Uprising in Palestine

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 Uprising in Palestine
from Adam Keller, Gush Shalom
{If you have trouble reading this, you can read this on Tikkun’s website: Click here}

[Editor’s Note: It is extremely frustrating to many Israeli, Palestinian and American peace activists to watch the media give attention to the murderous activities of the Iranian government’s attempt to crush the popular resistance in Iran while simultaneously watching the Western media ignore the ongoing uprising of Palestinians happening daily in the Occupied West Bank and in Palestinian areas in Israel. We at Tikkun have been reporting about this with periodic articles from Arik Ascherman’s Torat Zadek (whose courageous attempts to protect peaceful Palestinians from Jewish West Bank Settler violent assaults). Below please the voices of other peace activists sent to Tikkun from Israel today.
– Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor Tikkun, rabbilerner.tikkun@afuribochii

This no “terrorist wave” – It is an uprising!

From Adam Keller, Gush Shalom

The State of Israel is going
To general elections
But in the election campaigns
There is virtually no mention
Of the main, existential problem
Facing all who live in this country.
The West Bank is on fire,
As are the neighborhoods
Of East Jerusalem.
This is not “a wave of terrorism”.
This is an uprising
Of young people
Making a simple
And self-evident demand:
To be a free people
In their country.
Armed with stones
And a few light arms,
Young Palestinians are facing
The strongest army
In the Middle East.
Many of them pay
With their lives –
And they are not deterred.
They continue their struggle.
Two soldiers were killed this week.
A young man and a young woman,
Israeli contemporaries of
The Palestinians they face.
These soldiers were not “murdered”.
They were not “victims of terrorist attacks”.
They fell in the battle to which
The State of Israel sent them.
They fell in an unjust war,
A war for maintaining
An oppressive occupation regime,
A war for the settlers
Who steal Palestinian lands.
A war which is not worth fighting
And certainly not worthy
Of sacrificing one’s life.
The real heroes
Of Israel 2022,
Are the refusers and
Conscientious objectors,
Held behind bars
At the Kfar Yona military prison.
The prison to which the army gave
The Orwellian name “Abode of Justice”.
Young men who refuse to wear
The uniform of
An army of occupation and oppression
And prefer to go to prison.
Young women who reject with disgust
The distorted idea that for Israeli women,
Taking part in the oppression of
Palestinian women and men
Is some sort of
“Women’s Empowerment”.
They are the last remaining Israelis
In whom one can take pride.
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