America’s Stand Should Be With the Seekers of Peace  

by Ernie McCray

I turn on the TV
and I hear the news
that Hamas
had taken the lives of
hundreds of Jews
and my eyes teared
and like dust being vacuumed
my breath was sucked away
just thinking that human beings
can treat each other this way
putting them in harm’s way
as they listen to music being played
and then I became equally dismayed,
knowing that Netanyahu’s
retaliation to this horrible display
of heinous madness
would be more deadly
than what Hamas had wrought,
that it would be directed
against residents of Gaza,
Palestinians
who are enemies of no one,
now reduced to,
as they have been before,
ducking and covering
and scrambling and hiding,
many evacuating on the run,
scampering through rubble on their way
to who knows where,
some leaving behind homes
where the electricity is already unplugged,
where the water is already turned off,
passing medical facilities and school buildings
and marketplaces and places of worship
that are under attack,
fully aware
that America boldly stands
with those who are doing this to them.

And we Americans
have to understand
that when these Zionists
treat Palestinian citizens
as though they are Hamas
they are borrowing from an
early American attitude
wherein folks who are discriminated against
are said to
“all look alike.”

Oh, attempts at ethnic cleansing
is one pitifully ugly sight,
making me think lately,
as I lie in bed at night,
how this rift in Gaza
is but a chapter
in a history
wherein animosities
between Israelis
and Palestinians
have stewed
since their relationship,
of lack thereof, began.

And, sadly, it will not end
anywhere near soon
as struggles for rights and freedom and dignity
are lifetime ventures
bathed in love and good intentions
and it seems
that such a moral and ethical motivation
is needed in this frightening situation –
meaning that if our country is to take a stand
with anyone
in this war
it should be with not one side
but with the citizens
on both sides of the Israel Gaza Strip border
who everyday try to make peace
in the area.