Palestine is my Lamberene by Michael Hall

Tell Albert Schweitzer i have found my Lamberene

i have found the mountain in a dream but i am no king

i bear a cross of adalah and it is in the holy land

it is the face of a child stoned by jewish settlers on his way to school



Love and grace have i found in the faces of imprisoned Bethlehemians

surrounded by an ugly grey prison wall,still they sing and dance with abandon

their hearts undaunted their spirits unconquered

Though they live inclusively, they dream exclusively



O Gandhi i have walked the streets of Jerusalem

i have seen apartheid and segregation enforced by the gun

i have strode through the markets of Hebron

protected by wire mesh from the garbage thrown down by the settlers



I have escorted children in the southern hills of Hebron

as settlers screamed their curses and tried to intimidate by revving cars and waving guns

i have been to the refugee camps and seen the bullet holes on the walls

and what of this injustice, where is the empathy?



This is the holy land

this is the apex of humanities dreams and aspirations

this is a place of repression,ethnic cleansing and nepotism

Yet under the smell of this odius manure seeds of hope endure



i cannot rest nor sleep

i must return and work

for are we all not called upon

to vie against injustice,to take the side of the weak vs the strong, to refuse to be silent in the face of immorality and crime?