Actions Taken, Refusing Silence

On Saturday, Melbourne joined other cities of the world to demonstrate against the invasion of Gaza. I sat listening to a young Palestinian Australian girl saying she will never forget the killing of the four young boys on the beach of Gaza, that now she knows what it means to be a Palestinian. I sat because my legs could not hold me, but as I became smaller all around me grew larger, deeper, the women holding their Palestinian flags and their children, the fathers with their sons on their shoulders or tugging at their hands, a

young man speaking saying that what we must remember is the resilience of the Palestinians, the determination to live, to know the joy of life like all other people--and around me, calls of resistance went up--and I sat, hearing the word Israel, like a drum of despair. Know, my Palestinian friends, known and unknown, there are many Jews like me who stand with you, who refuse the Israeli dictates of hate and expulsion, that weep for the children lost, that will never accept that Israel speaks for our Jewish hearts when it can see no other history but its own, no suffering other then its own, no right to life other then its own.

Once again my lifetime I watch in the morning and in the evening, the victims of military might fleeing for their life, skin lashed by armaments launched by tank and plane and this time, with the Star of David flying from the killing machines. You too are seeing the night skies over Gaza lit up by incandescent flares so the bullets and bombs will find their human flesh. Then the day starts for us safety and everyone goes about their business. No. Another form of action. We put on the front of our house these signs, one from our Women in Black Vigils and the other, so sadly newly made, still smelling of paint--no forgetting, just as Palestinians cannot forget, just as the anti- invasion Israelis can't forget. Perhaps you too could find a way to refuse the silence of just another day.