Herzog Urges Goodwill Gesture Of Letting Pharaoh Slay Some Babies

Pithom, Ancient Egypt, January 4 – Israelite Opposition head Isaac Herzog criticized what he called his nation’s “intransigent” leadership, and called on his fellow Hebrews to make some concessions in their ongoing conflict with the Egyptian king. To kick off negotiations with Pharaoh on positive terms, this morning Herzog suggested that his people agree to kill at least some of their newborn sons.

Pharaoh issued an edict ordering Hebrew midwives to kill all male infants, but the midwives have defied the order, which escalated tensions. The king then instructed his own people to help enforce the edict by tossing all the Hebrew newborn males into the Nile, but the Israelites continued to resist, even illegally concealing pregnancies and births to circumvent the law. Herzog, concerned that such defiance will ostracize the Israelites from the international community, told his people that painful compromise is necessary in order to secure a lasting peace.

“We have to understand the Egyptian narrative and not look only at our own selfish need to survive,” said the Labor party leader. “They feel threatened, and rightly so, by our rapid growth. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing for them to levy extortionate taxes, draft all of us for hard labor, and try to reduce our population. We have to stop being so narrow-minded as to think that our desire to survive as a people trumps our neighbors’ need to feel secure in our subjugation.”

Herzog and his allies in the Opposition laced into the current leadership, accusing them of failure. “It’s been years since conditions deteriorated, but we’re worse off than we ever were,” declared Tzipi Livni. “The slavery, taxes, and overall oppression are a searing indictment of our so-called leadership’s policies. They refuse to see the isolation that results from continued insistence on not being enslaved.”

“If elected, I promise we will do the utmost to bring this sad story to an end,” she vowed. “In two generations, I guarantee there will no longer be any Hebrews wondering where and how their leadership went astray.”

Herzog and Livni hope to unseat the serving leadership in approaching elections, and have allied themselves with various other parties opposed to the notion that the Israelites should seek to differentiate themselves from the surrounding cultures, even at the price of disappearing.

“It’s perfectly fine for you to believe your ancestors received a promise from the Lord that you would be redeemed from servitude,” explained Ilan Gilon of Meretz, a key Labor ally. “But it’s straight-up religious coercion to impose on other Israelites the idea that they should resist being swallowed up by Egyptian culture. Look how enlightened and advanced Egypt is!” he exclaimed, gesturing toward intricate hieroglyphics illustrating infanticide. “Why would anyone question the values of such a rich, educated, obviously successful culture?”