October 2023
in october 2023, Netanyahu declared war
on Palestine's militant Hamas
after an attack that killed 1,195 Israelis
and took 251 hostages.
the deadliest day in Israel's history.

in the immediate aftermath, hostage deals were offered.
Hamas would free all civilians if IDF didn't enter Gaza.
Netanyahu rejected it.
then, and in the future, he hindered and rejected
ceasefire agreements and hostage exchanges.
his end-all was to "dismantle Hamas".
under the guise of a hunt for Hamas
fueled by a grail of political survival
or a belief in biblical right to Palestine
rather than boots on the ground
to hunt down the perpetrators and leadership of the Hamas.
rather than precision attacks and targeted assassinations
he unleashed a blanket and indiscriminate attack
raining death and destruction on the populace of Palestine
streaking the skies with rockets, drones, mortars, and bombs
night skies glowing red with missile flashes
day skies blackened with plumes of smoke
from leveled schools, clinics, hospitals, residences
in its wake, a wasteland of rubble and destruction.

for two years now the immediacy of television
has been feeding us daily harrowing images of his war.
the collateral damage of dead, dying, and maimed
thousands of men, women and children,
pulled out from the rubble of destruction.
perhaps, an occasional Hamas militant
to justify the carnage.

the dead line the streets, wrapped in white burial shrouds
bearing messages of loss and love.
white symbolizing peace and calm
the dead deaf to the wailing dirge
of mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters.
there are no beatitudes of
blessed are the poor in spirit
blessed are those who mourn
blessed are those who hunger and thirst
blessed are those who are persecuted . . .
there are no such beatitudes in their holy book.

but perhaps, those are the merciful deaths.
the short-lived wailing evoked by sudden deaths.
rather than the deaths that come
from the blockade of food, water and medical supplies
the horrifying graphics of slow ebbing of life
from starvation, thirst, and disease
mothers watching children wasting away
wilting into cachectic agonal masses
fragile layers of skin clinging to ribs and bone
flies like vultures hovering about
awaiting the merciful coming of death.
belying the gruesome images
Netanyahu said from the depths of delusion and denial:
there is no starvation in Gaza.

Munich Massacre, 1972
Black September, a Palestinian militant organization,
attacked Israeli's team lodging at the 1972 Munich Olympics,
killing 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
War was not declared.
As a form of retaliation, there was an initial response
of air strikes on PLO bases in Syria and Lebanon.
then, Prime Minister Golda Meir
authorized Operation Wrath of God
a covert assassination campaign
Mossad to hunt down those involved in the Munich attack.
a hunt that lasted more than two decades,
clandestine boots on the ground,
hunting in Athens, Cyprus, Lebanon, France, Rome
with purpose, patience, and precision
assassinating most, if not all, of those involved in the massacre
with minimal "collateral" damage.

Golda Meir
therein lies the difference between the two leaders.
Golda Meir, mother and leader,
who bade to hunt down perpetrators of the massacre.
who would be turning and rolling in her grave
watching Netanyahu's war,
with the slaughter of men, women, and children,
faces wrertched with desperation
starving children clamoring and screaming
arms outstretched with empty pots and pans
begging for a slop of gruel or sliver of stale bread.
the horrible images of death and dying
wreaked by deprivation and starvation.
she would be feeding the children
she would have bade Mossad long ago
boots on the ground
to hunt down the Hamas leaders.

Netanyahu's Deus ex Machina
for Netenyahu, the Hamas massacre was a deus ex machina.
a reprieve from all that threatened his political survival.
the timely distraction from pending corruption cases.
now, todah, an opportunity to be
the resolute leader
hero
savior
vengeful warrior.

Genocide,
Netanyahu is the author of this genocide.
this Palestinian holocaust.
he can choose to call it "war".
even Israel's war. . . not.
from within, Israel's support dwindles by the day.
it is Netanyahu's war
who justify it as a biblical right, which it is not.
It is nothing but a massacre.
an attempt to destroy the Palestinian motherland
to annihilate a culture and its people
to exterminate by bombing, starvation and deprivation.
a one-sided carnage.

in the mathematics of deaths
the october 7 attack killed 1,200 Israelis, 250 hostages taken.
to date, more than 57,000 Palestinians have been killed,
138,000 wounded, nearly 14,000 hostaged.
in the mathematics of tonnes,
Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives
on the Gaza strip, equivalent to two nuclear bombs.
(15,000 tonnes was dropped on Hiroshima
and destroyed everything within a one-mile radius.)

this is not a two-year war
rather, a recurring war since the Arab-iIsraeli war of 1948.
with respites of truces, ceasefires, and short-lived peace.
since September 29, 2000 to october 6, 2023
69,522 Palestinians have been killed, to Israelis 2,916.
20,351 Palestinian children to 178 Israeli children.
discrepant numbers, much during Nethanyahu's watch
while prime minister from 1996 to 1999, 2009 to 2021, 2022 to today.

Sadam Hussein was hanged for a crime less than this.
Although he systematically executed, tortured, imprisoned,
raped, terrorized Iraqi people, his own people,
it was for his role in the 1982 Dujail massacre
of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites who attempted to assassinate him
for which he was convicted and hanged
for crimes against humanity.

This is not a war to dismantle hamas.
this is Netanyahu's one-sided genocidal "war"
against the nation of Palestine.
waging with superior warfare and arsenal
blockades, bombings, starvation, disease and deprivation
his weapons of mass destruction.

and dismantle hamas, he did not.
and, if he ever does
from the rubbled pieces of a Palestine that will survive
from the planted seeds of anguished and suffering souls
a phoenix will rise, again and again and again,
to fight in this endless war
to reclaim the right of homeland and motherland.

the two-state solution or the forever war
the two-state solution remains the viable solution
one bandied about since the 1982 Arab summit
now, again, with seeming urgency.
difficult to imagine, impossible to some
with Israel's continued occupation and settlement expansion
and their imagined biblical right.
now, doubly impossible with Netanyahu holding Israel's reins
a man obsessed with this "promise land"
and the perpetuation of his genocidal war
a forever war until all of Palestine is reduced to rubble.
until Gaza is razed for a  . . . Mediterranean riviera?
and how to trust a man
blind to the thousands of images that documents his war
the chaotic scampering for food
children with faces sunken and limbs limp from famine
who declares with bare-faced chutzpah
"there is no starvation in gaza."

and we sit and listen, watch and wonder
mesmerized, paralyzed by daily servings of harrowing images
of the dead and dying, of deprivation and destruction.
whence this evil and inhumanity?
while the world watches and wonders and waits
waiting. . .  waiting for Godot?
why? the deafening silence and immoral inertia
of nations, powers-that-be, and world leaders.
where are the all-powerful gods of the holy books?