THE SAD SANDS OF RAFAH
- Why doesn’t the name of Iman al-Hams
- ring out as loudly as that of Anne Frank.
- Shot twice, then automatic fire point-blank,
- a schoolgirl, 13, dies on Rafah Sands,
- back October 5, 2004.
- Anne, throughout the decades, is loved world-wide.
- Iman? For fifteen seconds the world cried.
- There was compassion but who closed the door.
- The EU and the US have sanctions
- against the oppressed Palestinians,
- while Israel adds land to its dimensions.
- Joshua calls from the millenniums,
- sending in settlers for multiple theft.
- No equality in life, less in death.
- An Israeli army euphemism:
- `Quickly approach and confirm the kill.’
- Any wounded enemy fits the bill.
- Dreaming, the watchtower looms into vision
- Does she hear?: `Don’t shoot, it’s a little girl!’
- A soldier doesn’t recognise the foe.
- But his commander knows the status quo
- and shatters this Palestinian pearl.
- Southern Gaza, Rafah Refugee Camp:
- Another day, another burial,
- one more Israeli media revamp,
- another life cast as ethereal.
- First found a nation on biblical tomes
- then ethnic cleanse and know that God condones.
- The First Internal Investigation:
- `Captain `R’ didn’t act unethically.’
- (Truth, also shot, lies flat on its belly)
- His wounded heart receives embrocation.
- Second Internal Investigation:
- `Captain `R’, a Druze, is a gun for hire!’
- His unit loathes him, drags him through the mire.
- But Death sings in any congregation.
- `So, Captain `R’ killed a young teenager?’
- `Yes, the girl died but it wasn’t murder.’
- Compensation, promotion to Major,
- with a good view of the Gaza border.
- Iman’s dad listens to the legal gen:
- `Keep dying, Palestinian children?’
Wilson John Haire.
ANOTHER DEATH ANOTHER SHEKEL
- Razan Al-Najjar, aged twenty-one
- a Gazan paramedic
- lies in bloodied sand
- killed by an Israeli sniper-gun.
- Barely covered by the Western media
- yet Nurse Cavel runs and runs
- in the British military encyclopaedia.
- Razan Al-Najjar
- tends to the field of broken bodies
- beneath the gas clouds in this abattoir,
- wired in as a chicken-run vassalage,
- wings clipped, fed on scraps,
- can their politics be tea-at-the-vicarage.
- Razan Al-Najjar,
- already forgotten by the West.
- Razan Al-Najjar,
- for those who care
- in our hearts a permanent guest.
W. J. Haire.
FEAR
- If you go to the jihadi barber today
- you could get your throat cut
- they say.
- Don’t opt for a shave
- if you have to go there
- for an open razor can’t always behave.
- While the electric clippers
- buzzes around your head
- you could keep thinking Jack-the-Ripper.
- A car outside roars down the street,
- nervous glances backwards,
- no bodies yet for death to greet.
- Here is a man from Iraq,
- keeps looking out of the window,
- one customer only this morning,
- his business is a wreck,
- his shop a reflection of Bagdad,
- leather settees, chromium chairs,
- the apprenticed barber sits sad,
- his perfumed oils, his butterfly touch,
- his charm of the souk
- wasted by an emotional putsch.
W.J.Haire.
Labour Affairs Magazine 