Fields of Palestine (Adaptation) by Seth Staton Watkins

Fields of Palestine (Adaptation) by Seth Staton Watkins On the heels of yet another massacre of Palestinian civilians retrieving food aid, this time by an Israeli military helicopter, here is my adaptation of the poignant and timeless ’Fields of Athenry’ by Pete St. John. The parallels between the Irish struggle for Independence and the Palestinian struggle are many, including their origins in British colonial occupation and the deployment of the Black and Tans in both Ireland and Palestine to subdue Irish and Arab nationalists through acts of terrorism and barbarity. To quote British Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, “Since 1948 the Israelis have had the whip hand, and their victory in June 1967 has turned them into violent oppressors…from his [Edward Said’s] perspective both peoples [Jews and Palestinians] were ‘communities of suffering’. It is precisely because the Jews suffered so much as the hands of the Nazis, according to Said, that they became obsessed with security and end