From Bethlehem, Palestine

POETRY FORMAT, 23 Dec 2024

Mazin Qumsiyeh | Popular Resistance – TRANSCEND Media Service

18 Dec 2024

All souls wondering
find peace in the place of birthing
I, a lost soul, find it here in Bethlehem
A holy place cursed now by mayhem
Palestine where the first humans out of Africa ventured

Settling a land of beauty and bounty, Canaan they called
Our fore fathers and mothers first domesticated animals and plants
and prospered in peace and harmony respecting the Gods and even the ants
Where the Shepherds heard angels sing
And in a manger was born a savior king
Where a prophet told us this is the last vanguard
one who ascended to heaven and told us to be on guard
Where ancestors invented laws and the alphabet
and a fertile crescent they created with their sweat
Where they managed to transcend adversity
and respected biological and human diversity
Cultural and natural heritage were well guarded
they dwelled under one God (Al-Ela) regarded

But a dark storm came with strangers
whose quest for “manifest destiny” endangers
who said the land belonged not to first nation
but to a chosen people from Europe by dictation
Crusaderism
Zionism
Millions do suffer
while the rich get richer

We can’t sleep thinking of Khalid Nabhan, a most gentle kindred
one year after Reem & Tareq (grandchildren) were martyred
Soul of my soul he repeatedly stated
Now they are eternally united

We get paralyzed thinking of friends sacrificed
Zionists aided by blackmailed politicians make people de-huanized
villified
terrified

Might is right they declare
Of a higher power they are not aware

Living under apartheid we wonder
When our turn to be killed or injured and ponder
Whether we lived with enough grace and dignity?
Whether we made the right choices & fostered unity?

Did we spend enough time with good people, family, friends, activists?
Did we waste some time trying to convince racists or hanging with pessimists?
Mistakes made (we all do)- but have from our lessons, learned?
egos subdued, sometimes, and only then is respect earned!

How do we learn not to look away from suffering?
to offer a kind word, food, shelter to those enduring….
a genocide, ecocide, educide, medicide, and omnicide
and massacres of the truth – a veriticide.

We reread the beginning…ethnic cleansing
and today’s millions of candles shining
For human rights we strive
and we keep hope alive
In every street, in every corner, and in every heart
People united for a freedom, a road they chart
In our thousands in our millions
we are all Palestinians

They will never break the spirits
of 15 million Palestinians
let alone billions who stand together tall
For a better future for ALL

May 2025 be the year of peace

____________________________________________

Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org

Go to Original – popular-resistance.blogspot.com

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