Open Letter to My Cousins in Israel

We are live in the belly of the beast
A two-headed monster
I'm a child of the East
Africa, my family were all refugees
Scattered round the planet over continent and seas
Some of us landed in land that just wasn't free
Found contradiction where we tried to find peace
Real ground friction, that'll make you find a piece
It sounded so different, they were selling us a dream
Some of us were force-conscripted into beef
To become the face of another person's grief
Some of us in homes to which others hold keys
We're not treated equally
We are not here peacefully
We repeat everything
That is unhealed here
Victims are us and we victimize others
At the same time
With the same line they used on us
Occupied Palestine
Where the soldiers show up and they look like us
All of us got our own blood-stained hands for something
While the same state would just kill us for nothing
Here on stolen land there can never be justice

Like a rock in a slingshot
The last hope when your options are all gone
Against an army and a twenty-foot wall
Under all these apartheid laws
My cousin's a different kind a second-class citizen
The worst kind of warden in this prison
He'd be locked up if he isn't
Their enemies are not different

Life in the belly of the beast
A two-headed state, way they operate and think
We are separated now by continent and sea
And over here they talk about "the land of free speech"
Until you critique Zionism or police
You can boycott something based on your beliefs
But if you're talking Israel, then they got beef
They even passed laws against organizing meets
That mention BDS, just depending where you be
We pay all these taxes to build a war machine
That takes Palestinian land and ways of being
I know it's depressing
They say it's a different oppression
But a story is the most potent form of a weapon
They create fear to keep us all in suspension
While they made the whole world's biggest open air prisons
Listen, this isn't religion
This is just capitalism
And if our oppression's connected
Then our freedom is too, so let's get it

Like a rock in a slingshot
The last hope when your options are all gone
Against an army and a twenty-foot wall
Under all these apartheid laws
My cousin's a different kind of second-class citizen
The worst kind of warden in this prison
He'd be locked up if he isn't
Their enemies are not different

If we want to get free, then Palestine must be
If we want to get free, then Palestine must be
If we want to get free, then Palestine must be
If we want to get free, then Palestine must be