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These careful poems
I hate them
they are like death certificates
filled out by doctors in creative writing -
scalpel-qualified professionals
performing autopsies
on cold bodies
with textbook precision and tedium
standardized forms designed
to pinpoint cause
for the living to file away
or send to the authorities
for approval
so the legatees may collect
their inheritance.
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Why does the moon at night
look closer than it actually is?
So close you can read the terrain.
So close you can imagine going there,
touching it. Is it an illusion
created by the circle of reflected light
floating in the ocean of darkness?
Or is it our yearning?
I think about it
when I look across the room
and there you are, as usual,
going about your regular business,
immersed in thought and worry.
When you're dressed
I imagine you naked,
and when you're naked
I imagine you in clothes, it's like
I always want something else.
And I think I could reach out
and touch you,
but then something inside me
says no, it's not true, nothing
is as close as it seems,
and if you try to go there
you will become untethered,
suffocate,
float away forever,
a fading pinprick
in the vast blackness of space.
So I wait anxiously to see
what you will do next:
You continue along your fixed path
as if it were calculated precisely
to keep me
at a distance.
What have the Palestinians ever done to deserve your support?
It's the question I want to ask every flag waving, Free Palestine-chanting, keffiyeh-wearing student protester.
I wonder what they would answer. They can't say 'suffer', can they? I support the Palestinian People because they suffer. That makes no sense. They deserve our sympathy because they suffer, that's the appropriate human response. We should always try to alleviate the suffering of others. Feed them when they are hungry. Provide them shelter etc. What does that have to do with demanding divestment from Israeli companies?
The student might answer, I support the Palestinian People's right of self-determination. Okay, that makes sense, and I guess that would extend to the right of the Jewish People to self-determination? But that wouldn't be my response - I want to keep the conversation going. My response would be, just because you have a right to something, does it necessarily mean you should be supported to exercise that right? You may have the right of free speech, but if you chose to use that right to slander and encourage violence against others, you shouldn't be supported. With rights come responsibility. It’s no different with the right of self-determination.
Then I'd have to raise, with my student protester friend, the example of Jewish self-determination, but only for comparative purposes.
Some people believe Jewish self-determination emerged from their suffering during the Holocaust. That's a common fallacy. It wasn’t their victimization that earned them the support of the world community for a Jewish State. The process of Jewish political self-determination was well under way more than 50 years before the Nazis swept to power in Germany. Beginning in the late 19th century the Jews established the organizations that would eventually lead to institutional self-governance. They worked tirelessly developing visionary, responsible leadership and building a program that would earn international support. Of course, it helped that much of their organizational know-how grew out of modern European democratic values and traditions.
The Palestinian record looks very different. What we recognize as the beginnings of Palestinian national aspirations arguably emerged, not from the displacement and exile precipitated by the Israeli War of Independence, as many think, but by the anti-colonial pan-Arabist movement of the early 1960s. Some argue that the Palestinian Arab revolts of 1936-39 in response to European Jewish immigration to Palestine under the British Mandate is a more apt starting point. But these popular revolts were disorganized and don't express a coherent movement with explicit aspirations for Palestinian statehood. That only came about with Yasser Arafat and the founding of the PLO in 1964.
Unlike the Jews, for whom the cloak of European victimhood was a garment the modern Israeli was in a rush to shed, Palestinians continued to wrap themselves up in the identity of oppression. In fact it was the stated justification for their terrorism. When the PLO hijacked airplanes, bombed buildings and took hostages in 1970s, they claimed that their violence was an expression of anti-colonialist desperation. The throughline from PLO terrorist violence and hostage-taking to Hamas violence and hostage-taking is painfully easy to draw. While the PLO had a Marxist orientation, the current Palestinian resistance is Jihadist. Same drink, new flavour. The bottom line is that the Palestinians have failed every test of political leadership and responsibility presented them.
I’m not arguing, as some have, that Palestinians aren’t a ‘real’ People. There are no historical, cultural or religious prerequisites for Peoplehood. A People with national aspirations have a right to define themselves. I am trying to argue that having national aspirations for self-determination is simply not enough. A group has to demonstrate the responsibilities and leadership required for self-determination to merit support for statehood. The kids on campus are enamoured by the romance of Palestinian victimhood, rebellion and violence. Call me old fashioned, but I’d try to impress upon the university students that support for a political cause is one of those things that has to be earned to be deserved.
Finally something to celebrate last week. But what are the moral and legal implications of the rescue of 4 Israeli hostages?
They were rescued from two residential buildings, inside civilian apartments where civilians actually lived. There are unconfirmed reports that at least one of the hostages was held in the family apartment of a journalist. In legal terms this would be called complicity to commit a crime. Now the question is whether it was willing or unwilling complicity. But that question, I would argue is meaningless.
How can one determine willingness when all civilian non-combatants live in what amounts to a mafia-state? One in which there is no rule of law, and corruption and coercion is the coin of the realm? Unlike places where there is the rule of law and accountability, we can't.
Warfare is typically fought over territory. In a case of terrorist action as a tactic of warfare, in which hostages are taken, the legal and moral framework shifts. When civilian hostages are taken by a warring party (as a opposed to prisoners of war), they transgress a norm which makes them ultimately culpable for any eventuality that might arise from any efforts to rescue those hostages. It's the only reasonable approach to a situation created by the taking of civilian hostages where civilians are being used as a military strategy by the hostage-takers.
In a case like the harrowing, meticulously planned, extremely risky rescue operation carried out by the IDF, which saved the lives of four hostages but apparently killed scores of civilians in the process (it's still very questionable how many), do the rescuers have any responsibility for the number of civilians killed? The moral and legal answer must be no. The only responsibility the rescuers have is to maximize the likelihood of rescue, and minimize the risk to the hostages and rescuers. The responsibility for civilian casualties lies completely with the hostage-takers, especially when they purposely hold them in a crowded civilian environment, as these were. Astonishingly, in an interview with the BBC, Jonathan Conricus, former IDF spokesman, was asked if the IDF should have warned the Palestinians about the IDF operation to avoid so many Palestinian casualties? He answered (I paraphrase), you mean you expect the IDF to warn about a surprise rescue operation? He correctly pointed out that there was a fire fight and it's altogether possible that many of the Palestinian casualties came directly from Hamas gunfire. It's simply unknowable at this juncture. But it didn't stop many journalists from piling on Israel. In a social media post, not that I care too much about social media, Kenneth Roth, former Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, accused Israel of the war crime of 'perfidy' (deceit) for dressing as Palestinian civilians and speaking in Arabic during the rescue operation. Somehow, many (mainstream journalists, the ICC and Human Rights Watch among them) don't seem to comprehend the moral and legal assymetry at work. As if to belie the absurdity of blaming Israel for the temerity of rescuing their hostages, Sinwar stepped up to take responsibility for Palestinian civilian deaths reportedly saying, it's the price we must pay for victory. The cognitive dissonance in the West is remarkable, owing to just how repulsive, and outside-the-bounds of basic human morality, decency and civility the Hamas strategy is.
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June 6, 2024 - the 80th anniversary of D-Day when, in the early morning hours over 150,000 troops, mostly 18-20 year old men, under heavy German gunfire, landed on the beaches of Normandy, France to begin the Allied invasion to liberate Nazi-occupied Europe. In the ensuing months 73,000 were killed and 153,000 were wounded in the Battle of Normandy. The Allied bombing of the surrounding villages also killed 20,000 French citizens.
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
Over there
babies were cooked alive
in microwave ovens
for thrills
and politics.
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
The breasts
of young women
were sliced off
and kicked around
like footballs -
videos uploaded
to social media
to show the gunmen
living their best lives
to family and friends.
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
They danced and cheered,
called mom and dad
to celebrate
killing Jews, so proud,
"I killed a Jew!
Allahu Akbar!"
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
They took hostages
at gun point
and knife point,
babies and mothers,
children and fathers,
to use as human shields.
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
University students
some from here,
others visiting
on a semester abroad,
pitch tents like refugees,
wave flags, chant
Genocide, Apartheid,
'From the river to the sea', and
'There is only one solution
intifada revolution'
in solidarity,
useful idiots.
I write a poem.
Useless. Idiot.
Something I learned from Pete Townshend this week.
Recently I've started seeing short clips on my YouTube feed. For the record, I'm not on any social media (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.) but I do maintain a YouTube account and subscribe to a few channels. YouTube doesn't feel like social media, although you can comment on the video uploads, and I do sometimes. I don't get my news from YouTube at all, and I generally don't peruse the comments section. For me, YouTube provides an excellent resource for learning stuff, mainly how to improve my guitar playing, and also to hear lectures and interviews on a host of subject matter by some of the world's great intellectuals, both past and present. The videos I watch are usually quite long, anywhere from 15 to 90 minutes.
But lately I've been seeing what they call "Shorts" on my feed. I guess YouTube has come up with these to attract folks with limited attention spans. They are bite-sized 'teasers', about a minute long, and I usually ignore them. Recently I've clicked on a series that feature interview segments with members of The Who (Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend) and others who were involved in the creation of the groundbreaking rock opera double-album Tommy. It coincides with the Broadway version of Tommy now playing, so the 'shorts' are obviously designed to promote the show.
Something Pete Townhend says in one clip in particular struck me. He talks about the absurdity of people following the protagonist Tommy, the deaf, dumb and blind pinball champion, and says it suggests how all religious cults work, with a kind of absurdity at their core.
A bit of background. It's a childhood trauma - Tommy witnessing his war-hero father (called the Captain) murder his mother's lover (in the film version the lover kills the Captain) - that leads to Tommy becoming deaf, dumb and blind. Then in spite of every unsuccessful medical intervention imaginable (and plenty of drugs and abuse) it becomes apparent, as he grows older, that in spite of his Helen Keller-like infirmity, Tommy possesses an inner 'vision' that allows him to play pinball at an expert level purely by 'feel'. Tommy's unusual talent garners him a rock-star-like following, which he takes to the next level when he 'miraculously' recovers his senses by smashing a mirror into which he stares for hours, seemingly breaking the spell of his childhood trauma. Tommy sings "I'm Free" and this is when his fans and groupies transform into a religious cult based on the message that they can be 'free' too.
I'm free, I'm free / And freedom tastes of reality / I'm free I'm free and I'm waiting for you to follow me / If I told you what it takes / To reach the highest high / You'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple' / But you've been told many times before / Messiahs pointed to the door / And no one had the guts to leave the temple! / I'm free-I'm free / And freedom tastes of reality / I'm free-I'm free / And I'm waiting for you to follow me / How can we follow? How can we follow?
Townshend's insight about the formation of cults is that they are always based on a promise of simple solutions to deep trauma, 'You'd laugh and say 'nothing's that simple'. In the clip on YouTube Townshend says something else, I paraphrase: Every cult is not much different than the youth who idolized us because we lived the so-called rock star life of money, fame, sex and drugs. It boils down to them thinking 'I want what they've got'.
In the case of Tommy, it's the promise of 'freedom' however one defines it. It might be the promise of knowledge, immortality, and in some cases, power (that comes with belonging to a group) or impunity. It's hard not to see the obvious connection to one particular politician nowadays, especially as he plays up the victim card and trashes the justice system and rule of law. It's startling to see how many of his followers (and enablers) embrace his message of impunity (freedom from the law).
In the end, Tommy's pinball cult fails and he is left alone. He sings plaintively See Me, Feel Me, (Touch Me, Heal Me) a song that expresses emptiness, the desire for validation from others, and in a way Tommy is back where he began, 'unfree' and fixated by his own image in the mirror, but now the mirror is broken. The hollowness of the cult leader is amplified and reflected back to him in the hollowness of his followers, a symbiosis of need. In the coda Tommy sings:
Listening to you, I get the music / Gazing at you, I get the heat / Following you, I climb the mountain / I get excitement at your feet / Right behind you, I see the millions / On you, I see the glory / From you, I get opinion / From you, I get the story.
