[lbo-talk] Fwd: Aharon Shabtai: The Poet of Israeli Shame

[Jerry Monaco]

On 9/24/06, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> From: Sara Roy
> Date: September 24, 2006 9:42:08 PM EDT
>
> Aharon Shabtai who is considered one of the greatest poets in Hebrew,
> could not publish his latest poem against the war on Lebanon in any
> "Israeli" paper.
>

Another poem by Shabtai, for those interested in poetry.

     Culture

                 The mark of Cain won't sprout
from a soldier who shoots
at the head of a child
on a knoll by the fence
around a refugee camp--
for beneath his helmet,
conceptually speaking,
his head is made of cardboard.
On the other hand,
the officer has read The Rebel;
his head is enlightened,
and so he does not believe
in the mark of Cain.
He's spent time in museums,
and when he aims
his rifle at a boy
as an ambassador of Culture,
he updates and recycles
Goya's etchings
and Guernica.

Aharon Shabtai