We will not go down (Song for Gaza)

A Tribute to Palestine



Imagine if you will a land teeming with refugees; a land of the dispossessed, closed off from the outside world; where smuggling is often the only source of subsistence; where families who are not disappeared-are on the brink of starvation; surrounded by an army and bombarded by that army.

The year was 1943. The place: the Warsaw Ghetto.

The description is hauntingly familiar. But it is now 2009.

And this is Gaza.

Roughly the size of the US great capital, Washington DC, it is s closed in on all sides. There is no escape. There is not entry.

And it’s residents-already stateless after 40 years of occupation and a majority of them refugees - are at once being blockaded and bombarded by land, sea, and sky: it is a situation that is unprecedented in modern history.

Gaza-where acute malnutrition rates, after 3 years of Israeli blockade, are now on scale with the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, according to the UN; where half of all Palestinian families eat one meal a day; Where the siege has killed not only lives, but hopes and dreams and futures.

Today in Gaza, no where is safe. People are trapped, terrorized, and traumatized.

This is Gaza.

It is about the denial of basic Palestinians rights. the right to statehood; the rights of refugees to return to their homes; the rights of family to reside together and to visit one another; the right to travel freely; to receive medical treatment; to education; to a childhood free of violence; the right to worship; the right to live free of occupation and siege.

Palestinians must be allowed to realize their most basic human rights-freedom and self-determination, the same concepts this country was founded on.