BOLD passages indicate Zolf’s poem Grounds for deletion
1. Racist remarks, as well as slurs on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and gender
I think this is fair. There is a lot of racial, religious, ethnic and gender based tension in this region of the world. You cannot have a constructive conversation when you are hurling negative remarks at someone for something that they were born with.
2. Use of the terms Nazi, Hitler, ethnic cleansing to describe the actions and policies of Israelis or Palestinians
I don’t think it’s right to call people a Nazi or Hitler unless they are actually a member of the Nazi party or are Hitler. Ethnic cleansing however, I think might be fair to use depending on the context.
3. Personal attacks, vulgarities and profanities directed at other participants in the forum. Hang in there, Shugga!
It’s not fair to attack someone personally when they are on a blog (I am assuming that is what this grounds for deletion policy for a blog or some type of forum) that is discussing real issues. No swearing! Damn, guess I can’t comment on her blog! “Hang in there, Shugga!” must have been meant for me…
I suppose I can’t post Israeli/Palestinian porn either…. such a shame! (sarcasm) Why would I want to post something like that on a blog post about geopolitics?
4. If you are patient in one moment of anger you will escape 100 days of advocacy of violence against individuals or religious, ethnic or racial groups.
Don’t be too quick and respond hastily when you are angry.
A tip I remember is when you are really mad- write it down but do not hit send. If a few days later you reread it and still feel exactly the same then it’s okay to send it. In other words do not say anything you will regret!
How is being patient grounds for deletion? I think her wording needs to change to be more clear and concise.
5. Use of the phrase “There are no Palestinians” or derivatives thereof. It is only when the cold season comes that we notice the pine and cypress to be ever green.
Cultural erasure will not be tolerated and that is a good thing. Winter has come and made the Palestinian decidous trees go into hiding. They lost their leaves but they are still alive… Just sleeping waiting for winter to be over. But for right now, all you can see are the Israeli evergreens… bright against the white winter snow.
What is the importance of this policy that it is being placed in this book of poems? I think that maybe it shows that there is tension on the internet regarding this issue. It’s not just physical geopolitical violence anymore it has spread onto the world wide web. So whoever set up this blog page had to create rules for “posters” to follow and if they broke these rules they would be deleted for not complying, but ultimately for not adding something constructive to the conversation.
So, there certainly is a commentary on manners/civility/ethics implied by re-framing a netiquette document (and you can find the original source for this) as a poem. Still, keeping the number etc. makes this seem MOREof a set of rules still than some of the other pieces. The title is “original”and combined with it being in a book of poetry invites us to think about the different resonances to such a policy. It points both to the threat of disagreement disrupting a civil discourse AND also insists upon an authority which will enforce. Here then, the interest …. how different is deletion from, say, disappearance, imprisonment, the erasure of a village from a map, the extermination of a people. Yes, different in scale and importance … but are there parallels implied when this list becomes a poem within a book of poems such as this?
Deletion, to me, is a technological term. We delete files, we delete people off facebook but it is hard to “delete” someone or something in real life. You can burn pictures, you can shoot someone (not recommended or endorsed by myself) but it’s really not deleting someone or something. It’s burning or shooting… The fact that she used this makes me think that she wanted to show us that it’s more than just a geo-political fight, it has also found it’s way onto the internet- a relatively new place for humans to fight. There’s no blood or gore, just nasty words. But we cannot underestimate the power of words… We also cannot forget that once it’s put out into cyber space, we cannot really delete it. You can banish them from the blog site and remove their comment but someone will remember what was said, and they might even screenshot it for proof. Also, if you are good at computer hacking there is probably a way to uncover or recover “deleted” posts. So, that’s the parallel I see… these battles are fought on land and on the internet. It all boils down to ideology and maps.