The Gaza Prison: And Other Poems on Common Humanity, Apartheid, and Anti-Semitism

By S T Kimbrough Jr. and Charles Amjad-Ali

For decades Israel's forces have occupied parts of the West Bank and Gaza forcing Palestinians there to live under dire conditions: imprisonment without charges or trials, confiscation of homes, properties, and farm land, even destruction of schools and hospitals. The action of Hamas on October 7, 2023, which resulted in 1,400 Israeli deaths and 250 taken as hostages, precipitated the horrific attacks on and in Gaza by the Israeli military that have killed over 30,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. Almost all of Gaza is now completely destroyed.
The poems in this book reflect on the horrors of the Israel-Gaza War and the unjust effects of decades of occupation of Palestinian territory by Israel. The eight sections of the book focus on many aspects of life and injustice in Gaza, and they call on Israel to stop this unjust war, and on Hamas to cease killing and destruction. They summon people everywhere to set aside hatred and revenge, and to seek to be humane with a vision of the common humanity shared by all people on earth and peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jun 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9798385219803

S T Kimbrough Jr.

S T Kimbrough, Jr. is a Research Fellow of the Center for Studies in the Wesleyan Tradition of the Divinity School of Duke University and founder of The Charles Wesley Society. He is editor of its journal Proceedings of The Charles Wesley Society and author/editor of several books on Charles Wesley including: The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley, 3 vols., and The Manuscript Journal of the Reverend Charles Wesley, M.A., 2 vols.

Book preview

The Gaza Prison

and Other Poems on Common Humanity, Apartheid, and Antisemitism

S T Kimbrough, Jr.

foreword by

Charles Amjad-Ali

THE GAZA PRISON

And Other Poems on Common Humanity, Apartheid, and Anti-Semitism

Copyright ©

2024

S T Kimbrough, Jr. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

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Resource Publications

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paperback isbn: 979-8-3852-1978-0

hardcover isbn: 979-8-3852-1979-7

ebook isbn: 979-8-3852-1980-3

Table of Contents

Title Page

Gaza

1. The Gaza Prison

2. A Gazan Mother’s Terror

3. Daily Life in Gaza, December 2023

4. Freedom of Movement

5. A Tragic Hanukkah 2023

6. Inhumane

7. Another Day in the Israel/Gaza War

8. New Ethnic Cleansing

Revenge

9. Revenge

10. The Star of David’s Disgrace

11. Guilty of War Crimes

12. Just Anger?

13. Weapons’ Wrath

14. Drones

History

15. History Repeats Itself

16. History’s Lesson

17. Hitleresque Leadership

18. The Mask Is Off

Holy Land?

19. Uttermost Hypocrisy

20. Israel and Hamas

21. Holiness or Holocaust?

22. Reclaim Holy Land

23. A Jerusalem Child

Common Humanity

24. Our Commonness

25. Interconnected

26. A New Year of Hope or of Despair

27. Never Again #1

28. Be Humane

29. Who Wants to Be a Child?

30. Respect for Whom?

Apartheid and Antisemitism

31. Apartheid

32. Resist Apartheid

33. The Antisemitic Stigma

34. Psalm 10:2–3

35. A Woman of Samaria9

36. Persona non grata

37. Is Ethnic Cleansing a Defense?

Justice

38. An Ancient Cry for Justice

39. Do Not Pervert Justice

40. Justice, Justice Plead!

41. Justice, Justice Is the Cry

42. Equality and Justice for All

Grace

43. Never Again #2

44. Weaponizing the Bible

45. Grace

46. Forgiveness

47. The Art of Forgiveness

48. Love One’s Enemy! Insane!

49. Humane

50. To Conquer

foreword

We All Stand Witness to Horror: The Gaza Prison and Israeli Genocide.

¹

I am highly honored to write a foreword to another brilliant collection of poetry by S T Kimbrough, entitled The Gaza Prison and Other Poems on Common Humanity, Apartheid, and Antisemitism. As the title indicates, this volume covers one of the deepest crises that we are facing in our contemporary political and moral history, i.e., the all-encompassing, comprehensive, traumatic, and very violent destruction of life, freedoms, institutions, and property in Palestine. Together these are an unmitigated case of state terrorism and horrific genocidal ethnic cleansing. We are all witness to this genocide as we see it happen in real time in our face, all the arguments and unwillingness to accept it as such notwithstanding.

This crisis is, however, also deeply intertwined with the other major existential dilemma that impinges upon us, namely the dubious future of democracy, democratic norms and institutions, the hard fought rights, regimes, and the general principles of justice, righteousness, and ethical moral life. Each of these elements has taken a long hard history of struggle and fighting against well-established traditions of prejudices, as well as the established order of power, and the claims, sometimes even divinized, of some existing oligarchies of power. The combination of these crises, dilemmas, and challenges are jeopardizing the very character of social responsibilities and social contracts that we have evolved through these struggles over the last

300

and more years to establish and normalize.

S T has once again, in his inimitable lyrical form, covered this whole gamut and spectrum through his highly poetic creativity, while also capturing the biblical narrative of social and ethical norms. While the genre is poetic, S T addresses the philosophical and theoretical issues of justice, morality, and righteousness, etc., vis-à-vis issues of land, history, and indeed aesthetics, etc. His poetry is therefore situated at the core intersection of literary and political theory, and he does a great job in making his readers comprehend these philosophical and theoretical issues, both intellectually and emotionally. He has also provided us an insight into the biblical and theological narratives²