Issac and Ishmael

Dawn,

And a lone car travels along the road,

Carrying a lone man, lonely with his thoughts.

Thoughts of what he has been through.

Thoughts of what his people have been through.

But if there are thoughts of hate,

There are also thoughts of remorse.

Thoughts

That the innocent shall be punished

For crimes of the guilty.

But he is just following orders from the leader,

And the leader

Could do no wrong.

And when he remembers the bomb underneath his shirt,

There are thoughts about his family,

Along with prayers to a God he has known since birth.

Today I will die, Lord,

My children will lose their father today.

And if you can turn fire into flower, Lord,

Then you will not let my children go astray.

Noon,

The road remained the same,

But the tank that travels towards the opposite direction is not alone.

Yet somehow, here is another lonely man,

Lonely with his thoughts.

He too thinks of what he has been through;

He too thinks of the suffering of his people.

He has the same thoughts of hate,

And the same thoughts of remorse.

The innocent will be punished yet again,

While the guilty ones watch the show.

But he too is just following orders,

From his own leader,

And his leader is probably right.

And when he looks up to find the attack helicopter overhead,

He too thinks of his family;

And he too prays to a God whom he has known forever.

Today I might die, Lord,

My children might never see their father again.

And if you are the God who turned fire into flower, Lord,

Then you will not let my children go astray.

Dusk,

Thousands of years ago,

But here too is a lonely man; except he travels on no road.

Instead, he stands in front of his new home;

Silently observing the inhabitants of the land that has been promised to him.

As his fellow residents light up the lamps in their huts,

He could feel the existence of peace and tranquility.

Here, he believes,

Is a place free of all the oppression,

Free of all the fears,

Free of a system so heinous that it corrupts the soul.

Here is a place, finally,

Where the nightmare is over;

And where the dream has just begun.

And when he hears the parents calling their children to come home,

He first remembers the heinous system, now many miles away,

And then, he remembers a God.

A God whom he has not known forever.

A God whom he has not known since birth.

One day I shall die, Lord,

And my children would be on their own from that day.

Like you saved me when I was thrown into the fire, Lord,

Save my children when they need it,

And do not let them go astray.

Rafi Omar
Dedicated to the innocent civilians, 
both Israeli and in Palestinian,
caught in the midst of this senseless dispute.