GENOCIDE

by Alan Hardy

In a week when Americans delivered historic wins to Palestinian-American and pro-Palestine candidates in a rebuke of the U.S.-Israel relationship, Israel, unsurprisingly, continued its U.S.-funded genocidal war and apartheid policies in Palestine (American voters were clearly not fooled by Donald Trump’s election-morning announcement about “ending” aid to Israel). In Gaza, Israeli strikes and gunfire killed nearly two dozen Palestinians, including children, and the UN made a dire warning as winter approaches. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers stole Palestinian houses, and the Israeli military forced Palestinians to demolish their own homes. —Zeteo, November 7, 2026

There’s no need for politicians 

to put a stop to their crimes.

They start wars, kill and maim, 

commit genocide, without risk.

So long as there's no end in sight

time forgives them everything.

While they smile their televisual smiles, 

the people turn to discussion of inflation rates,

quickly forget 

their masters' other naughty little tricks.

The evil the government has done doesn't matter

provided it hasn't ended,

and the slaughter of the innocents

becomes just another day in the week

that comes round.

Alan Hardy has for many years run an English language school for foreign students (in UK). Poems recently published in Red Poets, Militant Thistles, Outposts, Ink Sweat & Tears, Sideways Magazine, The Candyman's Trumpet, Orbis, Forge Zine, The Argyle Literary Magazine, Alien Buddha, Spillwords, Chewers, Feversofthemind  and others.