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sdrawkcaB nruT (Turn Backwards)

I have been witness to the four pillars and see no reason to carry death there. Doesn’t the world know that life moves for more than just the sons of Abraham?

O! I see the stunned throats floating by in the dusk to their stiff-limbed sleep as metal rains down over the Jordan’s western prophet, children dying there.

I am here, waiting, breathing in the dusk under the shadow of the patriarch, asking, can we again build the shrine inside the soul and leave our flesh to time?


© 2008 mrp/thepoetryman


Comments

  1. Every time I come to read and try to understand how we turn away, read your poem, I leave in tears. And I feel helpless.

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  2. Utah,
    Tears can be cathartic. They are hope personified.

    Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. The pictures are heartbreaking, but there are two sides to this story. Hamas is a terrorist group. Period. Their missiles were designed to terrorize. They put their ideology before the good of their people. They put violence before resolution. Isreal, for its part, is far from blameless, but they weren't lobbing indiscriminate missiles into Gaza day after day after day.

    Hamas, if the group were really interested in the Palestinians, rather than their own psychopathic ideology, would have forcefully pursued a political solution - the only solution possible. They would obtain far, far more. They would garner the world's sympathy. The barriers between them & Israel might start falling. Hide bound Israelis would be shamed into civility.

    It's a tragic situation, but as long as there are voices in the world that coddle groups like Hamas, this violence will go on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. upinVermont,
    Yes. There are two sides and I was not demeaning the Israeli people, I was demeaning the Israeli governments response which is terror multiplied times 2000 of what Hamas is able to deliver.

    4 people have died from the rockets sent by Hamas and countless hundreds have and are dying because of the Israeli governments response.

    The picture of Israeli children being taught to shoot assault weapons by their elders is very disturbing as well and the Israeli people need to get a grip on the revenge factor and keep this from ending in the complete and utter destruction of a whole Palestinian peoples. (They, the Jews, should know this from their personal history.)

    I realize both sides are involved in terrorist methods, but to call Hamas a terrorist group while not calling the Israeli government the same is being disingenuous at best.

    The Palestinians are much like the Iraqi insurgency, they are using any method necessary in order to keep from becoming a statistic and being ousted from their homes and religion, much like the Jews of the Holocaust.

    Hamas hasn't nearly the leverage as we imagine and are using tactics that are not good for the Palestinian people, but the Israeli government is certainly using the same tactics, before and after the rockets were sent.

    Peace...

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  5. Isreal, for its part, is far from blameless, but they weren't lobbing indiscriminate missiles into Gaza day after day after day.

    No. They were fencing (walling) the Palestinians off from the world. From what I have been able to gather, the Israelis cut off their supply, their electric and water before the rockets fell.

    Israel needs to end this slaughter now.

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  6. Disingenuous means not being frank or speaking with candor. I spoke frankly. We disagree as to what terrorism means.

    //Israel needs to end this slaughter now.//

    And Hamas needs to end the slaughter now. They both do.

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  7. Yes. Disingenuous (at best). I used it correctly.

    Yes. We do disagree about terrorism and its definition.

    You don't believe its "terror" when over five hundred Palestinians die at the Israeli government's hands, but it is "terror" when 4 Israelis die by Hamas rockets.

    Disagree we shall.

    ReplyDelete
  8. UpinVermont,
    What slaughter have the Palestinian peoples (aside from Hamas) been perpetrating? It would appear that the terror has morphed from "terror" with a little "t" into "terror" with a gargantuan "T"...

    I have never said that "Hamas" should continue to lob rockets into Israel.

    I have maintained, however, that Israel with all of their firepower have overreacted with a certain willingness and knowledge of what the outcome of such will be.

    I will continue to maintain that this fact appears to be purposeful.

    I will continue to maintain that the democratically elected Hamas (which has never been recognized as legitimate) should not bomb their Israeli neighbors without cause, and, simply by proxy, I say that Israel, being the dominate force in this situation (as usual) needs to cease and desist their overly aggressive "retaliation" of what I can only define as terror, since it is a tactic and it must be terrifying, and they should end their killing of so many innocent Palestinians.

    There is no debate that Israel's "response" has been overwhelming and is killing hundreds of innocent men, women and children.

    There is no debate that Hamas' rockets have killed far less, yet killed they have.

    There is no debate whether Israel is attempting to deliver their lethal mechanisms deep into Gaza.

    There is no debate as to whether or not Israel has overcompensated with their use of lethal weaponry.

    There is no debate that Israel is the power broker in this situation.

    There is no debate whether both Hamas and Israel have initiated terror upon a peoples.

    The only debate, or so it would seem, is our personal definitions of "terror"...

    How ludicrous and sad it must be that we battle over semantics while so many innocents are dying.

    ReplyDelete
  9. //How ludicrous and sad it must be that we battle over semantics while so many innocents are dying.//

    No it's not. Symantics matter, like your disingenuous definition of disingenuous. There needs to be a clear understanding of the conflict. I don't see that happening here.

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  10. What an amazing blog. I will definitely keep coming back. I enjoyed this post. And that picture with the young child looking at the barrow of a gun, is freaking amazing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. To Upin vermont:
    Israel's been responsible for unilateral breach of ceasefire deals 79% of the time.

    Stop believing your propaganda for god's sake and save your crocodile tears too!

    ReplyDelete
  12. UpinVermont,
    1. Not straightforward or candid; insincere or calculating...
    2.Pretending to be unaware or unsophisticated; faux-naïf.
    3.Unaware or uninformed; naive.

    Generally, it means “insincere” and is a synonym of cynical or calculating.

    I also accept the extended meaning relating to less reproachable behavior.

    Also “playfully insincere, faux-naïf”

    Methinks, you've mistaken my usage of the word.

    I feel you spoke with candor, but you were either being willfully naïve or unaware or uninformed.

    Like I said we can argue all day about semantics, but it does not remove the reality of the conflict in Gaza and the overwhelming evidence that Israel is using its overwhelming power to obliterate a peoples.

    The Israeli government is being disingenuous, feigning ignorance, to their overaggressive response and to the reality that it is terrorizing (and killing) a peoples.

    You and they can say they are protecting their own or defending themselves until they're blue in the face, it does not change the reality on the ground. It does not change until they, the Israelis, decide to change it.

    A clear understanding of the conflict? Might I suggest that it should begin with your own understanding of the "conflict", your definition of terror, your own semantic shifting, your insistence that I am not seeing both sides for what they are, and your willful naïveté that Hamas is on equal footing with Israel when it comes to brokering a cease fire or a peace deal.)

    UpinVermont,
    Peace, my friend. Peace... and I use this word genuinely.

    ReplyDelete
  13. The assault on Gaza, planned over six months and executed with perfect timing, was designed largely, as Neve Gordon has rightly observed, to help the incumbent parties triumph in the forthcoming Israeli elections. The dead Palestinians are little more than election fodder in a cynical contest between the right and the far right in Israel. Washington and its EU allies, perfectly aware that Gaza was about to be assaulted, as in the case of Lebanon in 2006, sit back and watch.

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  14. Israel broke the ceasefire by going into the Gaza and killing six or seven Palestinian militants. At that point—quoting the official Israeli website—Hamas retaliated or, in retaliation for the Israeli attack, then launched the missiles."

    According to Ha’aretz, Defense Minister Barak began plans for this invasion before the ceasefire even began. In fact, according to yesterday’s Ha’aretz, the plans for the invasion began in March.
    Israel doesn’t want Gaza to develop, and Israel doesn’t want to resolve diplomatically the conflict,
    both the leadership in Damascus and the leadership in the Gaza have repeatedly made statements they’re willing to settle the conflict in the June 1967 border.
    Every year, the United Nations General Assembly votes on a resolution entitled “Peaceful Settlement of the Palestine Question.” And every year the vote is the same: it’s the whole world on one side; Israel, the United States and some South Sea atolls and Australia on the other side.
    The vote this past year was 164-to-7.
    Every year since 1989—in 1989, the vote was 151-to-3
    All twenty-two members of the Arab League, favoring a two-state settlement on the June 1967 border.
    The Palestinian Authority favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border.
    Hamas favoring that two-state settlement on the June 1967 border.
    The one and only obstacle is Israel, backed by the United States. That’s the problem.
    the record shows that Hamas wanted to continue the ceasefire, but only on condition that Israel eases the blockade.
    Long before Hamas began the retaliatory rocket attacks on Israel, Palestinians were facing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza because of the blockade.
    The former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, described what was going on in Gaza [during the ceasefire] as a destruction of a civilization.

    The record shows that in every crucial issue raised at
    Camp David,
    then under the Clinton parameters,
    and then in Taba,
    all the concessions came from the Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly expressed a willingness to settle the conflict in accordance with international law.

    The law is very clear.
    July 2004, the highest judicial body in the world, the International Court of Justice, ruled
    Israel has no title to any of the West Bank and any of Gaza.
    They have no title to Jerusalem.
    Arab East Jerusalem, according to the highest judicial body in the world, is occupied Palestinian territory.
    the settlements, all the settlements in the West Bank, are illegal under international law.

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  15. PERFECT!
    Here's what I promised:
    She is holding a child that she has never had. A limb is falling off of the child. A leg. Or an arm. There is a bullet in the child's eye. The bullet is silver. Blood is flowing into the child's mouth. The child is thirsty. The woman lets her drink the blood. Her left breast is blown up. In its place rests a big scar. You can see the heart through cracked ribs. With no breast, the child cannot be breast fed. With no breast she cannot even prostitute herself to find water or milk. The child is thirsty. The woman's heart is broken by the force of the smashed rib cage. The man is out; holding his penis out to the world; pissing on it, pissing it off. He is hoping that if he urinates enough, the earth, the ancestral land will purify it enough to save his child from thirst; or from the despicable sin of sucking on his own blood. Death doesn't come soon enough to the child whose limb is hanging, whose eyes is wounded. Death doesn't come soon enough to the woman whose breast is blown, whose broken rib cage has broken her pink heart. Death doesn't come soon enough to the man whose phallus is not irrigating the earth, is not starting a creek. Death is waiting in a corner to be sought. Death is waiting to be called upon. Death is waiting to be strapped into a belt. Death is not coming, death is to be sought. Death grins menacingly that she is the port to freedom, the port to heaven. Death is water, death is food, death is freedom, death is a belt, death is the last piece of pride, the last bit of dignity left.

    The woman's breast is blown. Her wombs is a ball of fire. She is pregnant with pain. And she is holding a child with a falling limb, with a bleeding eye, and with thirsty lips that are getting used to the salty taste of the blood ... blood the only source of life ... blood the only god ... the woman will give birth to pain, the pain too will be thirsty, the pain will not be able to drink from the exploded breast, the pain will grow into a blood thirsty puberty.

    The pain will kill the woman because the woman will kill for pain; all mothers will kill for their thirsty children. The death belt is grinning ... the last attire of dignity of a man ... or a woman ...

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  16. //UpinVermont, Peace, my friend. Peace... and I use this word genuinely.//

    OK, Poetryman. You know, you haven't behaved very generously in your responses. But I've been there. I know where you're coming from and have behaved the same way. Rather than respond to the message I've shot the messenger. It's hard to resist. But, peace, I don't hold it against you. We disagree, that's all.

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  17. UpinVermont,
    We disagree, it does not make us enemies.

    I behaved very ungenerously? Really? (Is that an olive branch I see before me or are you being disingenuous? :>)

    I thought I was even-tempered and rather open, fair and honest in my dialogue with you, friend. You say you've been there...? No. You were there (here), upinVermont. You were present. You are present.

    I truly meant peace. When I say "peace", there are no caveats attached. It is an olive branch, nothing more nothing less. It is peace. No amount of who did what to whom, etc need follow, for nothing can follow a real gesture of peace except peace or its antithesis.

    ___________
    So one more go...

    Peace, upinVermont. Peace, my friend....and I use the word genuinely.

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  18. UpinVermont,
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h7hd5znUqU&feature=channel_page

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  19. UpinVermont,
    "We disagree, it doesn't make us enemies" was a statement and in no way attributed to you, even remotely, and it was not an accusatory statement. (snip)

    We agree on many things, not the definition of terror or whose hands a cease fire is in, but on many things, of that I'm sure.

    So I will hopefully end this, our useless one-ups-manship of our debate, for the rest has been, in my opinion, rather worthy.

    Peace...(snip)

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  20. http://thepeacetree.blogspot.com/2009/01/rabbi-yisroel-must-seeeven-if-it-is-on.html

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  21. As the Gaza death toll passed an estimated 1,000 people and concerns about the humanitarian situation inside Gaza grew, Egypt announced on Wednesday that it was making progress toward an interim cease-fire, with some officials predicting that one could be five to six days away. A senior Israeli defense official, Amos Gilad, arrived in Cairo on Thursday to continue the talks.

    Also on Wednesday, nine Israeli human rights groups called for an investigation into whether Israeli officials had committed war crimes in Gaza. The groups say that tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza have nowhere to flee, the Gaza health system has collapsed, many people are without electricity and running water, and some are beyond the reach of rescue teams.

    “This kind of fighting constitutes a blatant violation of the laws of warfare and raises the suspicion, which we ask be investigated, of the commission of war crimes,” the groups said in a news conference on the 19th day of the war.

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  22. I'm not feeling too good about things at this juncture, so if I offend anyone with this upcoming diatribe I don't give a good damn!

    I will repeat... It is the Israeli government that can and should and must end their bloody God damned aggression now! No amount of blame for who started what or labeling one or the other a terrorist group matters a fucking nth!

    Semantics be damned!

    There is now only one bad guy in this war!

    There is one party that is complicit in this murderous "plan"!

    Somebody has to tell the various Palestinian, Arab and Muslim groups that they cannot continue to provoke Israel. They will lose. Every time. They are only harming their own people.

    Jesus Christ! It's beyond talk or provocation! It's miserable fucking genocide! It matters not who started what! the Israeli government is committing war crimes!

    If it terrifies and murders- it is terror! That is my definition! A means to an end using a people as targets to bring the whole to its knees! It needn't be defined! It needs to end!

    If I accuse someone of being disingenuous it is because I feel, believe that they are!

    Being "even-tempered and rather open, fair and honest" has nothing to do with being generous.

    Bullshit! (Semantically speaking!) It has everything to do with generosity! "Kindness, liberality, fairness, honesty, openness"...

    No, that's not the only debate. Hamas is equally complicit in the death of its citizens. I am *not* implying that Hamas and the Palestinians don't have legitimate grievances, but this was not the way to address them.

    And how the hell were/are they supposed to address the Israeli government?
    -Beg them to turn their utilities back on?
    -Tear down the godforsaken wall?
    -Stop driving their tanks over their homes?
    -Stop terrorizing them on a daily basis?

    If you think that the Palestinians didn't and don't live in abject terror on a daily basis from the Israeli government's might you are absolutely mistaken!

    The Israeli government has been slowly moving into this for a very long time. They knew that they would illicit a response from Hamas. They planned and hoped for it! (Much like Cheney and the neocons hoped from Iran!) This is not about two sides! It is about the government of Israel continuing to disobey national law, and treaties, and push a people (the original inhabitants of the land) into the fucking sea!

    There is not a shred of reason for the US or the international community to support such heinous actions! Period!

    I have an idea how peace and or stability to the region can occur...
    -Stop funding a terrorist state!
    -Stop bowing to Israel!
    -Stop imagining that the Palestinians have an alternative as they watch their land and lives being stolen!
    -End the charade of blame and calling Hamas a terrorist group while giving Israel a pass!
    -Demand that they end their aggression or pay a heavy price!
    -Show them the resilience of the world community!

    --------------

    (snip)

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  23. http://peaceseeker99.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/israel-admits-no-hamas-rockets-were-fired-during-ceasefire/

    ReplyDelete
  24. UpinVermont,

    Yes, *now*, there is only one bad guy. Israel needs to stop. This has become clear.

    *Now*? Only now? What? When you decided they were being "bad" or when they actually were being "bad"? I'd estimate their "badness" to be pre-war. Pre-overreaction. Pre-Invasion of Gaza. Pre-this post. Pre-January.

    All war terrifies...

    Yes, of course, but this "war" began as a campaign to terrify the Palestinian peoples before (or if) the Hamas rockets fell on Israel. Coordinated terror tactics. Terrorizing a whole peoples.

    Do the Palestinian people, government, have a military force? A fleet of jets? Tanks? A state trained and funded army? U.S. rockets, bombs, etc? A fleet of war-ships?

    No? Well then this is not a war and if it is not a war then it must be a slaughter (genocide) of a peoples despite what their "government" did to "provoke" such untamed murder. Right?

    Definition- I said the words had everything to do with, not the definition of generosity.

    1. readiness or liberality in giving.
    2. freedom from meanness or smallness of mind or character.

    synonyms: liberality, kindness, selflessness...
    antonyms: greed, meanness, selfishness, stinginess

    Right, individuals within Hamas have stated that they themselves *wanted* this confrontation. That's why I lay the blame for the outset of this confrontation at both their feet.

    The blame for the outset may be murkier than you think. It is being reported that Hamas never fired rockets into Israel. And if they never fired rockets, then no matter how much they said they wanted it there is no justification for said "war", save for one- genocide.
    http://peaceseeker99.wordpress.com/2009/01/16/israel-admits-no-hamas-rockets-were-fired-during-ceasefire/

    Yes, at this point, they're both behaving like terrorists.

    And how are Hamas behaving like terrorists now? Better yet, how are the Palestinian people behaving like terrorists now? "Behavior's" one thing, but the truth of this murderous rampage is another "act" altogether.

    (snip)

    ReplyDelete
  25. All war terrifies, but that doesn't make it terrorism - some wars are unfortunate but justified. However, when war becomes an act of murder, then I agree with you, war becomes an act of terrorism. Israel has crossed that line. I find their present behavior terribly sad - and terrorism.

    Yes, of course. However, from the outset it has been a "war" to terrorize and murder a peoples, ergo, terrorism from day one as I have been saying.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Look, I have yet to hear you acknowledge Hamas' culpability in this war. All you do is rant and rave about Israel. You have it all figured out. The irony is that from the perspective of someone who is trying to unravel the complicities on both sides, you sound like nothing more than an ideological hack. It's obvious where such ideological hacks have gotten the Middle East up to now. But apparently it's not obvious to you.

    //how are the Palestinian people behaving like terrorists now?//

    You tell me, Poetryman. The Palestinian people are the victims in all this. I've written that from the outset.

    But I'm done contributing here. I'm looking elsewhere for -

    Peace.

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  27. Look, I have yet to hear you acknowledge Hamas' culpability in this war.

    You are looking for a culpability that is not to be found in this most recent skirmish, war, bloodbath, genocide. If Hamas actually did fire rockets into Israel during the "ceasefire" it still would not somehow magically give Israel the right to begin slaughtering!

    You seem to be looking for anything you can to excuse in part Israels overaggressive reaction from day one! You sound like you are desperate to have me agree with you... and that, my dear upinvermont, will be hard to achieve since I do not agree in the least!

    You use "terrorist group", or what have you, as if it is some alien form that did not become a "terrorist" because of things others (we) here on earth allowed or have done to them personally or to their people or faith...

    You desperately want me to agree with you about fault while mostly ignoring the fact that I am speaking of the aggressor, the government of Israel, and asking, demanding that they stop the murder and then in the same breath you accuse me of ranting and raving about Israel as if I am raving against the peoples of Israel and not their government.

    You tell me, Poetryman. The Palestinian people are the victims in all this. I've written that from the outset.

    You have said this, and I have said "Israeli Government". You act as if I am attacking you for having a viewpoint, an opinion, which is not true and this you know.

    You're trying to unravel both sides of the issue? You certainly have an odd way of unraveling things!

    You keep believing the propaganda and take the neocon hard line toward Hamas and see just how fair and just and kind and "generous" it has been and will be for the Palestinian people.

    Go ahead, upinVermont, keep imagining that it is you that is trying to unravel the oh so tangled web of complicity while continuing to believe that the blame for this bloodbath doesn't lie directly at the Israeli governments feet...

    You have many times in this thread acted or sounded like you were a victim. You are not a victim! You came in here itching to prove that the Israeli Government is not fully to blame. To 'unravel" the tangled web of complicity, Well you know what, upinvermont? You play the victim very well. You don't mind using semantics as long as they suit you, you don't mind sharing your opinion until someone challenges it forthright. You shift your position when it suits you... I do not!

    You can go on thinking that you have suffered something from this comment thread, but it will only become evident to you that you have been complicit and as culpable as I in this fucking train wreck when, and if, you read the thread with an open mind!

    So take your semantics and take your ideology and take your victim hood and take your leave...

    Peace is not something one goes looking for, it is something one builds within themselves and then shares it with the world...

    ReplyDelete
  28. Rumour has it that Olmert had informed his side that hitting the 1,000 civilian death mark was the limit before putting a halt to this brutal attack and infanticide. It's a bit like what happens at the Vucciria markets in Palermo, where beef quarters are hung to drip blood out in the open, and you haggle for the meat – so much per kilo.

    How does it all go again, upinvermont?

    ReplyDelete
  29. There are terrifying natural catastrophes in this world, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, which are inevitable. But in Gaza has an unnatural humanitarian catastrophe under way, perpetuated by Israel, damaging a people long reduced to abject poverty and submission. This is a desperate people without bread or milk to feed its children. They no longer shed any tears when mourning, as their eyes are also on a strict, imposed diet. The entire world cannot ignore this tragedy and if they continue to do so, we don't want to be included in this world. Every day we invoke someone above us to stop the genocide, but for tomorrow all we ask is for our small boat to land in Gaza with its cargo of compassion, peace, love and empathy. May the Palestinians also receive the same rights that Isrealis, or any other people on earth enjoy. The sea as anchor of hope, or as a destination of destruction.

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  30. Thank you for visiting, Vittorio and for speaking up.

    ReplyDelete
  31. I would like to formally apologize to the readers of this comment thread for my obvious rage and handling of a fellow blogger and friend in the blogosphere because our opinions varied on the Gaza incident. I respect upinVermont's freedom to think as he chooses and express such here and wherever he chooses.

    I am the one who let it get out of hand and for that I apologize.

    I should have, being a seeker of peace, recognized my desire to be right and justified in my anger over that of offering a true peace to this opinionated skirmish.
    I hope that you can forgive me for losing my temper, more so than usual, that is, and for my taking a grievance I have with the government of Israel, and the US support of such, to a level that should be reserved for the sources and not for those with a varying opinion simply expressing themselves here.

    Peace...

    ReplyDelete

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