The Indian Fence

An Indian security fence is going up to defend against Islamic Terrorist infiltration from Bangladesh. Makes you wonder about the "International Solidarity Movement" people. The folks who come to Israel to stand in the way of bulldozers, throw rocks at Israeli soldiers, and attack our security fence for the cameras.
Do you think they'll be as outraged by the Indian fence? Do you think they'll go throw rocks at Indian soldiers and attack the Indian fence for the cameras?

Chicken Flu (1997)

What we worried about. Eight years ago. Hah! Everything old is new again!

Ask Mr. Predicto

There was a clever American anti-war slogan in the Sixties. It was "What if they gave a war and nobody came?"

We now know the surprising answer to the question.

After Arafat

American comic strips were invented at the same time as cinema. The strips competed with movies, which were then silent. The row of panels were seen as the frames of a film.

To indicate rapid movement they often used "Whiz lines".

In order to further challenge the silent films, cartoonists tried to add loud sound effects! They did this by using the once familiar BANG! POW! WHAM! and CRASH!.

A lovely comedy technique is the "offstage event" which tricks the audience into using their imaginations to supply the missing pictures.

In the above cartoon I use all three of these old-timey devices to express dissappointment with Yasser Arafat's successor, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.

Just a Joke (1986)

Just a joke. Or is it?

Canadians

Canada and America seem to be having problems these days, largely coming from Canadian opposition to the liberation of Iraq and its annoyance with being seen as a U.S. hinterland to the north. Everyone accepts the use of the terms Americans and Canadians. That is, of course, incorrect. There are two countries in North America. Two American countries. One is Canada and the other a Federal republic made up of 50 states, called the United States of America.

Whatever "problems" the two are having, they should try living with our neighbors!

Russian Salesmen (1995)

Ten years ago. Russian salesmen had "hot stuff" to sell to Iran.

Anti-Arab Islamic Terror

It seems to be sliding out of all control and reason! Like the maniac played by Jack Nicholson in the movie "The Shining" they come slashing their way into our wedding parties and Pizza places and discotheques. Instead of screaming Nicholson's chilling Heeeeeere's Johnny! they shriek Allah Hu Akbar! to announce the coming bloodbath.

I thought about the mosques, the hotels, the buses, etc. Thought about the blowing up of innocents, the endless carnage.... And then I started doing the cartoon.
I used Mr. Shuldig who is my alter ego.
From time to time I do a Dry Bones cartoon that simply sums up and states the situation in a way that makes you think. Hopefully in a way that will make you laugh. The laugh is the sugar coating that enables you to swallow what would have otherwise been a bitter pill.

Gaza Road Through Israel

In Wednesday's posting, called Gaza Moves into Israel? I included a cartoon about Israel's being forced to accept Gazan convoys on Israeli territory. I commented on being angered by what we'd been forced to accept. Now there's a DEBKAfile report that all of Israel’s security branches have sent strong written protests to Israel's government.

"The protests came from the top levels of Israel’s armed forces, the Shin Beit and all other intelligence services and the police. Rarely before have so many expressions of alarm been rushed to the head of government by all of top security agencies."

Feeling the need to explain calmly what the fuss is about I did the above cartoon. It's a simple formula: explain the plan for Israel by showing what the same plan would be if applied to another country. The result is a clear picture of the situation Israel now faces.

Jonathan Pollard (1997)

1997. Jonathan Pollard had been sent to prison in 1984. It was now 1997 and Pollard was still in prison?! It was outrageous!

Thirteen years for spying for an ally? For providing Israel with info that we'd been promised? Thirteen years, a stretch out of proportion with the sentences of others!... and the government of Israel did not demand the release of our spy?! Thirteen years in prison and still America showed no mercy and American Jews remained silent.

I did the above cartoon back in 1997 to focus on the immorality of Israeli governments continuing the abandonment our agent. ...and that was almost 10 years ago!

This coming Monday, November 21, 2005, marks the 21st year of Jonathan Pollard's imprisonment.

To understand the depths of this injustice go here.

Gaza Moves Into Israel?

I first read this story on DEBKAfile. The specific story is here. I was shocked and angry. Which meant that doing a cartoon was really difficult! When I say "doing" I mean writing it. The drawing is just fun. The writing is often difficult ...as it was in this case. I wanted to make people laugh.
I wrote script after script.
I searched every detail of the story to find a "hook".
Exasperated, I finally began to play with Condi's role as "broker" and came up with the above cartoon.

As an afterthought I added the title.
To be bushwhacked means to be attacked from a hidden place, to be ambushed.
Appropriate ...and a final pun-like tweak to the 'toon.

Holy Toledo! (1994)

1994. The subject of the cartoon was the widespread appeasement of Arab aggression.

But for me, looking at this cartoon today has a strange new undertone. Let me explain.

A few years ago I went on a trip to Spain after a friend had suggested that I connect with "Jewish history" by visiting the city of Toledo. So I did. There, in Toledo, I got to visit what had been a synagogue until the mobs slaughtered the Jews and the church took the property. The interior walls of the former house of worship had tiles that started at about seven feet high and rose to the ceiling. That was, I figure as high as the marauding Spaniards could reach to rip the tiles off the walls in their frenzy of hate.

I left the building, left Toledo, and drove straight south, seeking "fun in the sun" and trying to forget the images of the slaughter of Jews.

The current rumor in Israel is that there is a secret pact to transfer to the Vatican ownership of parts of Mount Zion in Jerusalem in return for giving Israel ownership of that building in Toledo. It seems to me, and a lot of other Israelis that this, if true, is an outrage. Details here and here, and here.

Depressing

As I look at this cartoon I'm struck by the fact that it is really depressing.

I hate that.

When morale is falling I think it's my job to deliver a smile and make people feel better. I guess I failed here. The withdrawal from Gaza brought us more hatred and more attacks. The terrible attack in Amman is another sign of things getting worse.

...And to top things off there are apparently Jordanians who would rather blame Israel?!!? for the terrorist bombings than face the horrible truth.

Zarqawi is gaining power and is threatening the Hashemite Kingdom.
The punch line of the cartoon is "gone with the wind" which is the name of the great book and wonderful movie about America's Civil War. At the end of that romantic tale, the heroine, Scarlett O'Hara, faced with an equally depressing situation bravely says:

"I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow"

We, Israelis and Jordanians and Lebanese and Egyptians, can't afford to do that. We need to think about the problem today!

World Wide Violence

At the time of this posting the latest horror is the triple bombings attack in the kindom of Jordan, the country next door. How was it perceived in the Arab world? I turned to sandmonkey for an answer. Will this result in a change in Arab world perceptions? Arab and Jordanian reactions to the Al Queda attack on an Arab country? Once again I turned to the wonderful Egyptian blog sandmonkey and found this comment:

"Is it just me or is Al Qaeda starting to sound like that crazy ex-girlfriend who will kidnap you and torture you so you can love her again?"

check out sandmonkey's full posting here.

Intifada (1989)

On a Friday in December 1987 four Arabs in Gaza died in a traffic accident involving Israelis. Youthful Palestinian demonstrators then took to the streets using the accidental deaths as a rallying cry, which confused Israelis. "What did the traffic accident deaths have to do with anything else?"

My guess is that lots of people in France today are trying to figure out how the accidental deaths of two youths has turned into the current madness and violence.

The above cartoon was done a year and a half after the start of the Palestinian "Intifada". At that point we still could only shake our heads in disbelief at the "insanity".

We did not understand that in a few years the Intifada would evolve into the shooting of children in the arms of their Israeli parents, suicide bombings of our buses, of pizzerias, and the lynching and murder of our civilians. At the time of this cartoon we Israelis were as confused about what was really going on as today's French men and women are.

Riots Spreading

It's spreading.

Water Shortage (1986)

20 years ago.
Israel had a serious water shortage.
The government took extreme measures.
The question of how extreme could the measures be was answered by the above cartoon.

Democracy

In the days of the "cold war" there was an American slogan that went "People who are free to choose will choose to be free". These days many Americans watch the TV polls to find out who won or who is winning. Democracy, for many in the U.S.A., has become a spectator sport.

Maybe it's a case of you don't know what you've got 'til you lose it.

Intifada in France

The idea for this cartoon was not that creative.
Sort of simplistic.
I scribbled out the text while sitting in a barbershop.
But I needed to see some photos of the riots in order to draw the cartoon.

"Easy" I thought, so when I got back to my studio and computer, I jumped to a great site called newseum that shows the front pages of newspapers from 45 different countries.

I was certain (foolish me) that the front pages of the world's press would be covered with photos of the "French Intifada"... but on the 7th day of Paris burning practically no paper had any front page note of the riots.

My next step was to check news reports and found numerous versions of an AP story (with no photos) which focused on the plight of the poor "victims", like Farah:

"Farah, an 8-year-old budding gymnast, cried when she saw the gutted wreckage of her gym crackling with flames and spewing smoke, destroyed in the latest nighttime rampage by immigrant youths in suburban Paris."

You might think that these "victims" blamed the rioters, and they did. As the widely published AP piece reported:

"They are stupid. They are destroying everything," said an 18-year-old who gave her name only as Mariam. "They should do that in southwest Paris or at the National Assembly - not here. People here are suffering already."

Eventually I found some photos at Yahoo! and carefully copied them for the cartoon.

I figure that few people will have seen the photographs and will probably think I exaggerated. Here's one of the photos. It's the one I used for the second panel of the cartoon above.

Syrian Domination (1978)

Assad's daddy. In 1977 Egypt made peace with Israel. Lebanon and Jordan also wanted to join the move towards a regional peace, but Hafez al-Assad, the dictator daddy of today's Syrian oppressor, controlled his neighbors with violence and threats of violence.

The cartoon shows the father of today's Syrian dicator trying to bully King Hussein of Jordan, and the Jordanian king trying to inch away from Syrian domination, in January 1978...

...almost 28 years ago!

The UN's Holocaust Day

This is the very first time that an Israeli-initiated resolution ever even made it to the General Assembly! I was tempted to do a cartoon saying that it shows that as far as the United Nations is concerned "The only good Jew is a dead Jew."

But that seemed too mean-spirited and angry.

I decided instead to focus on the liberation currently being ignored rather than the liberation previously ignored.

America, India, and Israel (2001)

The latest cruel terror attack in Dehli, on the eve of the Indian "Festival of Lights" reminded me of this cartoon that I did a few years ago. It's a light-weight joke, but I did it when I realized how we normal, democratic societies were each seen as a threat by our enemies.

Interesting that only 4 years ago I still saw them as separate forces, rather than as a coordinated Jihadist army. One wonders how long it'll take before we, the targets of terror, pull ourselves together to form a united alliance.