A letter to a Jewish friend.

Yes I do agree with you
that the history of the Jewish people
is a history that brings great shame
on all us of this world.

A hundred years or more from now
We will still remember the slaughter;
the atrocity of the holocaust,
a world of uncaring brutality.
And will still be asking why.

But the holocaust is only one
in a history long in pogroms,
and vilest persecutions,
in country after country.

Nobody can give the reason
why century after century.
people of all our races
should have persecuted yours.

But I suspect it was,
As is so often a reason today
that they were different,
and were seen by us this way.

So the centuries of oppression
Should make the Jewish people
very careful to ensure
that they do not persecute others
that are seen to be different too.

For many in Israel will not have forgotten
and many in our country too.
what it is like to flee oppression
as for so many years did the Jews.

What it is like to be a refugee
Hazari from Afghanistan
Or a Kurd from round the world.
And to help those families who flee
to escape their persecutions too.

We know you wanted a homeland,
So the world at last appeased its shame,
but some in Israel must have forgotten
how it was to have their homes taken too.

For they have taken land from people
who lived there twice a thousand years
People whose father’s fathers tilled that land
who were there when the temple was destroyed,

To do to people who had settled there,
is to do what was done to your people
over much of human time
and we know that was never right.

Those who lost possession of their land
continue the struggle now;
but all they have are boys and bodies and the despairing knowledge
they will never be allowed to win.

We find them spread out now
through the cities of the Arab world,
Each story keeping injustices alive,
fanning the hatred in their fellows.

We should also never forget
the great flowering of the Arab people.
The generals whose brilliance conquered all,
Men who alone accepted yours.

But now is an age when the people build their power themselves
And the time will eventually come
when the Arab people will create that power.

And when that time does come,
There will be millions against a few.
And weapons of great destruction
will exist on every side.

It makes more sense today,
to remember history, I am sure,
and that of the dispossessed.
and to prevent it all anew.

For as one of yours once said
It is far better to act towards them
as they once had been to you.
As you would have wanted us
over centuries to act toward you.






© 2004, revised, February 2005