1
Apartheid Israel has destroyed all mosques in Gaza,
destroyed or damaged most archaeological sites,
most secular historical buildings,
all universities and museums
with their archives of historical documents,
but archaeologists, art historians, cultural historians,
historians, museum curators etc are almost all
completely silent. Of the prominent people
who were vocal about the destruction
of the Bamiyan Buddhas, I've seen one
(1) to speak against the destruction
of Gaza's cultural, historical and religious sites.
One(1). All the high and noble words
about protecting shared cultural heritage,
all the laments about loss
of irreplaceable works of religious art
was apparently just pointless rhetoric
to be used on some occasions
and ignored on others.
2
When the Taliban and the Islamic State
destroyed Gandharan and Assyrian art,
when Islamists destroyed shrines in Mali
the rhetoric flowed, an abundant flood,
but now, near silence, and everyone
with a spine who tries
to speak is attacked, blacklisted, fired
so that the destruction can go on,
all these scholarly professions now
fighting on the side of destruction
of everything they claim to hold dear,
everything of whose torch bearers
they have appointed themselves.
Because Israel is now the vandal
and Israel can do nothing wrong
because it's Israel. The circular logic
of idiots embraced by the best
educated and most learned,
reduced to gibbering fellow travelers
of Apartheid genocidaires
as our shared cultural heritage
is destroyed. But it's all-right -
it's Israel doing it,
and Israel can do nothing wrong
because it's Israel.
15.05.2025
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