when apartheid takes on the divine face of freedom

what does it mean when suffering teaches naught but the gun
in the face the wire around the neck starvation in the cities
where the children meet at night to instigate a fight with ghosts
\of their own memory:for the state is a reliquary of taunts
and history's dead words caught in the throats of a girl
\who gets a bullet in the brain for playing like a terrorist
near the fences that would keep out despair and the memory
the memory the memory that besets those who victims who
would vicitmize the world for being once held captive

yes mirror will not show me the gaunt face the skull face
the terrible curse and sacrifice that only a lost god could
fathom and dredge from the abyss of his love:no they will
not seek justice for evil they will build a temple of eyes and teeth
and seek their sorrow in the cries that they smother beneath
contempt and orchestras of universal shame

A system of apartheid, with two peoples occupying the same land but completely separated from each other, with Israelis totally dominant and suppressing violence by depriving Palestinians of their basic human rights. This is the policy now being followed, although many citizens of Israel deride the racist connotation of prescribing permanent second-class status for the Palestinians. As one prominent Israeli stated, "I am afraid that we are moving toward a government like that of South Africa, with a dual society of Jewish rulers and Arab subjects with few rights of citizenship. The West Bank is not worth it." An unacceptable modification of this choice, now being proposed, is the taking of substantial portions of the occupied territory, with the remaining Palestinians completely surrounded by walls, fences, and Israeli checkpoints, living as prisoners within the small portion of land left to them.