Split Sides

Victim and Perpetrator

This is a poem taking a look at the ongoing Israel-Hamas War. I acknowledge it was late by almost two months but I wanted to view it in its entirety before commenting on it. This had been a gruesome, gruelling war, no doubt about it, but this has been going on for longer than I've been alive, and a conflict so entrenched with such powerful fundamental disagreements between the warring parties requires one to step back and see why it's the case. Obviously, I don't know anything beyond the basics about this conflict between Israelis and Palestinians so I'll leave that to more capable experts to discuss; I'm mainly here to write about the human tragedy that has disfigured our screens since 7 October.

I'm uploading a podcast with a liberal Israeli philosopher and author discussing the effects this war has caused on ordinary people and the personal toll he bears. He may be Jewish but he's no friend of the right-wing Netanyahu government that has polluted domestic and global society and politics ever since his first election in 1996. In the podcast he talks about the depravity of Hamas, the cynical exploitation of the tragedy by PM Netanyahu and his Messianic allies, and the consequences of this around the region. The Israeli people, the Palestinian people, and everyone else beyond the two sides deserve better than leaders who manipulate history and religion to egg their peoples to war and prop up their selfish rule.

There is a family,
A family united and divided at once
By the same things, love and hate.
The family is split into warring camps
Who could never realize
That the pain they feel
Is shared across the two camps.
But sadly, they are too consumed
By the hurt and pain they bear
To see those sensations
In the eyes of the other.

In another way, they would live in peace and joy
Next to each other, as a close-knit village
Where the family can be closer than siblings
And differences can be reduced by wine and song.
This is the ideal,
Indeed, it could be the personification of harmony
Between the family and their attitudes.
But it's such a crying shame
That the two camps can't even see each other
As victims and perpetrators at once,
So devastating has been the heartbreak, the anguish,
And so determined to secure revenge
Against those who ruined them permanently
That they couldn't imagine themselves
As no other than a family, divided against itself,
By the forces of God, homeland, and history,
When in reality, the family needs to see and heal,
Starting with the choice not to fight at first sight.

The family is mired in turmoil once again
Through the tides of time
That has led them to these awful choices;
The fruits of both preceding centuries and the present
That conspires to turn on them once again.
The cycle of violence that turns for the last 2000 years
Has reared its ugly head to the present day
And the family, the family that should've been wise to these
Attempts to break the bonds that unite them
Has been pulled down the quicksand of rage
And the rivers of blood are lapping the walls
Of the common decency that govern
The rest of humanity, now being torn apart by this.
No end in sight, now and likely for all time,
The family takes up arms to wage their forever war,
Regardless of the heavy human toll it will require,
The difference between them so deep
That it must've never occurred to them
That war is where the young and stupid
Are tricked by the old and bitter
Into killing each other.