Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 11:45PM Gilad Atzmon What must be said
Why have I been silent, silent for so long?,
Our generals have gamed it out,
Confident the west will survive.
We people have not even been considered.
What is this right to "preventive war"?
A war that could erase the Iranian people.
Dominated by it's neighbor, pulsing with righteousness
Smug in the fact that it is they, not Iran,
Who have the Bomb.
Why have I so far avoided to identify Israel by it's name?,
Israel and it's ever increasing nuclear arsenal,
Beyond reproach, Uncontrolled, uninspected.
We all know these things
Yet we all remain silent, fearful of being labeled:
anti-Semitic
hateful
worse
Considering Germany's past these labels stick
So we call is "business", "reparation" take your pick,
As we deliver yet another submarine.
As we provide to Israel the means to deliver annihilation.
I say what must be said.
Why did I stay silent until now?
Because I'm German, of course.
I'm tainted by a stain I cannot wash out
I'm silent because I want so badly to make it right
To put my sins in the past and leave them silently there.
Why did I wait to say it until now?
And write these words with the last of my ink?
Declaring that Israel threatens world peace?
Because it is true and it must be said,
Tomorrow will be too late.
We Germans now carry a new burden of sin on our shoulders
Through the weapons we have sold
We are helping to carry out this foreseeable tragedy
No excuse will remove our stain of complicity.
It must be said. I won't be silent
I've had enough of the hypocrisy;
Please shed the silence with me,
The consequences are all too predictable.
It's time to demand free and permanent control
of BOTH Israel's nuclear arsenal
AND Iran's nuclear facilities
enforced with international supervision.
It's the only way, in a land convulsed with insanity,
Israelis, Palestinians, everybody, will survive.
And we too, will survive.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian 
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1 comment:
I wish Mr. Gunther Grass focused on the most painful impact of the weapons of mass and massive destruction, the unlimited funneling of endless funds, the constant protection against accountability for their more than six decades-long crimes, delivered free of charge by the governments of the US, Germany, Britain (the source of all the suffering of the Palestinian People, when they "gave away" what was not theirs, Palestine), French (Atomic bomb knowledge was French), Dutch, Italian, Russian, Scandinavian, and many more Governments and organizations, especially the so called United Nations which showed its complete complacence and complicity by being silent, crippled and even part of the injustice on a helpless Native People.
I still salute Mr. Gunther grass for his courage and intellectual integrity.
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