Born in ’49, with a heritage profound,
A history etched, in israeli ground.
In Eldridge town, where tales are spun,
A leader rose, Netanyahu by name, begun.
In 2014, a grim toll was paid,
Gaza’s anguish, where thousands laid.
Indictments followed, charges of trust,
Bribery and fraud, a legal thrust.
Then came October, a dark descent,
Gaza’s attack, a fatal event.
Gaza’s butcher, Erdogan’s mournful call,
A title forged where compassion did fall.
S.T. Salah, 1/10/2025
Handala: (still with his back turned, voice calm but piercing) You call yourself a chancellor of peace, Olaf, yet your hands are drenched in the blood of children. Gaza bleeds, and you supply the knives. How do you sleep? Or do you not see their eyes?
Olaf Scholz: Germany stands by its allies. Israel faces threats—
Handala: Threats? My children are unarmed. My homes are rubble. You call that a threat? You punish one nation for crossing borders, yet arm another that bulldozes them. You call it diplomacy, I call it murder in a suit.
Olaf Scholz: We must maintain balance. One cannot equate historical guilt with present policy…
Handala: Balance? You preach morality selectively. You remember Auschwitz but forget Gaza. You jailed your own citizens for protesting, accusing them of anti-Semitism, while turning a blind eye to the genocide you arm. You punish voices for truth, yet shield those who commit crimes against humanity. How deep is your hypocrisy? Deep enough to drown millions of innocent lives?
Olaf Scholz: The situations are different… Ukraine is one, Israel is another…
Handala: Ah, yes, selective outrage. Ukraine is sacred, Gaza is invisible. One deserves sanctions, the other deserves bombs. One deserves protest, the other deserves arrest. One deserves your voice, the other deserves silence. How comfortably dangerous hypocrisy tastes when served as policy!
Olaf Scholz: We are navigating complex international realities…
Handala: Complexity! The children do not negotiate reality. Your “complexities” are excuses. Weapons in their hands, starvation in their stomachs, death in their streets—your policies write the ledger. And you call it strategy. No. It is betrayal. The deeper your hypocrisy, the louder history will judge you.
(Handala slowly steps back, his small figure an immovable monument of defiance. His words echo like a verdict.)
Handala: Remember, Olaf: power without justice is cruelty. Alliance without conscience is complicity. History does not forgive, even if politicians try to bury it beneath speeches and treaties. You chose which lives matter, and the world remembers.
(He turns fully away, leaving silence heavier than any political statement. The weight of moral truth crushes the empty rhetoric of hypocrisy.)
Phalapoem editor, 21/09/25
For decades, Israeli apartheid has been a country of sharp political divisions, and has always been captured by a radical majority . Under the iron grip of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition of ultra-nationalist, religious-right ministers, the state itself now appears more like the private property of extremists who are willing to gamble the nation’s future for their own survival.
Power for Power’s Sake
The ongoing war in Gaza—prolonged well beyond the point of any strategic necessity—has become the ultimate instrument of political leverage. While families of Israeli hostages plead desperately for a deal that would bring their captured soldiers home, Netanyahu and his far-right allies stonewall negotiations and reject ceasefire proposals.
Instead of prioritizing life, the government prioritises genocide and political optics: projecting “strength,” appeasing settler movements, and clinging to office amid corruption trials and collapsing public trust.
The War That Serves the Religious Lunatics
Ending the war would mean confronting hard truths—about the government’s failures on October 7, about the genocide and starvation Gaza, and about the need for a political settlement.
For Netanyahu, ending the war also means facing the music at home: a corruption trial, protests that once filled Tel Aviv’s streets, and a fractured Likud party ready to unseat him.
For the terrorist ministers—Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich—war is the perfect distraction and a vehicle for their twisted messianic and racist agenda: deepening settlements, expanding military control over the West Bank, and crushing any path toward Palestinian statehood.
Mediators Targeted, Hope Undermined
The recent assassination of key mediators in Qatar—a move widely interpreted as a deliberate sabotage of ongoing prisoner-exchange talks—exposes the government’s true extermination priorities.
Killing those trying to build bridges is not just reckless; it is a calculated act to keep the flames of conflict burning, ensuring that no deal can threaten the coalition’s grip on power.
A Nation in Chains
Israeli apartheid has never been democracy, but always held hostage by leaders who treat the state as a personal fiefdom. The terrorists from far right controls key ministries: finance, security, and justice. Policies of genocide, starvation, annexation, ethnic clean sing , are now simply the government doctrine.
Meanwhile, Palestinians bear the main cost: fascist occupation, starvation, ethnics cleansing, demolition of houses, hospitals, schools and universities, prisoners remain in captivity, tens of thousands of children and women die in an endless war, and global isolation of the apartheid regime deepens.
The Way Forward
Breaking this stranglehold will require courage from within—from Israeli civil society, opposition parties, and military leaders who recognize that Netanyahu’s survival strategy is not Israel’s survival strategy.
It will also demand unflinching pressure from allies, particularly the United States and Europe, to make clear that support for Israel does not mean support for endless war or authoritarian drift.
Until then, Israeli apartheid will remain what it has tragically become: a nation owned by its most extreme leaders, a property of fear and ambition, while the dream of peace grows ever more distant.
Phalapoem editor, 26/6/26
S.T. Salah
By Chris Hedges
There is only one way to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza. It is not through bilateral negotiations. Israel has amply demonstrated, including with the assassination of the lead Hamas negotiator, Ismail Haniyeh, that it has no interest in a permanent ceasefire. The only way for Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians to be halted is for the U.S. to end all weapons shipments to Israel. And the only way this will take place is if enough Americans make clear they have no intention of supporting any presidential ticket or any political party that fuels this genocide…
If we do not hold fast to moral imperatives, we are doomed. Evil will triumph. It means there is no right and wrong. It means anything, including mass murder, is permissible. Protestors outside the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago demand an end to the genocide and U.S. aid to Israel, but inside we are fed a sickening conformity. Hope lies in the streets.
A moral stance always has a cost. If there is no cost, it is not moral. It is merely conventional belief…
The question is not whether resistance is practical. It is whether resistance is right. We are enjoined to love our neighbor, not our tribe. We must have faith that the good draws to it the good, even if the empirical evidence around us is bleak. The good is always embodied in action. It must be seen. It does not matter if the wider society is censorious. We are called to defy — through acts of civil disobedience and noncompliance — the laws of the state, when these laws, as they often do, conflict with moral law. We must stand, no matter the cost, with the crucified of the earth. If we fail to take this stand, whether against the abuses of militarized police, the inhumanity of our vast prison system or the genocide in Gaza, we become the crucifiers.
Phalapoem editor, 07/10/25
In Gaza, the unthinkable has become daily life. Reports indicate that approximately 100 Palestinians are being killed by Israeli occupation army every day, yet this staggering loss of life seems to barely ripple the consciousness of the wider world. Over 67,000 people have perished in Gaza by the Israeli occupation forces and each a human story cut tragically short, yet Western governments remain largely silent, their empathy muted or absent altogether.
The scale of this genocide is hard to comprehend. Families are torn apart, children are growing up amidst ruins, and entire neighborhoods vanish in a haze of violence. Hospitals were demolished and food and water are scarce, and the constant threat of Israeli bombardment leaves no space for normalcy. Yet in diplomatic corridors and media headlines, Gaza’s agony is often reduced to numbers, statistics, or geopolitical footnotes.
This normalization of death is deeply disturbing. When the world grows accustomed to genocide, the humanity of the victims is erased. The absence of strong condemnation or meaningful action by governments that champion human rights elsewhere speaks volumes. It is a chilling reminder that selective empathy often dictates which lives are valued and which are dismissed.
We must remember that behind every number is a life: a mother, a father, a child, a teacher, a doctor. Each loss weakens the moral fabric of our shared humanity. It is imperative for individuals, organizations, and governments to confront this reality, to speak out against injustice, and to demand accountability for the war criminals. Silence in the face of genocide, ethnic cleansing and starvation is complicity.
The world cannot let the daily delicate Israeli killing of Gaza children become a mere statistic. We must resist the normalization of genocide and insist that empathy, justice, and human rights are universal, not selective.
The zoo, part of the Al-Bisan recreational park in Jabalya, was hit multiple times during Israeli airstrikes. The three monkeys were some of the few lucky animals to survive the blitz in Gaza as many were killed in explosions or starved to death.
Al-Bisan’s zoo, a battlefield’s cruel feast,
Explosions echo, innocence released.
Species shattered, haven obliterated,
Occupation’s rain, where anguish is narrated.
Rare lives extinguished, a tragic lore,
A lion’s hunger, a cage of war.
Colors drained, sorrow etched,
A plea for rescue in a world wretched.
Phalapoem editor, 24/09/25
Germany presents itself as a global defender of human rights, a nation that learned the lessons of its bloody past. Yet its actions tell a far different story. From the colonial genocide in Africa, to the Holocaust in Europe, and now to the devastation of Gaza, Germany’s history reveals a pattern of complicity in mass violence—one it continues today through unwavering support for Israel’s assault on Palestinians.
Long before the Holocaust, Germany committed what historians recognize as the first genocide of the 20th century. Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial forces in present-day Namibia carried out a campaign of extermination against the Herero and Nama peoples. Tens of thousands were driven into the desert to die of starvation and thirst. Concentration camps were established, where survivors were subjected to forced labor, starvation, and medical experiments—grim foreshadowings of what was to come decades later in Europe.
Then came the Holocaust, the most infamous crime of the modern era. Six million Jews, along with Polish people, Roma, disabled people, and political dissidents, were systematically murdered. The phrase “Never Again” emerged as both a warning and a vow. Germany pledged eternal vigilance against the forces of hatred and genocide.
But “Never Again” has become selective. Today, as Gaza faces relentless bombing, starvation, and mass displacement, German leaders continue to supply Israel with weapons and diplomatic protection. Human rights organizations, UN experts, and legal scholars confirmed that Israel is carrying out genocide in Gaza, weaponising starvation and ethnic cleansing, yet Berlin stands firmly behind Tel Aviv. German officials invoke “Israel’s right to self-defense” while refusing to acknowledge the scale of Palestinian suffering.
Criticism of Israeli policy is often met with accusations of antisemitism in Germany, effectively silencing debate and criminalizing solidarity with Palestinians. This weaponization of Holocaust guilt allows Germany to posture as a protector of Jewish life while ignoring the universal lesson of its own history: that no people should face collective punishment or extermination.
Germany’s moral obligation should be clear. True reckoning with the past means opposing genocide and apartheid everywhere, not selectively. Supporting a government accused of war crimes in Gaza is not atonement for the Holocaust—it is a betrayal of the very principle of “Never Again.”
From the killing fields of Namibia to the death camps of Europe to the ruins of Gaza, Germany’s pattern of enabling mass atrocities cannot be ignored. History will judge Berlin not by its memorials or speeches, but by its actions. And today, those actions place it on the wrong side of justice, once again.
Phalapoem editor, 07/10/25
Handala (the small boy with his back turned, bare feet on cold marble):
Two years of children buried in rubble, two years of mothers digging with their hands.
Twenty thousand little bodies.
And now—only now—you recognise my country?
Tell me, Prime Minister, did the paperwork comfort you while the bombs fell?
Starmer (tight smile):
Recognition is a step toward peace.
Diplomacy takes time; we must be responsible actors on the world stage.
Handala:
Time?
My people measure time in mass graves.
Your “responsibility” signs three hundred weapons licenses while you whisper the word peace.
Is that diplomacy—or arithmetic of death?
Starmer:
The United Kingdom maintains export controls.
All sales are subject to rigorous review.
We cannot simply abandon our strategic alliances.
Handala:
Strategic alliances.
Fine words to hide a dripping blade.
You send planes to spy on the children you claim to protect,
ban the protests that call their names,
and shake the hand of a man the world’s court calls a criminal.
Is this what Labour means by justice?
Starmer:
We condemn civilian suffering.
But Israel has the right to defend itself.
Handala (still facing away):
Defend itself from whom?
From the babies you help starve?
From the grandparents clutching photos under the dust?
Your “right to defend” is a license to erase us.
Starmer:
History is complicated.
Britain cannot rewrite the past.
Handala:
But Britain wrote the past—
inked the Balfour promise,
handed our home to strangers,
and now hides behind complexity while the descendants of that ink bleed.
You cannot rewrite it, but you repeat it.
Starmer:
Recognition is progress.
It opens a path to negotiation.
Handala:
Recognition without action is a flag planted in ashes.
Stop the weapons.
Lift the bans on speech.
Cut the strings that tie you to slaughter.
Until then, your “progress” is just another checkpoint on the road to our graveyard.
(Handala remains with his back turned—silent, unbowed. The Prime Minister adjusts his tie, searching for a word that does not exist.)
