“You are famous, Sir, for welcoming and embracing children.”
“Yes, that is right. Suffer the little children to come unto me.”
“And also for protecting them.”
“It is the most heinous of sins to harm them in any way.”
“Quite, and just to remind our viewers, you once said that ‘Whosoever shall harm one of these little ones, it is better that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.’”
“Exactly. Though you misquote me.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I actually said “Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me…”
“So the more than thirty thousand children killed by the Israeli army in occupied Palestine are not covered in this, what should we call it, ‘threat of consequences’, because they did not believe in you?”
For a moment Jesus does not respond, gazing at me calmly and serenely, smiling long-sufferingly at my apparent lack of understanding.
“I have no difficulty extending the consequences to those who harm even children that do not believe in me,” he finally responds. “But occasionally there are exceptional circumstances that must be considered.”
“So even if those Palestinian children had believed in you, the killers still escape the millstone?”
“I regret the death of any child, especially at the hands of grown men and women. But as I say, there are exceptions, as for the IDF.”
“That seems rather inconsistent with your reputation, Sir.”
“Well, as the former British prime minister Keir Starmer once said, ‘Israel has a right to defend itself.’”
“For which he felt starving children to death is justified. Would you have denied bread and fish to children when feeding the 5000, if it were necessary to protect the interests of a state?”
Another serene silence with smiles.
“Sir, are you fearful of being called an anti-Semite if you speak the truth?”
“That is not possible. I am of Jewish heritage myself.”
“Zionists do not appear to share that view, Sir. They frequently level the charge at Jews.”
The serene silence with smiles continues, while Jesus fades from visibility.
Matthew 19:14 (King James Version) — Jesus welcoming children:
“Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.”
Matthew 18:6 (King James Version) — the millstone warning:
“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”