Yes…this will be fun.  A love affair between a 64 year-old Palestinian man (Me-I’m 64) and a 62 year-old Israeli woman that started back during the Six Day War in ’67 (Summer of Love).  My apologies to Bob Dylan, but I can’t help it.  I’m calling it:

  TANGLED UP IN JEWS

Yeah.  let’s see…

“Early one mornin’ the rockets were flyin’

I was layin’ on my face

Wonderin’ if she would get hit by one

If she was still livin’ in occupied space

Her folks they came over from Florida

Settled on the West Bank

Her daddy didn’t like the rag on my head

He had me driven off by a tank

Then I was standin’ in the Gaza Strip

Listenin’ to my friend Bin

I must admit I felt a little uneasy

When the IDF started comin’ in

And went tearing through…

…Tangled up in Jeewws…”

I met her during the Six Day War

Back in nineteen sixty-seven

She fed me bread at the interment camp

And it wasn’t even leavened

She was sixteen and unorthodox

And I was eighteen for Allah

Her daddy ran the camp like a Nazi

She said: “You’re not like all those mullahs”



And then she turned around to look at me

As her Daddy had me led away

I heard her say over his shoulder:

“We’ll meet again someday

On a settlement that’s new…”

…Tangled up in Jeewws

We were living together in ’73

When I volunteered for the Yum Kipper War

The Egyptian captain didn’t like me much

He said: “You’re the one with the Jewish Whore”

All the time I was in the Sinai

I kept her picture pure as a flower bud

Wonderin’ if we’d ever be the same again

If her hair was still red as blood

But Ariel Sharon kicked our asses

And Sadat said he’d had enough

Everything was gettin’ occupied

And Tel Aviv’s terms were gettin’ tougher

And harder to chew…

…Tangled up in Jeewws

Yes.  And must have my hero flee to New York City for a while and hit the nightclub scene, like that little fucker Arafat did in the mid-seventies.  Have him run into Jesse Jackson in ’84 who will say to him:



“…so you better take that rag off of your head

And take a look around

Don’t you know where the fuck you are?

Don’t you know this is Hymietown?

I said so on the news…

…Tangled up in Jeeewws…”

Oh, this will be…Hey, gotta remember to mention The Prophet:



“And I studied the words of Muhammad

It didn’t take me very long

Never understood what all the fuss was about

Maybe HE should have made it a song



I threw rocks in the Intifadas

And Bin taught me how to watch out for mines

But I never could get her out of my head

I was wonderin’ about her all the time



So after years of hangin’ out with Bin

I became withdrawn

The only thing I knew how to do

Was to make a bomb

And I always made it wrong

But I paid my dues…

…Tangled up in Jeeewws…”

So, this should piss about everybody off.  If I do it right, that is.  

Peter Buknatski

Montpelier, Vt.