No Eloquence
On the news yesterday, I heard an aid worker express noble rage at the idea that Israel, in view of the planned assault on Rafah, would simply send one and a half million people ‘up a country road’. The misery in Gaza is unconscionable. While remaining committed to a view that remembers the full complexity and global tragedy of the ongoing war, one cannot but be aghast at the destructiveness of the Netanyahu regime’s campaign, which makes the well-known passage from Exodus 21, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’, appear for what it is: a disposition of justice, to keep vengeance within bounds. The other day, I happened upon an interview with Mourid Barghouti (whose I Saw Ramallah is a book to re-read at this time) from 2008. It gives much food for thought. Barghouti’s cited poem keeps ringing in my ears: ‘Silence said:/truth needs no eloquence./After the death of the horseman,/the homeward-bound horse/says everything/without saying anything.’ I also keep thinking of this piece by Ahdaf Soueif, Barghouti’s translator.
