The Massacre of the Infants, Bruegel the Elder, commons image
by Michael Rosen
Keir Starmer was asked today
what he thought about
the moment in the Bible
when King Herod ordered that all the male
infants should be killed.
Sir Keir was forthright in his condemnation.
He said this cannot and will not be tolerated.
One interviewer asked him
why then had he authorised the selling of swords
to King Herod which could then have been used
to kill the babies,
to which Sir Keir replied
that was an outrageous accusation
and that he and his colleagues had strained every sinew
to restrain Herod
and that the record stood for itself.
Then,
when he was asked
whether these deaths of innocent people
could be called a ‘massacre’
Sir Keir replied, ‘It’s not for me to say.
and that it’s not helpful to call what’s been going on
“The Massacre of the Innocents”.’
And Sir Keir left to spend more time straining his sinews.
NO FAMINE
by Michael Rosen
After there are no Palestinians left
in Gaza
Prime Minister Ben Gvir will climb through
the rubble and ruins,
turn to the one certified
ratified and licensed cameraman
permitted to enter Gaza
and say into the camera,
‘What famine?
There’s no famine here.
You can see with your own eyes
there is no famine.’
And the fact-checkers will pore over
the footage
and after a week of sifting through the evidence
they will announce
that they saw no evidence
of famine
and will therefore have to conclude
that there is no famine.
When someone points out
that if there are no people
then it is to be expected
there would probably be no famine,
Prime Minister Ben Gvir
will say
that this is
echoing Hamas propaganda
and is a typical antisemitic way
to undermine Israel’s achievements.
There’ll be headlines in the papers
expressing outrage at
how Israel’s Prime Minister has been exposed
to vicious antisemitic attacks,
and back in Gaza
(now renamed the Riviera)
the camera will pan across the scene
of wreckage and ruin
behind Ben Gvir
and close in on a crow
that seems to have found a bit of carrion
which it’s tearing at with its beak
and for a split second
the world wonders if it’s watching a crow
eating a dead person’s finger.
