Reflection on the 50th Anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine
POETRY FORMAT, 12 Jun 2017
Jessie Light – TRANSCEND Media Service
When fences become walls become concrete prisons
When tents become houses become tear gas test-sites
When days become years become decades and
the oppression swelters, endlessly.
When a stone is met with a bullet,
When righteous anger is met with murder,
When protest is met with a militarized Caterpillar and
the tears shed could fill the Dead Sea.
What do we call this period of time? This suffocating, asphyxiating fifty
years of
Bombs tear gas violence repression checkpoints surveillance
microaggressions machine guns
racial profiling settlements innocent deaths cultural appropriation
bulldozing brutality
We name it apartheid,
We name it injustice,
We name it occupation.
Fifty years of making an occupation out of violence,
Fifty years of preoccupation with “security,”
Fifty years of military occupation of Palestine.
When will it end? When will life begin anew? When will children walk safely
to school?
This holy land,
this wholly divided, wholly splintered, wholly oppressed land
needs our voices, our hands, our righteous anger, our protests, our
boycotts, our endless
objection-rejection-opposition-confrontation
of a fifty-year oppressive occupation
of a so-called holy land.
Enough is more than enough.
*****************************************************
Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation’s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.
DON’T BUY PRODUCTS WHOSE BARCODE STARTS WITH 729, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!
7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 12 Jun 2017.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Reflection on the 50th Anniversary of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.
It’s a “political poem”! But, unlike most “political poems,” Jessie Light’s does not neglect the use of strong and clever language, verbal acrobatics, to drive home its important message. The language skills here make the poem memorable, even unforgettable. Yes to the message and yes to the craft!