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Frame 313

@shumakerart


The government says it wasn't drones,

just like they said the camera lied

when Zapruder's 8mm caught the skull

exploding backwards, physics screaming

against the lone gunman fairy tale.

 

Now we got Family Boat footage,

11:45 PM off Sidi Bou Said,

the Portuguese flag burning

as mechanical death drops from darkness,

six souls on deck extinguishing flames

while Tunisian officials call it

"a fire in a life jacket".

 

Same day Starmer stands at his podium,

mouth full of parliamentary honey,

declaring "no evidence of genocide"

while the Mediterranean burns red,

while children's bodies wash ashore

like broken campaign promises,

his tongue black with Palestinian ash.

 

The film doesn't lie.

Instagram pixels bleeding truth

across fibre optic cables,

more honesty than Downing Street's

daily briefings where genocide

becomes "self defence",

where five countries bombed

becomes "protecting democracy".

 

Gaza burns,

Lebanon bleeds,

Syria weeps,

Tunisia smolders,

Qatar's peace talks turn to ash,

and still they claim victimhood,

still they wrap themselves

in martyrdom's mask

while dropping white phosphorus

on refugee camps at teatime.

 

Frame by frame, I witness:

deliberate strikes on aid vessels,

Greta Thunberg's steering committee

scattered across Mediterranean waves,

while Starmer shakes Netanyahu's hand,

calls it "special relationship",

while our tax money buys bullets

that shatter Palestinian skulls like watermelons.

 

The stench of burning flesh

rises from five different countries

on the same September day

Starmer declares his conscience clear,

the same day he signs weapons deals

with his children's future,

trades their inheritance

for party unity.

 

But every drone they dropped

on the Family Boat only forged

the flotilla's hearts into steel,

their resolve harder than bunker walls,

their love for Palestine

burning brighter than phosphorus,

unsinkable as documented truth.

 

Same breath, same lie:

"We're just defending ourselves"

echoes from Tel Aviv to Westminster,

while the body count climbs

and Starmer counts his votes,

his conscience sold by the pound of flesh,

his hands sticky with children's blood.

 

Tonight a Palestinian mother

will search the rubble for her daughter,

will find only a small shoe,

a broken doll,

a severed hand

still clutching a piece of bread,

still warm.

 

Tomorrow Starmer will tell Parliament

there's no evidence of genocide

while that mother's screams

echo through every arms factory,

through every polling booth

where we pretend our votes are clean.

 

The drones came silent as cancer,

the families died like songs

cut short mid verse,

while millions march in London,

in Paris, in Berlin,

their voices swallowed by government silence,

their votes meaningless as prayers

in the face of arms deals

and diplomatic handshakes.

 

We watch from our kitchens,

powerless as our leaders

count oil money instead of bodies,

sign weapons contracts

instead of ceasefire agreements,

and in the morning

the world will wake up,

check the football scores,

and pretend we don't exist.

 

But we do exist.

We are the stones that break their teeth,

the salt that stings their conscience,

the olive trees that grow

through the cracks in their empire,

and no drone,

no parliament,

no silence

will ever erase us.

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