The heartbreaking new Palestine poem to read on Michael Rosen Day 2024

National treasure Michael Rosen recently posted a new poem online. And as today is Michael Rosen Day, marking 50 years since the release of the author’s first book, sharing his poignant critique of genocidal Western propaganda is a perfect way to celebrate his work.

Michael Rosen Day: exposing and opposing genocidal propaganda

Rosen has long helped to educate children and adults alike about the horrors of the Holocaust, and the dangers of antisemitism. It’s an issue close to his heart because fascists murdered members of his own family. Consequently, he has consistently criticised the fascist crimes against the Palestinian people too. This is despite facing antisemitic right-wing abuse as a result of his anti-fascist principles.

His new poem – apt for Michael Rosen Day – uses irony to expose the racist propaganda efforts of Western corporate media to minimise or provide cover for Israel’s crimes against Palestinian people, whether that’s the murder of thousands of children in the Gaza genocide, the ongoing apartheid system, the violent anti-Palestinian pogroms in the West Bank, or the whole project of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territories.

Rosen exposes the hypocrisy of Western elites who clearly value some lives more than others, saying:

Palestinians don’t count.
Palestinians don’t have names
Palestinians aren’t Palestinian.
Palestine isn’t Palestine.
Palestine wasn’t Palestine.
There is no such word as Palestine.
There is no such word as Palestinian.
The land, (that the people who say they are Palestinian call Palestinian land), is not Palestinian land
The house (that a person who says they’re Palestinian, [says] is a Palestinian house),
is not a Palestinian house.
In fact, the house is not a house.
In fact, the person is not a person.
Palestinians don’t count.

pic.twitter.com/j847FXRkfR

— Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 NICE 爷爷 (@MichaelRosenYes) November 10, 2024

Rosen has joined hundreds of other authors in pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.

We must speak up for the children

The Michael Rosen Day website shares the author’s ‘manifesto‘, which focuses on the value of reading for children:

1. Reading books helps children make the most of what school and the world offer them.

2. Books give children language, thoughts, ideas and feelings.

3. Books show them places and times and cultures very near and dear to them.

4. Books show them places and times and cultures they may not have come across before.

5. Books help children walk in other people’s shoes, seeing things from someone else’s point of view.

6. Books help children see that they are not alone.

7. We have to do what we can to put books into children’s hands.

8. We have to do what we can to find space and time for children to talk about books.

9. We have to celebrate children’s books.

10. Children’s books are for everyone because we are all children at some time or another.

Israeli occupation forces have systematically targeted Gaza’s educational institutions (and people belonging to them) during the ongoing genocide. They have destroyed or damaged over 80% of schools, in what experts call ‘educide’ or ‘scholasticide’. This means that, in addition to children’s fear of joining the 16,765 children whom Israel has already killed, they have little to no access to books.

The sad reality is that Western political and media elites are selling us the idea that “Palestinians don’t count”. They may not say so as explicitly as Rosen’s poem does, but their actions say it clearly.

So for the sake of Palestinian children in Gaza, and for the sake of humanity, we must resist that.

We must keep exposing the racist hypocrisy.

We must support Palestinian children.

And we must keep taking every step we possibly can to end apartheid, end ethnic cleansing, and end genocide – in Palestine and all around the world.

Featured image via the Canary