Due not least to constant
U.S. vetoes
Of U.N. resolutions
In New York,
Israel’s occupation
Of Palestinian land and lives
Persists.
Meantime, America’s
Pander President,
His eye on re-election
And the impending threat
Of a nuclear-arsenalled
Shiite Iran,
In the name of Abraham
Is keenly brokering
The lucrative marriage
Of hubristic Israeli hi-tech
And Hell-extracted Saudi oil.
Emperor Biniaminus
And Sultan Binsalman
Are poised to tie the knot.
Fifty years ago,
On Yom Kippur,
I was watching a battle
Between black and red ants
In the wilderness
Behind the Mount of Olives.
Pink Floyd’s haunting “Us and Them”,
To which I’d listened that very day,
Echoed in my mind.
Suddenly the desert was invaded
By the urgent, undulating wail
Of a ghostly siren.
Tiptoeing past a cluster
Of clamorous Palestinian youths —
Transistor radios at their ears —
Near the Garden of Gethsemane,
I returned to the campus
Of the Hebrew University
On adjacent Mount Scopus,
Where in 70 A.D.
Titus’ besieging army
Had encamped.
Today, in true Orwellian fashion,
Jerusalem has become
The new Rome.
As for the deity
Who would be worshipped
In the prospective
Third Temple,
He might just as well
Be called Mars.
Ramat Gan
13 August 2023