Once the Last Palestinian's Killed
Channel: David Rovics
Date: 2023-12-01

Then the pundits and politicians will say "how could we have known," and they'll open another museum.

Lyrics:

Once the Last Palestinian's Killed

In the Congress and the Bundestag you’ll see them wring their hands
And say how they wish in hindsight they had tried to understand
How they wished they’d seen the warning signs and heard the generals speak
And believed them when they talked about the vengeance they would wreak
How they should have known this was not idle conversation
How they should have listened harder when they said “elimination”
Yes once it’s all too late, and the graveyards are all filled
Once the last Palestinian’s killed

On Manhattan Island in the halls of the UN
The whole world will come together to say “never again”
They’ll open a museum full of relics of the past
Before those who used to live there resisted to the last
We’ll look at pictures of the rubble with the dead limbs poking through
The viewers will shed a tear and wish the leaders knew
Before the war ended in the way Ben-Gvir had willed

In the Parliament they’ll say perhaps we should have listened
Instead of purging Europe’s biggest party of internal opposition
Should have paid attention to the millions in the streets
To those massive crowds around the globe voting with their feet
Should have read the signs, should have listened to their words
Instead of denouncing all the talk of genocide as just absurd
Should have looked at the pictures of the bodies charred and grilled

When that last tower block was flattened, in the days before
The last bakery was bombed, in this total war
When there were still kindergartens, when the hospitals still stood
This would have been the time to question if we should
Have been sending all those weapons instead of barring them complete
If instead of cheering on the evil enemy’s defeat
We might have asked if there was anywhere left for flour to be milled

When the project is complete, and they make the desert bloom
Once they’ve finished turning cities into tombs
Once the dead are out of sight and buried in the ground
Once the rubble has been bulldozed and no one hears the sound
Of dying children screaming from somewhere down below
Once the shopping malls are gleaming, and no one needs to know
How many babies bodies are in this soil that we’ve tilled