Rocks for Palestine

The familiar image of Palestinians throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers is depicted using only the characters and shapes of the Arabic Diwani Jali script from the poem:

We do not throw these rocks with hate.
We throw these rocks with love,
Love for a murdered brother,
Love for a sick grandmother without medicine,
Love for a family we cannot visit,
Love for a world we will never travel,
Love for a freedom we will never experience,
Love for an ancient people.
We throw these rocks with love for Palestine.

I wrote this poem specifically for this piece. Where I come from in Tennessee, I have always been raised to believe that the Palestinians are the aggressors in the Arab Israeli conflict. After reading more about the subject and visiting the Middle East, you discover that this could not be further from the truth. The Palestinians are living under a military occupation which has been deemed illegal by UN sanctions. However, Israel has repeatedly ignored these sanctions. Palestinian homes are continually being destroyed, often with the residents inside, to make way for Israeli settlers. Palestinians are not allowed to travel within their own country, nor are they allowed to return if they leave. During World War II, Hitler tried to eradicate the Jewish populations of Europe. Today, the Israeli government is trying to do the same to the Arab Muslim population of Palestine. This piece aims to show that the Palestinian are not a warmongering people, but rather, a people who are simply defending themselves just as any one of us would.