Hear my curse on the nation of Israel and the nation of Palestine.
May the generals of your armies
be little, heavy-burdened donkeys,
and your leaders be patient, old sheep.
May you listen discriminately to your God,
testing the validity of the transmissions,
and heeding not His calls to vengeance.
May your women go bareheaded in His presence
and dance in His temples,
may their wombs be fruitful in girl children.
May your young men take no joy in combat
and your old men be fearful for them, saying,
“Is it right that my son give his life for me?
Am I a better man than he is?
Nay, let him live to be a shepherd
or garage mechanic or professor of ancient languages.”
Let the child set down the stone in his hand
and be allowed to learn to make bricks for the building of houses.
Let the mouths that spit forth missiles be stopped with earth.
Let those who give their lives to destroy other lives
be called not heroes but murderers, the disgrace of their people.
Let the day come, let it come now,
when the name warrior will be a name of folly
and the word victory mean a vain thing.
Let the day come, let it come now,
when the wine of intolerant belief is poured out on the sand
so that all may drink from the well they share with their neighbor.
The wine of belief is strong,
driving mad those who drink it:
the wine of hatred is like wormwood:
they who drink it cannot cease drinking.
May the grapes of those vineyards rot on the vines,
may the casks of the vintners burst asunder,
may the vintners be ashamed of their folly.
Then may your peoples go to the well in the marketplace
and draw water together, go out into the desert
seeking the wellsprings, conversing together,
forgetful of old wrongs, remembering kinship.
Let them speak long together of justice
and kneel down then to drink
from the wells and springs that are life in that desert,
praising the giver of the holy waters.
And may this curse be upon you
and your sons and your daughters
to the ninth generation.