\u201cApologies to All the People in Lebanon<\/strong><\/p>\nI didn\u2019t know and nobody told me and what
\ncould I do or say, anyway?<\/p>\n
They said you shot the London Ambassador
\nand when that wasn\u2019t true
\nthey said so
\nwhat
\nThey said you shelled their northern villages
\nand when U.N. forces reported that was not true
\nbecause your side of the cease-fire was holding
\nsince more than a year before
\nthey said so
\nwhat
\nThey said they wanted simply to carve
\na 25 mile buffer zone and then
\nthey ravaged your
\nwater supplies your electricity your
\nhospitals your schools your highways and byways all
\nthe way north to Beirut because they said this
\nwas their quest for peace
\nThey blew up your homes and demolished the grocery
\nstores and blocked the Red Cross and took away doctors
\nto jail and they cluster-bombed girls and boys
\nwhose bodies
\nswelled purple and black into twice the original size
\nand tore the buttocks from a four month old baby
\nand then
\nthey said this was brilliant
\nmilitary accomplishment and this was done
\nthey said in the name of self-defense they said
\nthat is the noblest concept
\nof mankind isn\u2019t that obvious?
\nThey said something about never again and then
\nthey made close to one million human beings homeless
\nin less than three weeks and they killed or maimed
\n40,000 of your men and your women and your children<\/p>\n
But I didn\u2019t know and nobody told me and what
\ncould I do or say, anyway?<\/p>\n
They said they were victims. They said you were
\nArabs.
\nThey called \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0your apartments and gardens \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0guerrilla
\nstrongholds.
\nThey called \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0the screaming devastation
\nthat they created \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0the rubble.
\nThen they told you to leave, didn\u2019t they?<\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t you read the leaflets that they dropped
\nfrom their hotshot fighter jets?
\nThey told you to go.
\nOne hundred and thirty-five thousand
\nPalestinians in Beirut and why
\ndidn\u2019t you take the hint?
\nGo!
\nThere was the Mediterranean: You
\ncould walk into the water and stay
\nthere.
\nWhat was the problem?<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t know and nobody told me and what
\ncould I do or say, anyway?<\/p>\n
Yes, I did know it was the money I earned as a poet that
\npaid\u00a0for the bombs and the planes and the tanks
\nthat they used to massacre your family<\/p>\n
But I am not an evil person
\nThe people of my country aren’t so bad<\/p>\n
You can expect but so much
\nfrom those of us who have to pay taxes and watch
\nAmerican TV<\/p>\n
You see my point;<\/p>\n
I\u2019m sorry.
\nI really am sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Later, an epigram was added: \u201cDedicated to the 600,000 Palestinian men, women, and children who lived in Lebanon from 1948-1983.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2024, Faisal Mohyuddin wrote \u201cCeasefire Haiku\u201d. At the center of this sequence of haiku, these four verses:<\/p>\n
\u201cShame: a legacy
\nYour descendants will decry,
\nBemoan, be cursed by.
\n____<\/p>\n
To remain silent
\nIs consent, is wrong, is more
\nDeadly than more bombs.
\n___<\/p>\n
You can\u2019t\u00a0really<\/em>\u00a0see
\nMe, except as your conscience-
\nCleanser, your blindfold.
\n___<\/p>\nWhen I condemn crimes,
\nYou call\u00a0me<\/em>\u00a0culprit, settle
\nMy heart to scrub yours.\u201d<\/p>\nForty-two years separate those two poems. Easily half of Lebanon\u2019s population have lived all of their lives in a \u201cceasefire\u201d in which the guns never ceased firing and the bombs never stopped falling. In fact, easily three quarters of the world have lived their lives in the ceasefire, a ceasefire in which guns never ceased firing and the bombs never stopped falling. While Trump\u2019s actions are egregious and worse and Netanyahu\u2019s programme of genocide is a legacy our descendants will decry \u2026 they are not a new invention. They are merely the latest phases in this, the Age of Ceasefire. May peace be with you. I\u2019m sorry. I really am sorry.<\/p>\n
(By Dan Moshenberg)<\/p>\n
(Aliaksei Lepik \/ Unsplash \/ LAist<\/a>)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
because your side of the cease-fire was holding since more than a year before they said so what June Jordan, \u201cApologies to All the People in Lebanon\u201d Today, The New York Times (finally) thankfully revealed the truth we already know and have known: \u201cRussia-Ukraine War Shows Cease-Fires Have Lost Meaning Under Trump\u201d. For the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6849,114,6851,556,6850],"class_list":["post-27750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ceasefire","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-faisal-mohyuddin","tag-haunts","tag-june-jordan","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27752,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27750\/revisions\/27752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n