I come to bury Gaza not to praise Hamas
The evil that men do lives after them;
In the newsreels and blog posts
Whatever good is ever said of them is interred with their bones;
So let it be with Hamas.
The noble Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer
Have told us Hamas was a terrorist organisation:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously has Gaza answered for it
Through bombing and massacres.
Here, under leave of the last vestiges of free speech
For Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer are honourable men;
So are all the politicians of the Conservative and Labour Parties, all honourable men–
Come I to speak at the funeral of Gaza.
Palestinians were my friends, faithful and just to me:
But Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer say they are terrorists;
And Rishi and Keir are honourable men.
When the Palestinian children have cried, the world has wept:
Support for terrorism should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Rishi and Keir say we are supporters of terrorists;
And Rishi and Keir are honourable men.
I write not to disprove what Rishi and Keir have said,
But here I am to speak of what I know.
You all did love children once, not without cause:
Your own children were once the darling of your eyes
What cause withholds you then, to mourn for the Palestinian children?
Justice! You are torn to shreds by brutish beasts,
And men and women have lost their reason. Bear with me;
My heart is in the uncleared rubble of bombed out Gaza,
And I must pause till it return to me.
Dapo Ladimeji
(Courtesy W Shakespeare – Julius Caesar)