What can we do about Palestine?

I stand in front of you now
a metaphorical stick in my hand
I bang it three times on the wooden floor
Three is the sound of an urgent alarm

Genocide speaks in a passive voice[1]
It keeps the easily-upset comfortable
and never reveals who gives the commands

I hear that voice in Gaza
I hear it in the holocaust of the European Jews
and I hear it in the voice of the British Empire
It always sounds the same

But this time there are videos

You can hear the soundtrack of gun shots
see the homeless people carrying their belongings
hear the testimonies of prisoners
read the statistics
and the poems

The people speak
and sometimes they shout and cry
They do not hide their bitterness

It is safe for us
to see the videos and read the poems
but the people who make these records are often killed

And everyone knows this is happening

In his cozy coffee-smelling office
a Member of Parliament says
New Zealand cannot do much

I bang the stick nine times on the floor
Three times for the mothers and fathers
three times for the places of exile
and three to wake the conscience

From a little town
in a little country
there are so many things we can’t do

But we have command of our language

We can say the word ‘Palestine’
and the word ‘genocide’
in our houses and our cafes
These words matter

We can replace
‘the war in Gaza’
with
‘the war on Gaza’

We can replace
‘Three children were killed in Gaza today’
with
‘Israeli soldiers killed three children in Gaza today’

Our friends and family may look away
or stop answering our texts
but we will not die of that

One day things will be different
People will say
they were always against the killing
Perhaps Israeli soldiers, meeting in a bar
will say the names of friends who went dark
and the ones who still need pills and drink to get by
Perhaps the balance is tipping, even now. I think it is

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[1] In his book Perfect Victims Mohammed El-Kurd refers to the significance of the passive voice

Lynn Jenner

Lynn Jenner lives in Waipapa in Te Tai Tokerau. Her prose poetry manuscript The Gum Trees of Kerikeri won the Kathleen Grattan poetry award in 2025 and was published by OUP  in 2026. Her first book Dear Sweet Harry (AUP) won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Best First Book of Poetry prize in 2010. Her second book Lost and Gone Away (AUP) was a finalist in the Ockham Awards non-fiction category in 2016. Lynn is a member of Alternative Jewish Voices.