Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 16:28:13 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: breathless Paulin (fwd)





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:23:22 -0600
From: kent johnson <kljohnson45-AT-HOTMAIL.COM>
To: BRITISH-POETS-AT-JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: breathless Paulin

Tim's points are important ones. English expatriate Christopher Hitchens
(who has recently rocked the world with his two-part expose in Harper's of
Kissinger as war criminal) has written some recent pieces in The Nation on
Zionist fascism, focusing on the pompous media-darling Elie Wiesel and his
earlier associations with the openly fascist Irgun. The shooting of the boy
(the one, out of scores, that just happened to get caught on tape) took
place under the watch of a Labor prime minister. The current one, Ariel
Sharon, is a right-wing fanatic, plain and pure. It matters not a whit that
he is Jewish. The leader of Israel: the butcher of Sabra and Shatila. Was
what happened there in 1982 any different, morally, than the horrors
perpetrated by the SS in, say, the Polish ghetto?

Poets have the right to write about the repression of the Palestinian people
AS IT HAPPENS NOW no less than they have the right to commemorate the
Holocaust or Hiroshima. In doing so, how could contempt and rage not emerge
through the ancient and sacred mode of irony?

Kent

>From: TAllenTW-AT-AOL.COM
>Reply-To: TAllenTW-AT-AOL.COM
>To: BRITISH-POETS-AT-JISCMAIL.AC.UK
>Subject: Re: breathless Paulin
>Date: Tue, 20 Mar 2001 13:56:21 EST
>
>Atar Hadari:
> >The scandal was regarding Paulin's poem "Killed in
> >Crossfire" which took the widely printed picture of a
> >Palestinian boy being shot as the occasion to casually
> >describe Israeli Defense Force soldiers as SS...
> >...personally I
> >found the poem cheap and exploitative. I wondered if
> >anyone else had seen it or had thoughts about it?
>
>I have not seen the poem so I cannot comment on it but I do find everything
>about Israeli attitudes towards the Palestinians as being 'cheap and
>exploitive', personally. Who gives a damn about the poem, its the
>circumstances that gave rise to it that matter. And why not describe the
>Israeli Defense Force as being SS when in similar situations around the
>world
>the description would not raise an eyebrow. Say it loud and let the cruel
>irony sink in, because it doesn't does it, it doesn't sink in. Depressing.
>
>Tim A.

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com