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California State University, Dominguez Hills
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Soka University Japan - Transcend Art and Peace
Created: October 5, 2002
Latest Update: October 5,, 2002
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

"no way for the ordinary American to even know"

Site Copyright: Jeanne Curran and Susan R. Takata and Individual Authors, September 2002.
"Fair use" encouraged.

On sunday, October 6, 2002, Dorothy Naor wrote:

Subject: [New Profile] Fw: Your introduction to Gideon Levy's September 30 piece

Dear All,
I am forwarding Nancy Horn's touching message. Perhaps some of you who live in the States could make concrete suggestions to her about how she can help the struggle to end the occupation and for peace in general.

I have added her poem at the end, for those of you who prefer not to open attachments. All the best, Dorothy

----- Original Message -----

From: Nancy Horn
To: Dorothy Naor
Sent: Wednesday, October 02, 2002 1:28 AM

Dear Ms. Naor,

I am an American Christian woman who read your deeply moving piece, and want to help. There seem to be many people here who feel as I do, but most are fragmented and isolated, with little media support and just vague networks among ourselves. There are letters being sent, petition drives, etc., but Nablus, I believe, is still being attacked as I write, and there is no way for the ordinary American to even know about it!

Have you any ideas how we might help? I know various religious groups, and ISM are on the ground, but what can we do here? How, for example, can we get uptodate news of what is really happening, and what do YOU, with your perspective, think we can do to stop Messrs. Sharon, Bush et al from railroading both of our countries? (I read Ha'aretz daily, and learn more about MY country than yours!)

I am also enclosing a poem I wrote last week; please feel to distribute it wherever you think it might do some good, with or without my name. I emailed it to a Palestinian site, they distributed it (with my email address!) and I have received heart-wrenching, but also heart-warming letters back from Muslims around the world -- including Palestine. I might also add that none of the accounts I have received has spoken hatred of Jews -- just of wrong-headed, illegal and immoral policies practiced by both of our countries. I, of course, keep preaching Gandhi and King as both moral, and practical.

May God bless you in your work, and may He bless all of us in our search for Peace.

Sincerely,
Nancy Horn

I am Jenin
and my heart aches with the taste of fear, the smell of vanquishing hatred,
blood spilled and smeared in the toy-strewn rubble, puddled in the dust
of where I used to live.

I am Nablus
and I still hold in my hand
the keys to my father’s empty ransacked home.

I am Gaza, crowded, teeming with life,
but my childrens’ bellies are distended with hunger,
their eyes huge with anger and fear.

I am Jaffa and Acra, the stones of ancient arches now crushed underfoot.

I am the sunswept hillsides and beloved valleys no longer grazed.

My orchards and olive groves have been plowed under and destroyed,
my shrines desecrated, my women raped,
my men humiliated and killed,
my children, -- oh my children!

I am Jerusalem, the radiant beloved Bride,
raped,
waiting on her once-golden hillside
for The One who speaks of Justice and Love.

Abandoned, alone, I speak out
but the world hears neither my screams, nor my cries
nor my reasoned pleadings for justice
and common sense if not Mercy.

Desperate, enraged, I strike out
and am further condemned.
My soul is battered but not broken,
my hope is shaken but not shattered.

(I watch heartsick from afar
helpless, tearfully, endlessly pleading
that the rulers of my beloved country
would do the right thing
which they refuse to do.)

(Jenin, I share not your blood,
and dwell in the land of your oppressors
but my soul, oh my soul,
is of you, Jenin,
is broken for you, Gaza.)

(I look out on my hillside, lush, verdant, alive –
and I see the scars
where once was your world.)

Our Lord, the same Lord,
Whom we worship in different ways,
has not forgotten you, Palestine.
He does not abandon His own.
Your crowded multitudes will persevere
and will yet prevail!

I am Jenin
and my birds shall sing once more,
my orchards and flocks will rise from the ashes,
and my cities will hum with the bustle of many peoples.

Our God, God of the Oppressed and the Oppressors,
will bring Justice, and Peace,
His Love will prevail
and I shall return to my home.