Normalize This! (Video and Poem)

nothing is normal about occupation

nothing normal about apartheid

ethnic cleansing, siege, blockade

settler only roads, bombing water wells

schools, mosques & UN buildings

nothing normal about putting

a civilian population on a diet

paying non-indigenous foreigners

to occupy land that is already populated

rewriting the Nakba with each stolen childhood

trying to desensitize the puncture wounds

and claw marks put into the bodies of

Bassem Abu Rahme & Rachel Corrie

No, I don’t want to normalize with you

I don’t want to hug, have coffee, talk it out

break bread, sit around the campfire, eat S’mores

and gush about how we are all the same

I don’t want to share the stage

co-write a poem, submit to your anthology

talk about how art, instead of justice

can forge a better path

I don’t want to indulge your amnesia

about a glorious past

have a therapy session

on 2 sides with equal grievances

the only thing barren

is your moral capacity

blooming a settler colonial state

with appropriated culture

I will not fight for your privilege

nor will I seek to normalize it

your dialogue group

is a breeding crowd for injustice

just look at the board members
and the ZOA sponsorship

Zionism is the real demographic threat

infecting the minds of millions with racism

blaming the victim ideology

they were hooded in the South

pushing darker nations into Bantustans

jailing young men in H Blocks in Northern Ireland

in case you missed the hint

I don’t want to pretend all is ok

or that bombs dropped on Gaza

don’t have a manufacturer

the pilot doesn’t have a nationality

and Shimon Peres is any better

than Avigdor Lieberman

it’s not just the occupation stupid

it’s the right of return

equality for all Palestinians

it’s the transformation

from a racist, exclusivist

supremacist state

to a nation for all of its citizens

you deserve nothing

more than equality

which means more than African refugees

are provided in South Tel Aviv

you are the shining light

on a settlement hill

reminding the world that racism

often comes in nice packaging

we don’t give the Sudan

3 billion a year in military aid

don’t have preferential trade agreements

with North Korea

don’t call Iran a democracy

you are a proxy for empire

a 1950s ethnocracy

in 21^st century clothing

Yes, you are singled out

with aid, weapons, and UN vetoes

in your favor

did I hurt your feelings?

should we hug after the show?

do these words

hurt more than bombs

dropped on Gaza

white phosphorous

eating the flesh of children

I am not the bad guy

you are defending the bad system

your words and actions have consequences

you are either with oppression or against it

I didn’t write history 

and didn’t choose for you

to stand on the wrong side of it

your system of oppression is coming to an end

and whether you recognize it or not yet

it will be liberating for you too