Seven Ways of Looking at a Tragedy
Seven Acrostics for Palestine, on the Anniversary of a Drone Strike
Introduction
A year ago today, Israeli drones targeted a three-car convoy and murdered seven aid workers overseeing the transfer of a food shipment into Northern Gaza. At this time, Northern Gaza was ‘at high risk’ for famine—meaning that a famine was well underway. This famine was the outcome of the incessant pummelling of infrastructure and citizenry by Israeli militants, blocking the efforts of aid relief until the ICJ ordered Israel to ensure the unhindered flow of aid into the strip on March 29, 2024. Three days later, the drones struck the three vehicles in succession: three missiles in five minutes.
After the first missile hit the first car in the convoy, survivors of the wreckage managed to board the second car in the convoy.
After the second missile hit the second car in the convoy, survivors of the wreckage managed to board the third car in the convoy.
After the third missile hit the third car in the convoy, there was silence.
These murders happened on the coast of the Gaza Strip. The vehicles drifted alongside the sea. In the images of the wrecked vehicles, you can see the beach and the white stones and the greenery of the coastline. You can see the burnt out wreckage of the first vehicle and you can see the precise hole in the roof of another where the missile struck through it. You can see the maps that pinpoint exactly where the vehicles were located when they were attacked and you can read a hundred articles dissecting every fact of the attacks. You can read about how the convoy notified the Israeli militants of their movements, how they alerted the militants when they were struck the first time, and how—despite coordinated movements and vehicle logos—they were hit successively and specifically, yet indiscriminately. You can read about how Israeli militants targeting aid workers is a recurring event in their warfare, as is claiming their murders are accidents.
The convoy belonged to the not-for-profit, non-governmental organization World Central Kitchen. Founded in 2010 in response to the earthquake in Haiti, the organization specializes in food relief. They have aided the United States many times following hurricanes and during wildfires, including in Hawai’i after volcanic eruption. They have aided Turkey and Syria following their earthquakes, the Bahamas following Hurricane Dorian, Australia during the 2019-2020 bushfire season, and even distributed meals in conflict zones in Ukraine during the ongoing Russian invasion. There, another local volunteer was murdered by a Russian missile strike on an apartment building.
The convoy attack on April 1, 2024 resulted in the murders of seven people. Months later, in November 2024, three more WCK aid workers were killed in Khan Younis. As I said, Israeli militants targeting aid workers is a recurring activity of their warfare, as is claiming their murders are accidents. One might say: This is war. One might also say: This is Zionism.
I began writing the poetry below on the day of the three-car convoy attack. It is not easy to write about the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people—not because there are no words but because there are too many. In writing this piece, Seven Ways of Looking at a Tragedy, I was divided on how much I should speak for the victims of the convoy attack—how I could honour them beyond the adoption of their names for my acrostic meditation. I did not want to give the impression that I am using their deaths as a means of inciting further outrage over the genocide. On the contrary, I think their deaths are a fervent indication of foreign war’s far-reaching effects on community and the common good.
In the end, I do not know how best to honour these seven people who gave their lives in service of ensuring the hungry were fed. There is nothing satisfactory to me. All I may do is to finish the piece and to have it exist in a world where they cannot.
Free Palestine.
Seven Way of Looking at a Tragedy
"Every time you let something happen that you know is wrong,
the order of the world is a little bit worse."
I. Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, Palestinian
Something there is in hunger As there would be in love If any love there were For a hungry people's Entropy under the rubble: Dog-empty ruins and Devastated childhoods. In the barren blistered soil, Nothing grows for comfort. I will condemn Hamas when the last Zionist, Strung up by a bloodless keffiyeh, Struggles to atone for the sins of his father, And his father—and when Adonai forgives him, Maybe then I will find the time to condemn Hamas. Always there is another missile, precise and ordinary, Yet indiscriminate and virtuous despite the children, And just following orders but guided by the gospel, Dead to the moaning of the mothers and their infants. Always there is another good person trying to help, Bold and filthy—righteous in the eyes of the desert, Uncompromising in their faith and compassion: good. Today, there are seven fewer saving Starving Many. Always there is another good person trying to help, Hapless before the regime, before the missiles fall. Always there is another good person trying to help.
II. Jacob Flickinger, Canadian-American
Just as I am, A man I never knew Came to the desert from oases, Obliterated by the weight of decadence, Bringing food, by God, guiding food to hungry mouths. Fellow countryman, Lend me your voice, If you knew the outrage: Canada hardly cares, Kissing always the rings, Ignoring accountability, Never admitting genocide, Growing impatient with us, Engaging with political Zionism, Regurgitating innocent bloodshed.
III. James Henderson, British
Just a bit of sun, please—no dust. After the clouds and heat, no dust, please. Many cats are swarming what the people eat. Even shared with cats, the food of starving children. Something there is that doesn't love compassion. Help a brother out here: I don't understand this. Everyone told me it was a religious conflict. Now I am not so sure—it seems more complicated than that. Don't know what to think—I am not a terrorist but I don't agree with bombing infants. Everyone has an opinion—I don't agree with the images I saw of the maternity ward. Revulsion is one thing, revolution another. I am not a terrorist. I am not a Zionist. Something there is that doesn't love compassion. On the news, they are not showing what I have seen elsewhere. No one is talking about the man flattened by the bulldozer anymore.
IV. James Kirby, British
Just before nightfall, the weeping after laughter And the scent of warm bodies and absence. Must they be so brazen in their living? Even the stars giggle over the pale, cool sand. Settlers are dumping dead kids in the wells. Know this: Anyone who murders animals In order to murder their fellow man must truly be Rejected by Heaven and made low in the eyes of Elohim. But, tonight, as the settlers do their dark work, I hear the natives laughing again. You know they know that Allah will always make the water pure again.
V. John Antony Chapman, British
Just another brit—I bet Balfour wanted this. O, Brittania, Brittania rules the piss. How about that? You give it your all, asses up. No one comprehends the definition of freedom. An antediluvian tendency is common amongst the elite. None realize what they gave up to be born lucky: Divorced from the species. Tons of scrap: Shattered tanks and shells and buckles and boots. Only a nobleman would commodify a smoking ruin and call it a riviera. No one comprehends the definition of freedom. You are not incorrect, just wrong, and that is much, much worse. Change will come because history asserts the dialectic, the Dao, the give-and-take. Harpies of the 1% cannot keep the mountain pass for the People impassable. Always there is another leader to kill, to martyr, to mourn, to follow. Perchance another desert will be made across the cozy West. More, perchance another desert is made already there. A fallow field devoid of the intellect, devoid of love. No one comprehends the definition of freedom.
VI. Lalzawmi "Zomi" Frankcom, Australian
Long and away, and away, and Away they came; they came and Lent themselves to fervour and Zionism and such sillinesses as Ate up all but scraps of a people: Wasted them, unwanted, unheard, unseen. Made a mockery of the genocide of my kin. I do not hate them; I only wish God would smite them. zionism is a philosophy for cowardly jews whose obtuse minds are unfit for adonai, unfit for judaism: meshugge, meshugge, meshugge, they are—mashuganas! i am embarrassed by the heritage they leave behind Friend, you know it is unwell when the inheritors of genocidal trauma Rampage against their long-lost cousins and genocide their children And genocide their land and their mother and their fathers, then deny the Nakbas so clearly recorded by the soil and the stories disseminated from Knowing what happened because it happened to them and to them and Carefully to collude, to cover-up villages with foreign trees and always Obscuring the names of the dead children, to never speak the names of families Massacred by bombs and bullets and bulldozers and—isn't that unwell, friend?
VII. Damian Soból, Polish
Damn this European mind virus that acclaims what can be claimed. After all this hatred is used up, what will the people feel in their emptiness? Men do not consider what happens beyond the confines of tomorrow. I am not a man, but I do consider them; and how they disappoint me. After all this, one can only hold faith for children—if any remain. No laughter is there amidst the ubiquitous obliteration. Sorry—I am unwell, speaking on this subject. Only silence remains after words fail. Black smoke rises from the bodies. O' Judea, why can't you just be a mountain? Loving desert, why can't you just be an unbroken mother?
Afterword: A Note on Zionism
In writing this, I recognized that the Reader would encounter a difficulty in the framing of Zionism throughout the work. From the incendiary second stanza of I. to the infuriated inner monologue of the second stanza of VI., I leave little room for doubt about our stance.
I am philosophically opposed to what Zionism represents in a historical or ideological context. I am spiritually and politically opposed to it as well. To me, Zionism as a widespread ideal is the greatest threat to the Jewish diaspora since Nazism. The nature of Zionism has invited unnecessary hostility upon both the diaspora and those who obstruct the interests of the State of Israel. I am not an ally to Zionism.
History is not black and white; yet, in hindsight we learn enough to make informed decisions and to hold informed opinions. The damage that Zionism has wrought on the Levant amounts to genocide, and genocide is genocide whether it takes a hundred years or only three to destroy a people. Genocide is genocide whether it is resisted by ‘terrorists’ or by ‘revolutionaries’. Genocide cannot be reduced to a framing of circumstances. We must be insistent and intolerant when we see the patterns of genocide playing out in the world. Never again.
I am a pacifist. I do not wish violence or ill will upon anyone. However, I am not ignorant to the paradox of intolerance. "If you have one Nazi at a table and ten other people sitting there talking to him, you have eleven Nazis at the table." This is unacceptable. When we witness tragedy, devestation, dead children, violated lives, we must in our privilege overcome our idealism and rest on the reality of material fact: We must not permit violence to dominate our collective narrative. If we do, we open the door to true evil and we may as well join the ranks of true evil in our failure to speak for those who have been silenced.
If you take great issue with the language of Seven Ways of Looking at a Tragedy, I understand. It is not an easy poem to read. It was not an easy poem to write or to edit, either. But, I have good news for you: Seven Ways of Looking at a Tragedy was not written for you. It was not written for Zionists, either. It was not written for Palestinians or for Jews or for world leaders or for ICE or for terrorists or revolutionaries. It was written for dead men, women and children who were unheard by everyone else. These are Their visions. This is Their anger.
And if you have a great issue with that, then you can go and take it up with Them.
Thank you for reading. Free Palestine.