Before the Jew a poem by michael hall

submitted to window into palestine by

michael hall

Before the Jew

Before the Jew

There was Palestine

Filled with people and animals

Crops and fields, milk and honey

We had olive trees and grapes

Honey and milk

We lived and died and lived again generation after generation

For millennium before Judea

We were Canaanites and Philistines

We were a people here before we could even write about us

Our names and deeds lost into the dim dust of history

Yet we stayed,we endured, we persevered as our blood and sweat fed the land

We lived with one and all who came and went

We shared with Jew and Christian

Muslim and secular

This is the holy land all may live in peace

Before Israel

There was Jericho, Hebron and Jerusalem

There was Moeb, Edom and Ammon

Until they suffered holocaust By David and his immigrants

But we stayed and we are here to this day

We walk the hills with our flocks and live our lives like we have for millennium

Now, white-skin elitists who have never lived here come here to loot and rob us

They steal our homes,our land, our water, our history and cast us out as they disclaim our right to return

They tell the world they are the rightful rulers and if you disagree you are anti-semite,but aren't we Semites also?

They say that this is theirs because they came and hid a shekel, and that the Maker of us all plays favorites and believes in nepotism

But if this is true where were they for the last two thousand years? Did not the ones who stayed become us?

Because we never left, our skin is dark while these diluted plastic Jews are white as snow and violent settlers to boot

Now they come to this place from Europe and America and Russia

to a land they have never been to, but they've seen pictures

and claim every rock and grain of sand from the Dead Sea to Jordon River

From the Negev to Lebanon

So they tell the world that this is theirs only and all others must recognize their theft as legal and Divine because they wrote it so in their diary

This is all a Jewish State and all must pay tribute and homage

But what of the rightful owners and those who've never left

Do they have rights within this 'democracy'?

Can the Palestinian buy land and build upon it?

Can they have natural growth and live free and equal?

Or is this democracy segregated into unequal apartheid parts without Adalah?

Before this was 'Israel', many many people lived here and it was not under the yolk of narcissistic military rule and odious occupation

i was born 51 years ago along Lake Ontario

But i say today with integrity and with dignity

As all freemen should proclaim everywhere everyday

i am Palestinian