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I can’t help it

I don’t care how far you think the analogy extends itself

When i see you making that bus driver climb up and down

On and off the roof of his bus

For your amusement

For hours in the hot sun

I think of how we once had to dance and sing for them

While they shot our parents

When i see you keep that woman

And her husband

At the checkpoint

While she’s in labor

And you stand there

Listening to her scream

Watching as she gives birth

On the back seat of a taxi

I think of the walls around our own ghetto

And how we had to crawl through the sewers

Looking for rats to eat

While we could hear their children playing

On the other side

When i see you crush that house

And kill that woman

And her baby

With your armored bulldozer

Because they didn’t have a permit

I think of the way we were once forced to leave our homes

At the point of a gun

And when i hear your general say

That in order to deal with the intifada

You must learn from the tactics of another general

One mr.

stroop

In warsaw

I think of how they bombed our buildings

Shot us as we fell from the roofs

And i remember

How we wished we could kill their babies, too

And i feel sick

Sick of your displaced anger

Sick of your self-deception

Sick of your attempts to deceive the rest of the world

Sick of your accusations of anti-semitism

Sick of your occupation

Sick of your apartheid state

Sick of zionism

Because standing here

In auschwitz, birkenau and warsaw

I see jenin, jaffa and rafah

And i think of our ancestors

The jewish palestinians

Who spoke so eloquently

In their arabic language

But the dead cannot speak

And now i find myself

Again behind the wall of a ghetto

Standing with millions of other palestinians

And i find myself shouting

Thawra!

thawra!

hatta al-naser!

Tomorrow in jerusalem!

Al-awda

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