Ode to the Palestinians

[Peter Willams]

Ode to the Palestinians

Did you look around the cafe where you ate to night?

 

The people there were just ordinary people and the food was cheap.

 

Some were laughing and some just sat there and waited for their orders to be served.

 

There was no anger, no arguments, just people, ordinary people waiting to be fed

 

I suppose it's the same in Palestine, except the same cafe would be smashed.

 

Smashed by the Israeli troops with their tanks and helicopter gun ships.

 

Blame not the troops because as Jesus said they know not what they do.

 

Cheap food would be hard to find in Palestine; even a decent grave for a corpse may be impossible.

 

Arafat sits in a barricaded room, lit by a smoking candle flame, with his only comfort that he is still alive.

 

Sharon jokes with his generals and receives the reports of Palestinian deaths with gloating arrogance and pride.

 

Like his counterpart the American George Bush, all his opponents are terrorists or harbourers of vicious assassins.

 

Just as Bush and his fundamental Christian hierarchy killed thousands of Afghanistans and smashed their homes and mosques.

 

Sharon will do the same and fabricate the same false litany of justifications.

 

Where is all the wisdom of the past, men like Bertram Russell, Jesus Christ, Gandhi and Albert Schweitzer?

 

The ordinary people who meet in the cheap cafes don't want death and destruction, factories burnt and homes destroyed.

 

Where then is the genesis of all this madness, who drives these people to war, genocide, revenge and general devastation?

 

Did Jesus die upon the cross to save the souls of those psychopathic priests and politicians who fomented this bloodshed and destruction?

 

 

 

Should we humans who are also citizens of the world, accept some responsibility for the carnage in Palestine?

 

Or should we just sit in our comfortable sofas and armchairs and watch the spectacle of the Palestinian rape on television?

 

The main things said Helen Clark is to keep in with the Americans, they have the money and if we're lucky they will pay top price for our produce.

 

Deputy Prime Minister Anderton, well known for his political somersaults, divorced his Alliance party so that he could back the war in Afghanistan.

 

I doubt whether Clark and Anderton will give much succour to the Palestinians.

 

 

 

P.A.Williams QC April 2002
www.peterwilliamsqc.co.nz