Shoot

    Most of these people truly desire
   To harvest their olive trees
   As they have for hundreds of years.
   Most of these people truly desire
   To raise their kids
   Not to throw stones
   Or Molotov cocktails;
   But to study in peace
   To Play in peace
   And raise a flag.

   A flag.
   Their own flag.
   And facing that flag, to cry,
   As we did, that night, then, excited as we were.
   And we have no, have no, have no
   Right in the world
   To rob them of this desire,
   This flag, These tears,
   These tears which always, always
   Come after all the others.

   Let us start preparing our defense.
   We will need it soon enough;
   Those who actually did it.
   And those who still do.
   And those who hushed it up
   And those who still do.
   And those who said nothing
   And those who clucked their tongue, saying
   "Something must be done really;
   (But not tonight, I have a concert.
   A gala event. A birthday!)"

   Indeed, we'll all get our summons one day
   For the Colonel's Trials.

   The Colonel's trials are coming.
   Their time will come, it must be so.
   The trials of the generals, the colonels,
   And the division, the battalion,
   And the platoon commanders.
   There is no escaping it.
   This is how history works.
   What shall we say then?
   What will the colonels, the captains,
   the corporals say?
   What will they say -
   Of those terrible beatings,
   The Brutality.
   Of houses blown up.
   And most of all, the humiliation,
   That humiliation.

   Of patients forced to wipe off the writing on
   the walls.
   Of old men forced to take down a flag
   From an electric pole
   Who got electrocuted, or fell
   And broke their legs.
   Of the old water carrier
   Whom soldiers ordered off his donkey
   And role on his back, just for fun.

   We turned a deaf ear.
   We turned a deaf heart.
   Mean, arrogant, and dumb.
   Who do we think we are
   To be so deaf, so dumb?
   Ignoring the obvious: They are as human
   As we are, as we are.
   At least as we used to be.
   Only forty one years ago.
   No less diligent, no less smart
   As sensitive, as full of hope.
   They love their wives and children
   As we do, no less.

   And our children now shoot theirs
   With lead, plastic bullets, and gas.
   The Palestinians State will come to pass, it will.
   Not a poet wrote this. History will.
   And seasons will come and seasons will go
   And life goes on as we very well know.
   Weddings and birth and death all the same.
   But just the shame of it. The shame.