An Ode to Israel’s Genocide

Dear Friends and Fellow Activists,

News of the horrors in Gaza seems to worsen by the day. I, like so many others, have found it increasingly difficult to absorb the horror. It is impossible to unsee what one has seen. It is devastating.

If only to temper my anguish and frustration, my rage and sense of powerlessness, I composed an ode to Israel’s Genocide. Set to Mozart’s “Lacrimosa,” the ode takes the form of a video.

In fellowship and solidarity,
Michelle Weinroth

The accompanying music is “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor K.626, performed by La Capella Reial de Catalunya. Le Concert des Nations under the direction of Jordi Savall. Mozart’s Requiem was unfinished at the time of Mozart’s death, and it is believed that his student Franz Xaver Sussmayr completed the work. The lyrics to the Requiem are based on the Latin text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead. See: Mozart’s Requiem.

“Lacrimosa” (Latin for tearful) is written in D minor and conveys the sorrow that so many around the world now feel for the besieged Palestinian people, currently being starved and slaughtered by Israel’s killing machine.

An Ode to Israel’s Genocide

Shall I compare you to the Holocaust?
Dare I say, you are as shameless and as cruel.
Rough winds do shake the many tents in Rafah,
As thousands shiver, sick, and famished in the wintry cold.
Both young and old are utterly bereft;
They scrounge in terror for whatever hope is left.
In the offing looms another vile assault.
And all that your enablers can perversely say is:
“It’s Hamas’s fault!”

Their memory congeals conveniently on October seven
As if history started then
And 75 years of horror that they had wrought
Were inconsequential, simply naught.

As if past violations were not enough,
As if more heinous brutality were needed
To pad that record of legion crimes with
yet more vile stuff,
Your chief enabler cites a biblical decree:
“Kill all of Amalek — spare no human, animal, or tree.”

His genocidal intent is crystal clear:
To kill and breed a godly fear
And shock with his vindictive ire
The coming of another Nakba – more dire than the first.

To bring Hamas to its knee,
Is his public aim, no doubt.
In truth he’s on a killing spree
To drive them out…

To murder thousands more
And quell his raging fascist core
While clutching to his regal seat
Amid internal fights and Knesset heat.

But he is blind – impervious to an imminent defeat.
He cannot see the price he’ll pay for this.
Nor how the world of conscience will decry and diss
His utterances of hate
and criminal intent to eliminate
All that is truly Palestine,
A land where countless souls enshrine
Their dreams of liberty from strife
Relief from loathsome life
Under that thuggish rule
Of Übermenschen in new guise
A gang of wanton boys,
who treat their foe as flies
And kill them for the sport.

Shall I compare you to the Holocaust then?
You are as shameless and as cruel.
Your enablers have cut off water, food,
medicine and fuel,
Starved the people and spawned disease,
Spread flaming lies with stunning ease,
Committed crimes too vulgar to even cite
And which no verbiage can adequately indict.

Your enablers’ depravity is unfathomable,
beyond the pale.
Yet “Anti-semitism!” they will rail
Whenever condemnation comes their way,
As it did last month on Judgement Day.

Still, their impunity shall not forever last
Now that the world can see so unmistakably
Their arrogance and mendacity,
Their galling inhumanity
In the ghastly shadow of a Nazi past.