Occupation - David Rovics

You ask me how it is

That I dare to take a side

You say I loathe myself

For pointing out that you have lied

You say it’s tribal warfare

But I disagree

For the dynamics of the situation

Are not difficult to see

On one side is the fighter jet

On the other side the stone

On one side is the slave

On the other is the throne

For the many there are checkpoints

While foreign soldiers rule the street

For one side there is victory

But the people don’t accept defeat

The word you need to know is occupation

The very definition of a land without a nation

And if peace is what you’re after then let us not deceive

It will come on the day the tanks return to Tel Aviv

On one side there is hunger

And bulldozed olive trees

On the other is the Army

Ruling by decrees

Caterpillars maul the streets

And destroy entire city blocks

While children swallow shrapnel

For the crime of throwing rocks

Fences are erected

Around the towns they flatten

And Herzl’s own fanatics

Sleep on sheets of satin

And they water their plantations

Drilling ever-deeper wells

While the displaced children of the hopeless

Are filled with bullet shells

…It will come on the day the settlers return to Tel Aviv

On one side there is the Mossad

Rounding up the men

Thrown in jail with no trial

Being tortured once again

On the other there is rage

Helplessness and fear

And a growing realization

That another holocaust is near

On the outside there are prisons

Inside detainees

Being stripped of their humanity

Beaten naked to their knees

Outside ghetto prison walls

There are stormtroopers all around

While inside the hungry people

Yearn for liberated ground

…It will come on the day the jailguards return to Tel Aviv

All across the world

You can hear the people say

The children of Jerusalem

Will be free one day

In overcrowded camps

Amidst the stench of death and flies

To the suburbs of Detroit

You can hear the anguished cries

While in the land of Israel

With God ever on their side

Walls and fences are constructed

And papers are denied

People fight for their existence

While the world turns a blinded eye

And those who should know better

Insist on asking why

…It will come on the day the refugees return to Tel Aviv