Two Poems.....

The following two poems were sent to a friend, a 'Nam brother, who has a now long running newsletter similar to the G.I. Anti-War movement newsletters of the 'Nam era found on bases, and In-Country ,around the world back than.

Gaza Has Become A Warsaw Ghetto

Palestinian child demonstrates against
the slaughter of her people.
Generation after generation after generation.
Like the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto,
three generations ago.
If the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust
could see what is now happening in Palestine,
they would stand in front of the Palestinians.
Why?
Because there is solidarity in the persecuted.
Gaza has become a Warsaw Ghetto.

Mike Hastie
Vietnam Veteran
December 31, 2008

This one comes from JM and She writes:

Something very different: a poem.
Have you heard of Erich Fried who is often referred to as the greatest modern, Jewish, poet?
He was born in Vienna in 1921 and escaped to England, with his mother, after his father was tortured to death by the Gestapo, in 1938.
Because of his experiences with racism and Fascism he became involved in the Palestinian cause.
He was a leader in the fight against both Fascism and Zionism.
I’m sending a copy of his best poem, in my opinion. It was first published in 1988 just before he died.
Please take the time to read it. I think it’s wonderful.

A Jew to Zionist Fighters, 1988

What do you actually want?
Do you really want to outdo
those who trod you down
a generation ago
into your own blood
and into your own excrement
Do you want to pass on the old torture
to others now
in all its bloody and dirty detail
with all the brutal delight of torturers
as suffered by your fathers?
Do you really want to be the new Gestapo
the new Wehrmacht
the new SA and SS
and turn the Palestinians
into the new Jews?
Well then I too want,
having fifty years ago
myself been tormented for being a Jewboy
by your tormentors,
to be a new Jew with these new Jews
you are making of the Palestinians
And I want to help lead them as a free people
into their own land of Palestine
from whence you have driven them or in which you plague them
you apprentices of the Swastika
you fools and changelings of history
whose Star of David on your flags
turns ever quicker
into that damned symbol with its four feet
that you just do not want to see
but whose path you are following today