We’re over 400 days into Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, and still – even after the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, and Amnesty International has declared that Israel’s actions do amount to genocide – our political leaders and the vast majority of our media fail to take the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians anything like as seriously as they would if they were, let’s say, Ukrainian. There’s a huge amount been written about how this ‘othering’ helps make possible the wholesale slaughter of civilians, and I can’t add any fresh insight or revelation to what’s already been said. I also very much doubt this new poem – written two days ago, and published in both Yorkshire Bylines and Culture Matters – is going to manage to change the closed and complicit minds of our Prime Minister and our Foreign Secretary, but I live in hope. It’s as important as ever to keep raising our voices for Palestine (if you haven’t managed to do that yet, the best time to start is now) however and whenever we can.
Feel free to share the poem, if you want to. And thank you for reading. Look after yourselves, and make time for pootling (see previous blog) every now and then, if you’re not already.