Hi all my sandal-wearing, apple-juice-drinking, lentil-eating peace-loving and Bob-Dylan-worshipping friends i.e. most of the people in the world I care about -
Today is Bob Dylan's birthday. I'd just like to remind you all of a particular song of Bob Dylan's, from his album Infidels, produced if memory serves by Mark Knopfler. The song and the album appeared in 1983, about 15 months after Israel's invasion of Lebanon. 'Operation Peace for Galilee' organised and to some degree led by Ariel Sharon, who was Defence Minister in the Likud government of Menachem Begin, culminated in the summer-long siege and bombardment of Beirut, and the camp massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Tens of thousands of innocent Lebanese and Palestinians were killed or injured that summer. Estimates vary but something between 800 and 3000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were slaughtered in the most brutal manner imaginable in the camps, over three terrifying days in mid-September. The killings were carried out by Israel's Christian Phalange allies, led by the late Elia Hobeika. The ghastly proceedings - documented unforgettably by the late Robert Fisk and by Jonathan Randal - were overseen, facilitated and watched by soldiers of the IDF, which had surrounded and controlled the camps. The 'most moral army in the world' never lifted a finger to stop the butchery.
At this time, Bob Dylan, peacenik and anti-war campaigner, saw fit to release a song - 'Neighbourhood Bully' - of which the lyrics run as follows:
His enemies say he's on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He's the neighborhood bully.
He's criticized and condemned for being alive
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in
He's the neighborhood bully.
He's wandered the earth an exiled man
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn
He's always on trial for just being born
He's the neighborhood bully.
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He's the neighborhood bully.
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac
He's the neighborhood bully.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side
He's the neighborhood bully.
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly. To hurt one they would weep
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep
He's the neighborhood bully.
Every empire that's enslaved him is gone
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand
In bed with nobody, under no one's command
He's the neighborhood bully.
No contract that he signed was worth that what it was written on
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health
He's the neighborhood bully.
Nothing, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits for feed
He's the neighborhood bully.
Does he change the course of rivers? Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill
Running out the clock, time standing still
Neighborhood bully.
