On the day the war ended, I saw myself going back to the land before it became the land of Eretz, and was asked by the wondering people there, how best too make a people be no more?

Why do you ask? I said. They told me they had found a land to call home, but it is home to another.

Why do you need to take another, if there is plenty? I asked.

Our home must be on the land where the olive trees live, they said. There is only one such land.

The menu for death is old I thought, it is from the time of the first people. It comes with one soul in many forms. Then there was murder, still there is murder. Back then it was blood drawn out by a fist, later an axe, then later a bullet. Then came bombs that blew up people to pieces, and later mushroom clouds pregnant with deconstructed life. One soul, endless forms.

I am handed camel milk, fresh and warm. The men sit around a soft freshly lit fire, the women within eavesdrop close to the tents. My mind goes back into the future to the land where the olive trees live, and there I can hear a sparrow’s song coming from the top of a tree on the edge of a burnt olive grove. It reaches my ear warm and soulful. From deep under the rubble the stench of death rises continuously and spreads over the strip, small enough to cover end to end with the skin of all the dead children killed in the war. Shadows of past people linger everywhere. I can hear the sound of bread being broken, and the warm smiles forming on the faces of the people sitting on the floor as it is passed around. Everywhere I turn, I hear the echo of laughter lingering, persistent, refusing to leave, whose owners were made no more long ago. On the other side of the fence, a few miles away, something else can be heard. I travel there too. It is the chuckles of people watching something on a screen. They dance and mock on TiKTok like modern roman spectators in a mausoleum. On one of their screens a baby covered with dried bits of flesh is squatting wide eyed, dazed from a blast.

I drink the satisfying milk, and set the jug down on the sand. They are looking at me with the eager but tired eyes of a people yearning for rest in want of answers. Forty years, forty years, the old man’s first rises in the air. In their eyes flicker images of their past. I see women with deep wrinkled faces, and old men bent over like blown-over tall grass after a storm, walking in a an endless desert. They were going to where the sea meets the land. There beyond the water, where the olives lives, a new promised land lay. It was a promise of freedom from bondage, the promise of heroes.

What is the recipe? The old man reminded me of the question.

I reached for my milk, and drank the last of it.

Chickens in a pen

Throw a spear to the right, wait

Throw a spear to the left, wait

Throw a spear in the center,

Repeat

Clack, clack, clack,

Ha, ha, ha

Pluck one up, throw into the mincer

Then another, then another

Break the bones, pull the wings

What are you doing asked a passer by?

Defending myself against the chickens, said the man

But they are in a pen, sir. How can you defend yourself against chickens in a pen?

Oh sir, you don’t understand. These are very bad chickens. You see the ones in the back there? Last week three of them broke out and threatened me.

Those chickens threatened your existence?

Yes sir.

How so?

By intention.

But chickens are small, and you are big.

So? They still threaten my existence, in my mind.

Have you mistreated those chickens?

Not at all. I’ve been the best pen ward.

Pluck, pluck, pluck, pluck

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

Mr. Abbas woke up up to find his olive tree gone, from the root up, not a trace left. Only fluffed up dirt where it stood. He stared, looked left, then looked right. Dawn had just begun, and only the rooster, his crowing, and the early birds greeted him. It must be the settlers, but why in the middle of the night? It’s not like them for they always made a point to come when you were there, so you can see and suffer the pain. He turned and walked to the back of the house to his olive grove. They too were all gone, all 59 trees! Ok, he thought, this could not be possible. How? Without any sound? The three foot rocky fence surrounding the grove stood securely as it were the day before. He stood there for about a minute, the only significant event in his existence was the thought running over and over in his mind: I must be dreaming, am I dreaming? I must be dreaming…

Mr. Abas, it turns out was not the only one in Gaza experiencing this phenomenon. All over Gaza, and later on the West Bank, people woke up to missing olive trees. People started gathering in the streets in front of their homes, calling each other, asking questions but getting no answers.

Just beyond the wall, if you look from high enough, something like a dark green carpet of fluff moved across the land towards kibbutz’, towns, cities. If you could tap into the phones you could hear a major panic ensue among the Israeli security forces.

“It’s a forest of olive trees moving by itself”

“What do you mean a forest moving by itself? Listen to your self!”

“Sir, am looking it one right now as it moves down the highway, one root goes up then down, followed by another one, like an octopus. I can’t believe my own eyes too sir’.

The trees walked, slowly, steadily, steadfastly. The towns were warned and into the shelters people ran. The trees climbed over the gates, and into towns and into cities. They squeezed in through the doors into the living rooms. Their roots twisted and turned into the floor, past carpets and wood and concrete into the rich soil below. They drilled themselves down until each root found an old Palestinian bone a thousand years old and wrapped itself around tight.

All over in every home across all towns and cities, olive trees had come alive, uprooted themselves and walked many miles and then did the same thing–always planting themselves into homes of Israelis. Palestinian homes were left untouched seemingly as was found later because all of them had olive trees in their vicinities.

Many years later…

Try as they may, with bulldozers, guns and axes, the trees could not be removed. When one stem was cut another grew, when a saw tried to cut the trunk, it broke. Bullets sunk into the wood and disappeared. They tried burning them, and poisoning the soil, but that only made the trees grow stronger and taller.

Then one day as crowds were gathered around one such tree from one Kibbutz, a small boy reached up, pulled down an olive branch, and plucked an olive. He gave it to his mother. One by one people shifted from trying to cut down the trees to harvesting olives. The Israelis however could not harvest more than half of the olives on the trees. No one could figure out this conundrum for many years until word spread that on trees where half of the olives had remained, Palestinians paid to harvest them were able to pluck the olives. When Israelis tried, they could not.

And so this is how it came to be that the land came to be shared once again with Jews and Arabs. Around each olive tree two homes were built, one for a Jew, one for a Palestinian. The olive tree had brought about peace, and for a long long time after that, the land remained happy and prosperous.

It felt so good to see the first one fly

High above April skies

This time over and away from a far away place

To slap the one smashing your face

Why so long

To right the wrong

That let thousands die

Before the first one had to fly

Will the slap that shook the world

Be enough to ensure

That once and for all

Children bleed no more

What does it mean to live in a dystopian future?

Look at videos of carnage and starving children while browsing for your latest toy on Amazon

Walk into a supermarket superfluous with food and while struggling to choose between the chicken and sirloin think of children eating animal feed

Plan your next trip to Mexico, or wait, maybe Hawaii, and while finding the ‘right’ hotel think of two million people locked up in a 5 by 25 mile prison for 17 years

Sit for Netflix and notice the seamless transition from war scenes on your phone to the trending top ten

Remember as you sift through the menu for a good beer others drink salt water

As you file your taxes this year, imagine your dollar bill morphing into a missile and exploding a child’s head

Notice how after reading this, you and me, go about our business aware however faintly that the war tape is playing in the background silently, and how we are absolutely helpless to help

That is why the ostrich shoves it’s head into the ground. It maybe creating an illusion for itself, but in that hole in the dark where the only thoughts are it’s own, and where the noise of life and death stays above ground, there is peace.

Somewhere not too far away.

“Are you ready?” the operator asked.

“Affirmative”, came the reply.

Mr. Whitman was watching his favorite morning talk show justifying the bombings in Gaza. “We have no choice, it is not a war we want, you see. These terrorists use hospitals, houses, schools, UN shelters….what can we do? Tell me, what army in the world warns with leaflets before they bomb. Collateral damage is inevitable, and every life is tragic”.

Mr. Whitman closed his eyes and felt a sadness well up in his heart at the inevitable nature of ‘collateral’ damage. He felt empathy with the ‘collateral’ people, and he felt good about the fact he felt it. And in his mind he felt he was a good man because of this. Then he thought about all of his fellow Israelis, and he felt they also felt the same way. It felt good.

His son David was sitting beside him when the show started, and they were crunching some popcorn. He looked at him. What a young beautiful boy of four. He was kind, smart, and already knew he wanted to be a scientist like his father.

“David, some popcorn please.” Mr. Whitman extended his hand over without turning his head. Five seconds went by and his open palm felt no popcorn. “Daayvaaiid” he said. Always generous, David never hesitated to give food. So when five seconds later still no popcorn dropped in hands still, he turned his head expecting to see perhaps a distracted or sleeping boy. But to Mr. Whitman’s bewilderment, he saw a boy of about the same age as David n the far corner of the couch. Surprised and afraid, he was dirty from his head to his bruised feet, and he was so gaunt and frail it seemed he may have had no food for a while. Mr. Whitman swiveled his head around the room like an owl, then looked back the boy with a quizzical look.

“Who are you? where is David?”

The boy pulled back further into the couch, his arms pulling his legs into his chest. ‘Ma ba3rif’, he said. Mr. Whitman worked with several Arab Palestinians long enough to have picked up a few words. He was certain this was an Arabic word, and it meant ‘I don’t know’.

Then the a news alert suddenly came on the screen.

“We interrupt this program to report a most bizarre event being experienced across all of Israel. In an event that could only be out of a science fiction movie, about 1.1 million Gazan children have been swapped with Israeli children. We cannot begin to understand or imagine how could this might have happened, but the IDF has confirmed that all the children in Gaza being encountered speak Hebrew, and there are reports coming in now that parents are recognizing their children on cameras. Prime Minister Netanyahu has just issued an order to stop all bombings. We are unsure how many Jewish children have been killed so far. I repeat, a ceasefire has been declared. Stay tuned.”

A Sci. Fi. Story.

In a profoundly bizarre event on the morning of March 30^th, 2024, an F-16 pilot on his way to drop 2000 pound bombs on a terrorist target in Jabalia refugee camp violated orders and returned with bombs still on board. An investigation later that day by the pilot’s incensed and bewildered superiors revealed that a hacker calling himself ‘Mr. Empatik’ had tapped into the sophisticated helmet of the pilot and played a highly realistic visual of the target on their visor. The pilot said he first saw a dark room crammed with ‘terrorist’ families, with many children scurrying about like ‘little filthy rats’. Then a very strange thing began to happen. A yamaka appeared on a child’s head, then another, then another, and what was a cacophony of painful Arabic gibberish to his ears began to sound like the sweet sounds of Hebrew. A burning lantern in the middle of the table morphed into a menorah. On a closer look, he saw the faces of two children suddenly turn into his two beautiful boys David and Joshua. Apparently the scene was so realistic it activated all his mirror neurons, stirring empathetic feelings so strong a revulsion set in at the thought of his objectives, followed by a paralysis of the right thumb poised over the red button. A minute later the nose of the plane turned 180 degrees and headed back north.

Information on the hacker remains limited, and the government has officially denied any reference to this event.  However, leaked reports say fear has spread rapidly through military and political ranks in Israel, the USA and Europe, and a coordinated effort to identify and neutralize the hacker has begun. In the words of one anonymous senior US official, ‘Empatik’ poses a serious threat to all future military operations.