blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

Every time I open the faucet I think of the woman who can’t wash her hands, can’t cook, can’t drink.  The news here today is that they have plenty of water for a few weeks, and that my imagination has been influenced by the news channels abroad who are in turn influenced by Hamas propaganda. 

I don’t know who to believe, but I tend to go with the guys who are watching from here.  

And suddenly I wonder why they never used our knowledge about creating desalination plants.  It’s public, and there were certainly enough funds that were diverted into weapons.  We’re still being bombed all the time and we have to wonder to what use that money could have been made.

If you think about it, water is the main problem in Gaza. desertification; salination of fresh water; sewage treatment; water-borne diseases; soil degradation; and depletion and contamination of underground water resources.

But many of these people are descendents of refugees from Palestine in ’48, and have been taught for generations that their only happiness lies in my destruction.  Oh, how much easier it could have been, or could still be, if we could just talk to each other.  

and solve the water problem between us.

 

 

 

 

water Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv, poetry

Trying to Love

 

It’s arduous to think of others when you’re trying to survive,

to share bread with a stranger while your child weeps for food.

It’s arduous to think of others when you’re trying to survive,

 

It’s arduous to think of others when they threaten your life,

to stretch out your hand to a person while his hand holds a knife.

It’s arduous to think of others when they threaten your life,

 

My mind wants to write a poem that will teach me the way

My flesh wants to survive even it means others will die

My mind wants to write a poem that will teach me the way.

 

And I can’t write a punch line for this.

a failed poem Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

For the past few years I have enjoyed the mingling of Arabs and Jews in Israel.  I love the proliferation of students, the constant encounters with a kind of people I had never really known before.  But in the past few days the tension has grown.   People worn out by the stress of terrorist rockets and the violence we’ve experienced have begun to fear every person who appears possibly to be an enemy.  We haven’t taken any responsibility for sheltering the Bedouin in the desert from the rockets – they have no sirens and no place to hide.  

That famous poem by Mahmoud Darwish works both ways.  We have to learn to “think of others” and so do they:

As you prepare your breakfast, think of others
(do not forget the pigeon’s food).
As you conduct your wars, think of others
(do not forget those who seek peace).
As you pay your water bill, think of others
(those who are nursed by clouds).
As you return home, to your home, think of others
(do not forget the people of the camps).
As you sleep and count the stars, think of others
(those who have nowhere to sleep).
As you liberate yourself in metaphor, think of others
(those who have lost the right to speak).
As you think of others far away, think of yourself
(say: “If only I were a candle in the dark”).

The parenthesis aren’t in the original, and I’m not sure about the accuracy of some of the words, but it really suits us all today.

racial tension – Oct 20, 2023 Read Post »

blog, israeli politics, my life in tel aviv

People are angry, frightened, lost, but highly motivated to help relieve the suffering of many many victims, neighbors, friends, and those in need.  With some people I even feel a kind of blankness that is helping them get through the challenges of  sudden rocket fire.  We have lost a lot and we cannot imagine life after this war, but there is one thing we must not lose – our compassion for the people who are considered our enemies.  Even though some of them have slaughtered, and they have families who supported their battle cry, we have to remember their humanity.  I am suddenly reminded of a poem I published in a book, Ignorant Armies, by ccc press:

ARABESQUE

 

Gaza – 1974

 

I

 

After dinner I’m alone with the grandmother,

while the men talk business 

and wives feed the children 

bumping each other in the hidden kitchen.

 

I am a guest, an English teacher new

to the Middle East, without tongue,

and I cannot play in pantomime –  

like my daughter – with the children and the goats.

 

In this bare room

the old woman talks 

as if eventually I must understand

her language

 

since she speaks in the feminine.

 

II

 

When I cannot answer, even after her long 

probing looks, she shrugs,

takes her crochet hook from a pocket,

and points out the window 

to a girl 

dancing solemnly alone.

 

Her gnarled hands, wound with pink wool, move easily, 

and soon she is making lovely rosettes in the bodice.  

I take the hook and try to imitate, slip,

slip again, finally latch through the last eye

to pull the rose together.  She smiles, 

I show her a stitch of my own

which she examines, unravels, 

then duplicates with a flourish.

 

 

compassion – oct 19, 2023 Read Post »