There is no greater sorrow on earth than the loss of one’s native land
(Euripides 480-406 BC – ‘Medea’)
Mors nobis inimica est
invidia lucem obscurat
They spit, they scowl, they squeal and bite
in vengeance maim, assault and blame.
If murder heals and might is right,
if greed the abreaction fit
bleed breath, dims the light, curse
of infamy purge and fight,
rip happy face from infant limb,
deal in death and malice play,
their words unconscious heaven’s pain
and Gaza suffer Zion’s aim – this is
and ever was the miracle of life
extinguished for ideology and gain.
If governments had any doubt,
the opposition spit and shout,
the media, the din and spin,
Sky News, the Corp, the bore, the jocks,
the cocks who scam and scream, and those
like Cash and Ley, the alley cats
and apoplectic zombies flying
mullets on their antisemite rout.
If Riviera goons like Trump, the bump across
the ocean in their air force barge regurgitate
the fatal ignorance of fools,
Fox and runt look out the word is out –
the hundred thousands marching stray.
Pigs are in the trough of liberty,
snakes the pit of comfort toxic
pitch and joust, foul play. Putin in the
Kremlin pokes the demon, digs the snout.
Ah well, horses in our world ride
upon a magic roundabout
while creeps upon their pillows sleep.
Our forests burn our children weep,
deep the slaughter, starve the poor, fat
the calf, red the hood the Nile bled.
Among the bones and rubble smile
rulers in their stirrups vile reap.
Sweep the dust of war and peace,
pestilence the beast of famine.
Cast yourself a sovereign nation,
empires, chosen people, God’s creation.
Netanyahu spills the flame
with thunder but forks no lightning.
Light the oven, catch the sun in
its blinding path the distance run.
Sown on drought and blunt denial
by influencer, tribe and bile.
Knesset kissing steed in saddle,
so the living dead the killing file –
poppy after poppy one by one.
Let those who look away on peril
with scratchy fingers, blackboards squinch
and squeal, neoliberal rags and
global moguls, banks and soldiers rape
and steal. If daily massacres,
starvation, torture – if water, aid,
clean earth and air amassed upon
the border, kept from the masses cry,
none will buy your papers, skits
and carts, your bullets or your insults,
feeds, apologies, excuses or abuses,
we will not listen and walk the lie.
But he who did not lie and hid
the holocaust from public view
and he who does with no less pride
cheats, boasts and bullies as they do.
From what dark dungeon do those echoes
chant this curse upon our wretched world?
What kingdom, land or country here
living or hereafter, what star,
what universe will greet them at
its door? No seed, no weed less grows
from hate, no want nor need of Jacob’s ladder
dull its gates with hegemony –
in morte nullus sensus est.
What if Andromeda to her
Perseus led with open arms and
Helen to Paris knit warring
nations in wedded prosperity and
deed? What if the bay of plenty,
its fruit and geothermal wonders
dressed the table of the many?
If a singularity outshone
its darkness, gave up its fury and its prey?
Was Neverland not writ for every
girl and boy to live beyond their day?
How wide and free the Earth, its tipping
point, its peaceful purpose and its sway.
So, the sorry deal, scar and bone upon
the wounded heal, the hyperbolic
plain, the apoplexy and genocide.
From Parliament’s great height be honourable,
be honest, bold and wise. Police do not
belittle, besmirch our frail deeds,
but know the grief and help it on
its way. The sacking of Palestine
must stop, BDSE* no compromise.
Words, hymns and aspirations aren’t enough.
If nothing gives and nothing’s done,
our time is up, the course is run –
Death is our nemesis,
hatred dims the light.
Poppies in the Rubble, In death there is no meaning. AB © Jon C, 26 August 2025, Blue Mountains (Barddylbach)
*BDSE – Boycott, divest, sanction and evict
Commentary in Action
ISRAEL MUST STOP THE APOPLEXY AND GENOCIDE, THE SLAUGHTER, STARVATION, KILLING AND DENIAL – BDSE, WORDS AND ASPIRATIONS ARE NOT ENOUGH
If our Federal and State governments in Australia have any doubt about how Australians view Israel’s genocide on Palestinian society and children, let them look away on peril of the next election. If the LNP and their leader in Opposition Sussan Ley, News Corp, Sky News and those who scam and scream like alley cats and apoplectic zombies ‘you must be anti-semite‘, let them play the ignorant malicious fools and idiots they are but we will not buy your papers, listen to your insults or tolerate your abuse and neglect, nor will we consider you have any legitimate authority to say the things you do, we will not listen. If you are Netanyahu, one of his tribe, influencer, operative or admirer, or just an apologiser or excuser, turns their back or denies the daily massacres, deliberate starvation, torture and ethnic cleansing, there will be no kingdom or country for you, not here or hereafter, history will record your deed and the universe will remember your inhumanity and abject failure. As for Netanyahu and his like, you should know that even Hitler did not lie about what he did as you do, though like you he tried to hide it from public view and was no less proud if it – so what dark dungeon do you echo your inhumanities and curse upon this world.
To our Australian police forces, if you think you are smart to belittle or look down on the crowds, claim the numbers are ten fold less than what they are to serve your misled and misinformed masters’ propaganda or absent moral sensibilities and reason, or you wear that Israeli flag on your lapel or sleeve with detestable pride, then you betray the country and the people you are paid a living for to protect, serve and obey – you blindly bluntly fail in your solemn duty and impartiality.
And finally, to our Federal Government, banks, manufacturers, exporters and importers, traders, superannuation funds, shareholders, businesses alike and public institutions – you have been called upon with one voice by the people of Australia to boycott, divest, sanction and evict the perpetrators of this evil regime – So get cracking before there is no turning back!
References
First there is the history – A historical timeline of Israel’s brutality towards Palestinians, 13 October 2024, TRT World, YouTube
Pro-Palestine protesters fill the streets in cities and towns across Australia after Gaza famine declaration – Caitlan Cassidy and Joe Hinchliffe, 24 August 2025, The Guardian Australia
March for Humanity (Palestine) – Sydney Harbour Bridge, 3 August 2025
“Not prudent to call out Israel’s genocide and cut off all US genocide weapons” – Walt Zlotow, 30 Aug 2025, The AIM Network
Israel’s attack on hospital in Gaza may constitute a war crime on many fronts – Peter Beaumont, 26 August 2025, The Guardian Australia
Children at gravest risk as full-fledged famine unfolds in Gaza – Plan International Media Release, 23 August 2025, The AIM Network
A Call for Moral Clarity: Reassessing Australia’s Stance on the Israel-Hamas Conflict – Stephen Tardrew 22 August 2025, The AIM Network
Cancelling the Ethnic Cleansers: Australia Revokes Simcha Rothman’s Visa – Dr Binoy Kampmark, 20 August 2025, The AIM Network
Netanyahu’s far reich (five eyes wide shut) Part 1 – Tess Lawrence, 14 August 2025, The AIM Network
A Shield of Lies: Netanyahu’s Battle Against the World – Dr Binoy Kampmark, 13 August 2025, The AIM Network
A timeline for a genocide – Elizabeth Dangerfield, 10 August 2025, The AIM Network
Disease ripping through Gaza as Israel continues to deliberately block aid – Oxfam Media Release, 24 July 2025, The AIM Network
Australia’s antisemitism plan: A firestorm of resistance – Michael Taylor, 11 July 2025, The AIM Network
600 days into war, Israel’s mass displacement campaign is entirely erasing Gaza – Oxfam Media Release, 29 May 2025, The AIM Network
Most Australians find Israel’s denial of aid to Palestinians in Gaza unjustifiable – Editorial, 26 May 2025, The AIM Network
The Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza: Israel’s Operation Gideon’s Chariots – Dr Binoy Kampmark, 21 May 2025, The AIM Network
US mainstream media still censoring US enabled Israeli genocide in Gaza – Walt Zlotow, 18 May 2025, The AIM Network
Expulsion and Occupation: Israel’s Proposed Gaza Plan – Dr Binoy Kampmark, 7 May 2025, The AIM Network
Aid workers describe Gaza as “stuff of nightmares” as Israel’s mass forced displacements cause carnage and despair – Oxfam Media Release, 23 April 2025, The AIM Network
Oxfam: Humanitarian operations in Gaza severely hampered; famine risks increasing – Oxfam Media Release, 25 March 2025, The AIM Network
Jewish history revisited – Bert Hetebry, 18 March 2025, The AIM Network
Why must there be a two state solution? Because there were always two states – Michael Springer, 15 February 2025, The AIM Network
Far From Ignorant: The European Union, Arms Exports and Israel – Dr Binoy Kampmark, 2 January 2025, The AIM Network
Is it Armageddon? – Bert Hetebry, 24 December 2024, The AIM Network
and 3 weeks later:
99% of House voted to continue sending genocide weapons to Israel – Walt Zlotow, The AIM Network, 16 September 2025
Now, more proof that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. How can western governments still refuse to act? – Steve Crawshaw, The Guardian, 17 September 2025
Previous poem ‘Last Lament’ and article with background story of Dido’s Lament, Dido Queen of Carthage (founded in 813 BCE) and forced to flee the tyranny of her brother who usurped her throne in the ancient Phoenician city of Tyre (just north of current day Gaza in South Lebanon). A tragic love story with the legendary Trojan warrior, Aeneas, founder of the Romans. The Last Lament – 16 March 2025, The AIMNetwork
Short poem ‘Godless Mountain’ and article in 2019 covering conflict in Middle East and all the signs and shadows of the current one in Gaza Look On – 16 October 2019, The AIMNetwork (previous site)
If you were interested in the above poem ‘Apoplexy’ and article take a peek at a previous article and review of three classic historical period poems from Jewish-American, Lebanese-American and Iberian/Italian-American poets foreshadowing America’s current fall from democratic heights and human rights from 2024 (last year) – Three Poems, Irony and Apology to Elephants – 9 November 2024, The AIMNetwork (also previous site)
Next American Sentence – 5 September 2025, The AIMNetwork
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Thank you Jon, well said.
Euripides was correct then and even more so today.
That truth is evident in the unprecedented number of persons forced off their land for one reason or another – whether by armed conflict (supported and/or instigated by outside interests), or through famine or drought, or both, but mostly as the result of conflict. Witness the movement of over a million persons into Europe five years ago, escaping violence and hoping for a better future – more often than not after a perilous journey and a sea-crossing.
Presently we are seeing “climate-refugees”, whether from rising sea-levels, or from increasing heat and humidity or increased climatic disturbances in the way of more and destructive storms and floods. As others have warned, Australia thus becomes a tempting destination.
In the Palestinian context, the trauma of losing one’s land is all too apparent. But consider for a moment if, through some “accident of fate”, the Israelis were forced to give up at least half the land they presently occupy in order that a contiguous State of Palestine might be formed, can you image the uproar, to say nothing of “the rending of garments” and the “weeping and gnashing of teeth”, a sorry condition familiar to their forebears, and one likely to be inherited.
APOPLEXY – A double tap strike to silence the witnesses, first respondents, rescuers, emergency and health care workers, journalists, the last functioning public hospital in Gaza, the people and children of Gaza. And what is the spit we get from the IDF, Netanyahu and Israel’s response? This is the business model signature of Israel’s war crime and continued genocide in Palestine, to occupy, terrorise, remove or starve an entire population by indiscriminate war, targeted public-civil infrastructure and total orchestrated devastation – It’s been going on for years.
Israel’s attack on hospital in Gaza may constitute a war crime on many fronts – Peter Beaumont, 26 August 2025, The Guardian Australia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/25/israel-attack-gaza-hospital-may-constitute-war-on-many-fronts
Thanks Julian
On your last point, they were given that land they now occupy in 1948 by nations it was not there’s to give, and have thoroughly abused that privilege and disrespected the world and humanity, when they could have done so much good with it, lived God’s testament according to love divine. But most of all they have used it to conduct an illegal war on every State around them in the Middle East – They created the condition they fear and now face and hide behind the false mask of antisemitism, justifying their unholy war and insulting the tragic memory of the Holocaust we should never have permitted again, creating their own dungeon of civilian and State horrors. Israel have abused the power granted to them and became USA’s proxy for world dominion, and now they have called in that card with that damn egoistical fool idiot Trump.
When Palestine is declared not if – the world looks on not just one nation. Israel should be made to give back some of that land to make West Bank and Gaza contiguous in restitution, though nothing will redeem Israel, Netanyahu and his bunch of racist genocidal war lords they call the Knesset for the horrors they have perpetrated on the people and innocent children of Gaza, occupation of the West Bank, and mass destruction of their ancient and modern Palestinian homelands.
I doubt Euripides ever witnessed or imagined such as this, nor Abraham, Moses, David nor Solomon. Such waste, such tragedy, such shame, such terror, such abject apoplectic failure on or of the human race, repeating what previous empires failed to learn including the Last Reich the Jewish people suffered at so dearly a century ago.
In morte nullus sensus est – In death there is no meaning, hatred dims the light.