As luck would have it, I was reading an obituary of Italian Nobel literary laureate, Dario Fo when news broke about this year’s winner, Bob Dylan.
But the coincidence does not end there.
Just as some people like historian and Telegraph columnist, Tim Stanley opine that Dylan “hasn’t written any literature”, when Fo received his award, “the announcement rankled with many within the Italian literary and political establishment. Fo’s critics considered him to be a performer above all else … (and) literary critic Geno Pampaloni wrote in the right-wing national press: “A Nobel Prize? It’s a joke.”
But here I want to confine myself to lauding both Dylan’s strong tribal bonds and his unswerving loyalty to Israel even when harassed by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Indeed, like others, I’ve been surprised to learn of his almost irrational support for extremist right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane and to discover his song, Neighborhood Bully. This was written after the 1982 Lebanon war and likens Israel to an 'exiled man' who is unjustly labelled as an aggressor for fending off constant attacks.
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Neighborhood Bully
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
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
The neighborhood bully just lives to survive
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
The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land
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
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
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
Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
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
He got no allies to really speak of
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
Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
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
Now his holiest books have been trampled upon
No contract he signed was worth 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
What’s anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin’, they say. He just likes to cause war
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed
He’s the neighborhood bully
What has he done to wear so many scars?
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
Copyright © 1983 by Special Rider Music
© Natalie Wood (13 October 2016)
