excuses Hamas uses now for theirs.
Exactly with the same excuses Hamas uses now for now for theirs.

Netanyahu:
When everyone is furious that everyone is furious,
And injury is contemplating things yet more injurious;
When money spent on arms and planning how to break the breakerage
Could buy opponents whole, including buildings, stock, and acreage;
When every group is cheering zealots’ grim religiosity
And everyone is trembling with the fear of new atrocity,
I stay in office by appealing to the prejudicial dumb —
While filling my Swiss bank accounts just like Hamas officialdom.

Nazi Chorus:
I stay in office by appealing to the prejudicial dumb —
While filling my Swiss bank accounts just like Hamas officialdom.
While filling my Swiss bank accounts just like Hamas official- licialdom.

Netanyahu:
No policy’s absurd enough that mine is not absurderer.
I am the very model of a right-wing Semite-murderer.
It isn’t ethnic cleansing if I say that in my piety
I’m killing and I’m maiming only folks of my variety.

Nazi Chorus:
It isn’t ethnic cleansing if we say that in our piety
We’re killing and we’re maiming only folks of our variety.
We’re killing and we’re maiming only folks of our vari- variety.

Robin Helweg-Larsen, ‘Roots of Terrorism’

Step back a moment, and reflect:
not saying that it’s good or right
that chained, starved, beaten dogs would bite–
but what did you expect?

*****

Michael R. Burch, ‘Starting from Scratch with Ol’ Scratch’, first published in The HyperTexts
Martin McCarthy, ‘The Unkillables’, first published in The HyperTexts
Robin Helweg-Larsen, ‘Photo of a Dead Palestinian’ and ‘Roots of Terrorism’ first published in The HyperTexts

Photo: Anadolu Agency photographer Ali Jadallah – Gaza https://x.com/alijadallah66?lang=en
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/05/one-year-in-gaza-since-the-7-october-attack-photo-essay

The Two-State Dissolution: Yankevich, Kenny, Helweg-Larsen, Foster, Vaughan, Jackson, Bales, Burch

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Leo Yankevich: ‘The Terrorist’

Only six, she stands before a tank,
looking at its armour, while inside
soldiers heed orders from a higher rank.
There isn’t any place for her to hide,
no door to head for, no abandoned car
to slide beneath. Pure terror rules her land.
When finally crushed, she rises past the star
of David, with a stone clutched in her hand.

Janet Kenny: ‘Didn’t They Know?’
(In memory of a lost poem by Robert Mezey)

Didn’t they know that when they swarmed
and slashed and slaughtered what they saw
as an oppressor’s nest, the rage
that they aroused would turn and pour
with molten heat back on their house?

Their captive children now must pay,
small targets in a concrete cage.
No treaty, pact, no peace no truce.
Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know?

No map to show another way.
Olive farmers pay for crimes
of other nations, other times.
No mercy here, no one is just.
Two agonies, two brains concussed.

Nothing to see here. False alarm.
Police not needed to disarm
two weeping peoples each aware
that no solution slumbers there.
Hearth and cradle now makes clear
an ancient poem brought them here.

Where is the psalm that both can share?
Where is the psalm that both can share?

Robin Helweg-Larsen: ‘Both Sides Justify Their Terrorism’

When pleas for justice are of no avail,
when governments praise death and theft,
and courts say you’re in error;
when the UN is blocked to fail,
the only recourse left
is terror.

When no one cares that Yahweh willed
that Jews alone should have this land
(and God’s never in error)
and prior residents must be killed,
yet they won’t leave, they force your hand:
to terror.

Gail Foster: ‘On The Occasion of Benjamin Netanyahu Quoting Dylan Thomas’

Don’t tell me that you fight a righteous fight
How many children have you killed today
I’ll give you rage. I’ll give you rage alright

Your anger and your ego burning bright
Are razing all that’s standing in your way
Don’t tell me that you fight a righteous fight

How many have you sent into the light
Before they even had the time to pray
I’ll give you rage. I’ll give you rage alright

How many have you saved or sent in spite
Up to the sky in ashen clouds of grey
Don’t tell me that you fight a righteous fight

In clouds as those who in the fog and night
Were put in trains and disappeared away
I’ll give you rage. I’ll give you rage alright

You speak as if your soul was white as white
Yet deep inside you darkness holds its sway
Don’t tell me that you fight a righteous fight
I’ll give you rage. I’ll give you rage alright

Tom Vaughan: ‘The Land’

Let’s pretend that the war
could be over, and peace
reigned even if only
this evening. O please

pick up your anger
and soak it with mine
in six large barrels
of miracle wine

and then let us dance
like lovers, as though
this land’s many meanings
didn’t all signal no

and we could make ploughshares
out of our swords
and translate the past
into one shared world

and even if dawn
will scatter the night
and send us both stumbling
into the light

where smooth olives glisten
in the warm sun
like belts of bright bullets
ripe for a gun.

Jean MacKay Jackson: ‘War’

Some say that war is bright flares and drama,
A glory of fireworks illumining skies.
This is all lies.
War is a child calling out for his mama
And getting no answer.
War is a merchant of hatred and grief:
War is a thief,
War is a cancer.
Some say that war is hell. Perhaps that is so.
Yet hell has a lack
Of innocent bystanders, hell has no
Collateral damage, no accidental black
Body-bags for old women and babies.
Hell has no maybes;
Everything makes sense.
In hell there is no defense:
You belong there. You chose your path.
Hell has a cold, hard justice drained of wrath.
War is the horrified look in the eye
Of a young person dying without knowing why.

Tom Vaughan: ‘Aleppo’

Never again we say, each time
never, never again,
and every time we mean it so
when it happens again

we watch it on our screens, and say
never, never again

we meet and vote and all agree
never, never again.

Marcus Bales: ‘Genocide is Genocide’

Genocide is genocide. There’s no
Legitimacy on the table. None.
Your killing and your maiming only show
What horrors piled on horrors you have done.

The US taught the method to the Germans
The Trail of Tears leads to the Holocaust.
And now Israeli policy determines
They’ll do the same in Gaza. That boundary’s crossed.

Why not, instead, a reconciliation,
Where all the old and evil wounds can be
Accepted by each side without probation?
With zealotry forgiven, all are free.

Until that happens, hate corrupts you all,
With “Ams Yisrael Chai” the new decree —
Unless it turns out that the final call
That wins is “From the river to the sea.”

And that’s the choice: that each side does the worst
That it can do to keep the hatreds growing,
Shouting slogans of revenge, and cursed
To trade atrocities that keep the business going.

The other choice is reconciliation.
Yes, all the old and evil wounds will be
Accepted by each side without probation,
And zealotry forgiven, to be free.

If “Look at what they did to us!” is your
Refrain, then all you’ve done is to condemn
Your children to a world where they’ll endure
Their children’s gloat: “Look what we did to them!”

There’s always someone left to live resenting
The evils your revenges made you do —
And they will spend their hearts and souls inventing
A suitable revenge to take on you.

Be strong enough for reconciliation
Where all the old and evil wounds must be
Accepted by each side without probation.
With zealotry forgiven, all are free.

Michael R. Burch: ‘Epitaph for a Palestinian Child’

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

*****

Acknowledgements:

Leo Yankevich: ‘The Terrorist’, collected in ‘Tikkun Olam & other poems’, Counter Currents, 2012
Tom Vaughan: ‘The Land’, published on Hull University Middle East Study Centre website, 2022, and in Professor Raphael Cohen-Almagor’s December 2022 Politics Newsletter
Tom Vaughan: ‘Aleppo’, published in Snakeskin 233, October 2016
Michael R. Burch: ‘Epitaph for a Palestinian Child’, first published in Romantics Quarterly, and many places since. Michael R. Burch is the founder and editor-in-chief of The HyperTexts, and its extensive collections of poetry include ones on both the Holocaust and the Nakba.

Photo: “Gaza war Nov2012” by EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Using form: Villanelle: Discoveria, ‘October 7’

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Your actions have unleashed a living hell.
Each day Israelis, Palestinians die;
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

October 7: gunfire and the smell
of death in the kibbutzim testify:
your actions have unleashed a living hell.

The siege of Gaza, ground invasion, tell
the UN of the “risk of genocide”.
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

And when the hospitals are bombed as well,
and there’s no water, food, or power supply,
your actions have unleashed a living hell.

Across the world the rage and hatred swell
and everyone feels forced to pick a side.
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

This one cannot be silent, for the bells,
they toll for everybody; none shall hide.
Your actions have unleashed a living hell;
Netanyahu, Hamas: go fuck yourselves.

*****

Discoveria writes: “I wrote this piece as a response to what was, at the time, a perception that people were being demanded to pick a side in the conflict between Hamas and the Israeli government, leaving no room for legitimate criticism of both. I wanted to express my anger and frustration at the situation, in which both sides have chosen the path of death and cyclical violence. The repeated refrains in the villanelle form emphasise these emotions. The piece was written overnight and posted in the early hours of Remembrance Day, 11/11/2023, after a little doomscrolling. I cannot pretend that there is much subtlety to the poem; it is what it is.”

Discoveria publishes much of their work at AllPoetry, saying “Due to the politically sensitive topic of the poem I would prefer to be credited under my username.”

Photo: “17 year old boy killed by Israeli army during demonstration in solidarity with Gaza” by ISM Palestine is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

RHL, ‘Deuteronomy 20: 16-18’

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You’ve no autonomy
under Deuteronomy;
it’s your obligation
to your tribal nation
to kill all Palestinians
so you don’t sin against
God, who’s neurotic.
Yes, Yahweh’s psychotic.
No escaping his wrath,
no path but the psychopath.

*****

For Christians and Jews who state (as Jesus did) that every reported command by God in the Torah / Old Testament must be obeyed, I ask their position on Deuteronomy 20. This contains the command for the complete genocide of the non-Jews living in the land which Moses claimed had been given to the Jews by God. (Note: not expulsion or enslavement of the people living there, but the death of all of them and their animals.) The reason? So that they don’t teach evil ways to the Jews:

16 But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
17 But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:
18 That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the Lord your God.

To the extent that fundamentalist Jews constitute a large percentage of the Israeli population and are influential in the national government, the Palestinian situation cannot be resolved until scriptural passages like this are dragged out into the open and examined and discussed: was that passage only for then, and things are different now? Or does the command to massacre non-Jews still hold for today’s Jews in “the Holy Land”?

This poem was first published in The HyperTexts, where Michael R. Burch maintains extensive collections of poetry related to both the Holocaust and the Palestinian Catastrophe.

Illustration: “Moses has the mature women and the male children of the Midianites killed” is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Sonnet: “From Gombe’s Chimps”

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From Gombe’s chimps to interstellar space
We will have war. Sanctioned by the Divine,
Moses first led the Jews to Palestine
Telling his tribesmen not just to displace
But to kill all, and wipe out without trace
Each adult, child, animal, tree, vine.
Genocide’s justified, cleansed ethics fine,
To get resources for your tribe and race.

Believers justify war’s bloody courses:
We’re right, they’re wrong, so therefore they’re to blame.
Conquer through war to grab and keep resources,
Aztecs or Spaniards, everyone’s the same –
Victory to the best guns, swords or horses,
And put defeated scriptures in the flame.

I’m pessimistic about the chances of humans being able to stop warfare. It seems built into the nature of social creatures – when you define your group, you are defining everyone else as not in your group. Then, when it’s a question of who gets limited resources, groups compete and the most ruthless groups tend to do the best.

This sonnet was originally accepted for publication by Quarterday in Scotland, but that excellent glossy magazine seems to have folded after a few issues and this poem was left hanging. Fortunately the Better Than Starbucks group is still competing successfully, thanks to the ruthless Anthony Watkins and Vera Ignatowitsch, and published it.

The sonnet is one of my favourites for several reasons: technically it is purer than most, rhyming ABBAABBA CDCDCD, though the volta between the two sections is weak (or possibly nonexistent). It deals with human nature, and the problems facing us as we move into the ever more complex future. And it highlights one of my personal religious irritations, that people can walk into a neighbouring territory, wipe out the inhabitants, and create a justifying fairytale of how the destroyers are the persecuted victims. Think of the Pilgrims and other British immigrants in America… think of the Jewish tribes coming into the Promised Land: when they captured a city outside the core area,

“when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” (Deuteronomy 20:13-14)

But when they captured a city in the heart of the Promised Land,

“of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:
But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee:
That they teach you not to do after all their abominations.” (Deuteronomy 20:16-18)

It is hard to see a future without warfare, when even the most revered “holy books” teach genocide and justify it as doing God’s will.