Reflections on National Pride and Sacrifice

You know.

Why wait for rockets above you while others sleep?

It isn't weakness,

it's the price of saying no.

Your country said it, and the story of that night

hasn't reached you yet.

At night, the siren blares,

a sound your heart has grown used to,

not so much fear as sorrow.

You pick up your little one and wonder

why you're standing alone,

while those you defend sleep, and those who blame you

are safe.

But focus on what they didn't tell you.

Your country was offered a golden way out,

a protection treaty from the major powers and a nuclear reactor

in exchange for one signature.

Of course,

but your country said no,

they get no state,

and there will be no peace from it.

It set that condition and stood by it,

even if it lost the deal, however great it was.

And because it said no,

the rockets kept coming,

and the shield it could have bought

stayed parked on the shelf.

Every siren you hear is the bill for

that refusal.

It offered a billion,

and carried the cause when its people cast it aside,

and no one stood with it.

Its nation has no army,

only a printing press,

and its disappointment wasn't fear,

only the loneliness of the one who gives.

But this siren that frightens your child

was never a disgrace,

it is the price of dignity your homeland bore, the right of a people

that refused to sell it.

Record it in history.

This shield they're belittling today,

tomorrow everyone will care about it.

And when Palestine is liberated,

you'll know your whistle paid the price for it,

not your weakness.

So what will you make it hear now?