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The Prisoners

(click to enlarge)

1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine (and World War II and Palestine)
End of the British Mandate 1945–1948
1948 Palestine war
Clash in Egypt Over Gaza Aid Effort 2009

O! How happy the prisoners in their own land seemed before this! All smiling at the chance of relief and food and breath, feet firmly planted on a shrinking plot to the west of the Jordan River.

The prisoners have no rights, no government, no land or love. No history to hold, no child to mourn, no passion, no art. Hostage to giant machines, to guns, to tumbling shells and terror, prison guards, tanks, and the rising wall, yet they do have rights and governance and land and love and history and child and passion and art- truth.

O! How happy the prisoners of their own land seemed before this! Facing the Mediterranean, the great watery span between home and the press of hate, the Jordan and Dead Sea behind, vultures awaiting their anointing like bone-filled ovens. Soil dried in the blood and upon the exodus of footprints, their insistent freedom marching hard upon the heels, screeching a national lullaby that will never be cleansed of history but that falls upon ears that have long been numb to truth.


© 2010 by mark prime


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