.

(un) Dear Zionists:

 

Isn’t it amazing that you hope

in fooling yourselves and others so easily

that you can

also

fool me?

As though I am unaware, or long ago stopped to care.

 

Isn’t it amazing that you think

by stealing my land,

my cuisine

and declaring tabboula

as  “Israeli salad”, it becomes your own?

As though I won’t recognize cultural appropriation when it is sown.

 

Isn’t it amazing that you insist

on calling the

occupied territories of Palestine

“Israel”?

Like it will erase the reality that

a Palestinian people were ever real.

 

Isn’t it amazing that you believe

by omitting maps of land theft in textbooks

it is as though you were never murderous crooks,

and that, by omitting genocidal facts in the education system,

you can pretend Palestinians wiped each other out,

out of barbaric desperation.

 

Isn’t it amazing that you think

in denying what you support,

what you’ve done,

what you’re doing,

criminalizing, abusing, and marginalizing me,

that you can strip away my heritage and identity?

 

No, zionism-infected minds

and a thousand times no!

You can ignore the truth of who you are,

although

at the cost of your dignity, integrity

and humanity. But…

 

you  will

never

ever

erase me.

 

Signed,

• a Palestinian