On My 88thBirthday: A Reflection

  • [Prefatory Note: I took part in a stirring program here in Berlin earlier this evening in support of three activists from Palestine and Israel
  • who face criminal charges for disrupting a meeting featuring Zionist denials of Israeli crimes against humanity. Two of the three who face these charged are Jews born in Israel, and one a Palestinian born in Gaza, whose family was in audience, including his father who was in an Israeli
  • prison for 18 years. It was an inspirational event that discussed with depth and insight the obstacles to support for Palestinian rights encountered in Germany because of the persistence of German guilt about the Nazi past. In my remarks I tried to convey the understanding that the only true way to erase that sense of the past is to oppose the ongoing Israeli crimes of states rather than be complicit by choosing to be silent in the face of evil. I post a poem that I wrote earlier today, and read at the end of my talk, perhaps a self-indulgent conceit on my part, but I share it here as a way of thanking so many friends near and far who sent me the most moving birthday greetings throughout the day, which made me feel that we who are supporting the Palestinian struggle are part of a growing community that will prevail at some point, and the two peoples now inhabiting Palestine can finally live in peace, and with dignity and equality. All of us agreed that peace can only happen once the apartheid structure of the present Israeli state is fully dismantled and a spirit of true equality for Palestinians and Jews is affirmed and implemented, not only for those living under occupation, but for Palestinians confined to more than 60 refugee camps, to those millions long victimized by involuntary exile, and by the Palestinian minority in Israel.]
  • On My 88thBirthday: A Reflection 
    To be almost 90
    And happy
    With good health
     
    Feels criminal
    Amid Satanic happenings
    Raising Images too dark
    To be real
     
    Children in Gaza
    Are shot to death
    Friday after Friday
    By official assassins
     
    Khashoggi’s murder
    An unspeakable crime
    Yet no more than a problem
    For hard men of power
     
    Events so dark
    And so numerous
    Casting shadows
     
    Will despair be our fate?
    Is this truly our world?
    Are we even meant to survive?
     
    My hope– to live
    Long enough to shout
    An everlasting ‘No’
     
    And may so affirming
    Become my last word
    Become my testament
    Of hope for all beings
     
     
     
    Richard Falk
    Berlin
    November 13, 2018
     
    ]

 
 

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