By Leon Rosselson
Experts say that it is rarely fatal but can cause many unpleasant symptoms including brainrot, selective vision and moral turpitude. I am referring, of course, to zionusitis, a disease that has become increasingly fashionable in these grim times.
An outbreak of zionusitis occurred recently on a Virgin Atlantic airline when passengers were forced to confront a menu that included the item Palestinian couscous salad. Those who harboured the zionusitis virus were immediately reduced to gibbering wrecks. Some fainted clean away while one man clutched his head and called out again and again OI VA VOI LI which airline staff interpreted as a spell to ward off the evil spirits. Investigations confirmed that the spark that set off this explosion of inanity was not the word salad nor the word couscous but the P word. The highly contagious nature of this sickness is evidenced by the fact that the boss of Virgin, Sir Richard Branson, though he had had no direct personal contact with these poor unfortunates, almost immediately succumbed to a nasty attack of moral turpitude and deleted the offending word from the menu.
Curiously enough this is not the first time an item of food has been responsible for a zionusitis happening. In July 2014, an elderly Jewish couple misheard the word hummus as Hamas and fled screaming from the restaurant.
Along with paranoid hysteria, those who suffer from this disease often exhibit a symptom experts call reality disconnect, whereby they are overtaken by delusions and fantasies which lead them to see things that aren’t there — antisemitism, for example. Typically, they will then indulge in an orgy of finger-jabbing and wild accusations although whether this behaviour is genuinely felt or is simply a way of calling attention to themselves is never entirely clear.
A virulent strain of this disease is particularly prevalent among Labour MPs, including members of the shadow cabinet. Having become infected, they will intone, over and over again, the words peace-process-two-state-solution, peace-process-two-state-solution, peace-process-two-state-solution, until challenged as to the meaning of this mysterious mantra when they will clap their hands over their ears and sing out na-na-na-na-na-can’t-hear-you before collapsing in a catatonic heap.
Many experts argue that, once contracted, zionusitis is incurable but there have been cases where a healthy dose of reality administered 3 times daily for 6 months has effected a remarkable recovery.
The source of this illness has been traced to a small self-styled democracy somewhere in the Middle East which calls itself Israel and claims to be Jewish. Whatever that means.
