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Sabra Censors Smudge

Those whose survival hung on slender link
fought persecutions, pogrom purges' harm,
now build ghetto walls, scarce stop to think
from their own blindness surges urge to arm.

Those who, when weak, deemed territories gained
when Independence War was justly fought,
now seek expansion, equity disdained.
Where are the Just? In duststorms caught.

Those who proclaimed the right to self-defence
have compromised their own historic worth,
excluding some, others banned as offense
when truth is told on/of covetted earth.

Those who sought tolerance from persecution
now fall victim to the sin of pride,
from meek inherit ulimate solution
with wanton destruction worming from inside.

Those who'd bar bombs elsewhere themselves insist
upon their moral rights to harbour grudge
against those their acts question, plead, persist
in putting questions sabra censors smudge.

Those who continue in same vain to strut
as headless chickens playing king of roost
may soon shed bitter tears, their own branch cut
when hell and all its furies are let loose.

Studying in Geneva University in 1967, the author, as Secretary General of the Union of Jewish Students of Switzerland, found himself on the Wednesday of the War en route via Zurich to Israel in the first flight out during a delicate period, the plane containing 10 Israelis, two foreigners and several tons of ammunition.

Observing the perversion of the proclaimed 'right to self-determination' into the right to wanton pillage and exploitation of those 'under its denomination' for 45 years, and coming from a family which historically had been active in the Zionist movement since the 1920's, the author has looked upon post 1967 developments in the region with a growing sense of outrage, disgust, and disillusion.

(10 April 2012)

poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
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