Dear Friends,                                                               They keep on dropping bombs

This is my Vietnam

I’m at war

They keep on dropping bombs

And I keep score

                Pink

Ceasefire in Gaza! The IDF keeps on dropping bombs. The killing continues. Peace process! Russian bombs keep falling on Ukraine. The killing continues. Three monstruous old men, two hardened killers and a neophyte, play at diplomacy, their real métier is sending out the bombers.

Yes, Hamas keeps on killing as well. Hamas belongs with the killers, yes, they would keep on dropping bombs if they could. But they can’t. The greatest murderous force against humanity, against every single person around the world belongs to the powers, the states, even quite small states along with the big ones. The states, governments, executives order the bombers to take to the air to kill anyone beneath them. The governments, executives will kill anyone, just as Hamas will. You, American citizen in America, don’t think that you’re safe.

Yes, Hamas kills their own, they are killing Palestinians now. Do you really think that more bombs dropping on Gaza will stop that? And the bombs will kill more than Hamas will. Yes, the Hamas attacks of October 7 were uniquely horrifying, I remember. They are absolutely unforgivable. But what then? More bombing is not the answer.

It’s hard to think of Gaza, Gaza’s future with anything other than despair. The powers, Israel and the US first, but European and Arab countries as well, talk in janitorial terms: how do we clean up this mess (it’s done, forget about why it’s a mess)? Lots of ruined real estate, all forms of infrastructure destroyed, oh, yes, people, what are we to do with them? Put them somewhere else. Right, that’s settled, we can always figure out where later.

Gaza was a land, a Palestinian land. There were 12 universities in Gaza, 815 k-12 schools, 36 hospitals. Hemmed in on all sides Gaza lived. The universities, schools, hospitals are gone, gone with the homes of all the people whose children went to the schools, whose adolescents and young adults went to the universities, and everyone went to the hospitals. Only the people of Gaza, wherever they are now, have the right to determine what Gaza will be. Only they will be able to rebuild Gaza. The powers, from Israel to the real estate developer in chief, what will they make? Another wall against Palestinian self-determination, another source of profit from luxury beach-front property.

Gaza, now, is where all the misery, pain and death of our world come together. It has no monopoly on misery, pain and death, they are everywhere, worldwide. But it stands out so precisely within its borders, a very small place that is now from one end to the other reduced to rubble. Rubble is all the same, the rubble of Guernica, Berlin, Stalingrad, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Hanoi, Sarajevo, Aleppo, Kyiv, Gaza.

Rubble is just rubble, always the same, drawing distant lands together: all the same once the bombs have fallen. And they keep on dropping bombs. Once all is rubble we will all be together, all one. And they keep on dropping bombs.

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby

P.S., for Pink: I first heard My Vietnam only a few months ago, but it immediately became a necessary part of my thoughts, feelings, memories. Just the song means so much, in addition I’m so filled with hope that a kid like you understands. I hear your voice with us long ago; we, those of us left, are right here, today, with you kids. [In case you’re interested, My Vietnam is on Pink’s album Missundaztood – the “typography” cannot be reproduced on a normal machine.]