Jewish New Year's Coming (1989)

This year the Jewish New Year (Rosh HaShana) begins at sundown on September 22, 2006.
I'm forever getting into arguments with otherwise knowledgeable Jews in Israel who claim that Rosh HaShana marks the date on which the World was created.
Wrong.
Rosh HaShana marks the creation of Adam and Eve.

On the other hand it's hard to find a Jew here in Israel who would argue with my low opinion of the UN.

The Finger !

Dry Bones is a "minimalist" cartoon. No backgrounds. Simplistic line.
When I began the 'toon, back in 1973, I decided to use close-ups, a "talking heads" approach.
One problem that this presented was how to have the characters make gestures.
I came up with two devices.
In "the Hand" one character explains to another.
Using "the Finger", one character lectures the other.

The front page of Tuesday's Maariv newspaper featured Nasrallah in the classic Dry Bones pose.
Yup, he's giving us the finger.

Oh, and to immerse yourself the history of the 2,500 year-old obscene gesture known as giving someone "the finger", (also known as "the bird", "flipping the bird", "you're number one", "the one-finger salute", "the highway salute", "flipping (someone) off", "showing someone the middle finger", "digital signaling", "thumbs up plus 2", "the good-bye salute" ) just click here.

Tourism & Terrorism (1996)

For this cartoon I drew a cool-looking Uncle Shuldig enjoying Israel's sea, sand, and sun. He is wearing swim goggles and standing chest-deep in the Mediterranean Sea. Note the birds flying past in the background and the sun hanging low over the horizon.

Q: How do we know that it is late afternoon and not early morning?
A: The sun, in the cartoon is real low, and since the Mediterranean is on our West Coast we see the sunsets over the sea (but not the sunrises.)

An Israeli Urban Myth

Israel can't afford to be second best. Especially in war. We cannot allow the luxury of self-delusion. The soldiers of our citizen-army are now reporting back to us, their friends and family, on the screw-ups in the operation. We will learn from these mistakes and we will quickly correct them.
One solidly believed myth, however, is the idea that Israel never abandons its agents, citizens, or soldiers.

The fact is that we have not fought strongly enough to find and free our missing men. As one example, the behavior of this, and every other government for the last 20 years has managed to sweep Jonathan Pollard under the carpet.
His treatment by American Jewry and Israeli governments is absolutely shocking!

On November 21, 2006 Jonathan Pollard will enter his 22nd year of a life sentence for his activities on behalf of Israel.
The median sentence for the offense Pollard committed - one count of passing classified information to an ally - is 2 to 4 years.

Jonathan Pollard received his life sentence without benefit of trial, as a result of a plea bargain which he honored and the U.S. government violated. For more information, visit the Justice for Jonathan Pollard site.

Bully Boy Strategy

When I first sketched this cartoon out, I drew Ahamdinejad like a schoolyard bully and Assad as his younger stooge.
It didn't feel right.
So I redrew Ahmadinejad as a gangster (in the black shirt, white tie cartoon style of showing Mafia hoods). Assad then became his thug "soldier".

With the two characters being depicted as old-timey Mafia hoods I wrote the text in a New Yorky Brookynish dialect. This meant that although it might be more funny for some, it would be more difficult for some non-native English speakers to "get."

So I rewrote the text in "straight" English but left in the "but you said that you was gonna' fight him".
Nu?
So does it work?
Or are visitors going to think that I made a mistake?

Stuck in Lebanon (1984)

This is NOT one of those cartoons that I'd do today. We're in Lebanon because a war was forced on us. We're there because we need to be there!

And yet there's the knowledge that this disturbing message from the past cannot be ignored.

Kofi Annan's UN

Prisoner Exchange (1985)

This cartoon was published 2 days after the Israeli government had announced the prisoner exchange it had negotiated to retrieve 3 Israeli soldiers.

"On 20 May 1985, in an exchange referred to as the "Jibril Deal," three IDF POWs Hezi Shai, who had been captured in the battle of Sultan Ya'aqub on 11.6.82, and Yosef Grof and Nissim Salem, who had been captured in Bhamdoun on 4 September 1982, by the PFLP, were returned to Israel in exchange for the release of 1150 terrorists."
- more

1985. Twenty one years ago.

Media Viruses

Ooops!
Maybe she didn't kill her own kid?

Like a virus that someone has slipped into your hard drive, a media-installed belief is difficult to erase. Proof of Photoshopped newsphotos and posed civilian casualties are no challenge to the dominance of the media equivalent of worms, viruses, and Trojan horses.

Logic loses to belief every time.

Post Mortem

In the Netherlands, the citizenry demands that its government keeps the dikes in shape. Here in Israel, the IDF is a wall that protects us from the ocean of enemies that surrounds us. And we demand that it be superior, smart, and properly used.

Most Israelis feel that was not the case in this latest conflict.

Inquiries, demands for an official investigation, and public rallies are in our future.

Lebanon: Syria is Watching (1983)

Twenty years ago.
1983.

An agreement with Lebanon. But Syria, like some abusive husband, is glowering at the Lebanese, threatening physical violence, demanding obedience, and expecting love.

Another one of those cartoons that proves that "the more things change, the more they stay the same."

Travel Update

Air travel started with sexy stewardesses who, if rumors were to be believed, had the easy morals of farmers' daughters.

It's come to body searches and the equivalent of one long police lineup.

The Secret Agreement (1975)

This cartoon was published in September 1975.
Israel had just signed American-brokered agreements to end regional fighting. Rumors quickly spread through Israel about the "secret" parts of the agreement.

Now, thirty one years later, Israel has just signed on to another American-brokered agreement to end the fighting in Lebanon.
So what's going on with the return of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers?!! "It's in the secret part of the agreement," we Israelis whisper to each other.

And if it's not in the "secret" part?
Heads will roll.
And PM-by-accident Ehud Olmert will pay the political price.

The Terrorist Plot in London

The speaker is an unidentified western leader. Could be Bush, or Blair, or Chirac, or just about anybody.

The cartoon is not about the speaker.
The subject of the cartoon is this new and frightening escalation in the power arsenal of the Islamofascists.

Dry Bones Rosh HaShana Cards!!

I post cartoons every day, Monday through Friday.
We're a "Never on Sunday" kinda' blog.
But I decided to post this special notice today.

I've drawn a selection of colorful, uplifting, and amusing Jewish New Year cards. Each design is available in a pack of six (along with envelopes)
They're made of real card stock and if you'll slide them into the envelopes and stick a postage stamp on 'em, a uniformed representative of the government's "Snail Mail" postal service will actually carry it in a big leather bag and put it physically into your friend's mailbox!

Show that you care enough to send real cards, made of dead trees!

To check out the card designs just click on the picture above, or on the words Dry Bones Greeting Cards.

This year, the holidays begin on the evening of September 22 (Rosh HaShanah) and continue until October 15 (Simhat Torah).

Lebanon: Next Steps?

Meanwhile, the confrontation with Hezbollah's Iranian masters is looming ever larger. Consider the following two stories you might have missed:

Ahmadinejad To Nuke Israel On August 22?
August 8, 2006
by Bernard Lewis, professor emeritus at Princeton

"What is the significance of Aug. 22? This year, Aug. 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the 27th day of the month of Rajab of the year 1427.

This, by tradition, is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to "the farthest mosque," usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back (c.f., Koran XVII.1).

This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world. It is far from certain that Mr. Ahmadinejad plans any such cataclysmic events precisely for Aug. 22. But it would be wise to bear the possibility in mind."

more

Israel to Nuke Ahmadinejad?
August 9, 2006
by Aaron Klein

"HAIFA, Israel – German engineers the past few weeks have been in Israel working to improve three advanced, nuclear capable attack submarines it provided the Jewish state last year, security sources tell the Galil Report.

Many here have estimated the vessels can be used both as a strategic, second-strike nuclear deterrent or for conventional use during any large-scale confrontation.

Military officials say the submarines are not needed for Israel's current campaign in Lebanon. The officials said Israel recently has discussed with foreign governments travel and refueling routes so the submarines can reach the Persian Gulf – within firing distance of Iran."

more

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
The first story was from Aug. 8,
The second from Aug. 9.
Then, on Aug. 10, the third highly improbable story broke:

21 Hijackers Planned a Second 911

"Police said on Wednesday that a foiled plot to blow up aircraft flying from Britain to the United States was "an attempt to commit mass murder on an unimaginable scale".

Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson, from London's Metropolitan Police, told a news conference that officers are confident the operation, which saw 21 people arrested, disrupted a bid to cause "untold death and destruction".

more

Out of Lebanon (2000)

Here's a cartoon from back in July 2000. Israel had pulled out of Lebanon in accordance with international assurances and UN resolutions but, gee, things weren't going according to schedule.

We face an explosive situation today in 2006 which was created by the failure to get it right back in 2000.

France now says that Israel should immediately withdraw to the international border and then there'd be a peace-keeping force that would prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah.

Question: "How Did We Get Into This Mess?"
Answer: We believed the French

Gerald Steinberg, writing in the Wall Street Journal (July 17, 2006), explains that in order to get Israel out of Lebanon in 2000, France promised Israel that if we would withdraw to the international border...

"France and its partners would send peacekeepers to prevent terror and missile attacks against Israel, help the Lebanese army take control of the border, and disarm Hezbollah."

thanks to Tom Gross we can read the full article about how we got tricked last time, and some other interesting stuff at TomGrossMedia.com

Gaza

It is now exactly one year since the Israel Defense Forces went into Gaza to force all Jews to leave their homes and communities.
Incredibly, the IDF is now back in Gaza, fighting a war that everyone seems to be ignoring.

Forced to Leave Gaza.

Iran, Israel, and the Arabs (1982)

Iran: Population: 68,688,433
According to: The CIA Factbook: population stats

Israel: Population: 6,352,117
According to The CIA Factbook: population stats

Today’s Golden Oldie is a cartoon from 1982.

Twenty-four years have dragged by and the Iranian bullies are still stomping around and swearing and threatening to “beat us up after school”. Still hoping to build their reputation and assume leadership of the region by destroying a country that is less than one-tenth their size?!

You’d think that they’d be embarrassed.

Lebanon: An Expert Opinion

Lebanon seems to be sinking fast, unable to shake itself free of the Syrians or Hezbollah, the Iranian fifth column that has taken over the south of their country.

Now, with the US/French UN resolution on the table, we (and the rest of the world) are watching to see what the Lebanese government will decide.

I've been watching so many "experts" explain the situation on Israeli TV that I created my own expert for this Dry Bones cartoon.

Hezbollah's Nasrallah

Just before the war, we noted Nasrallah's explanation that Israeli and Jewish weakness was centered in our unwillingness to sacrifice our children. Click on MEMRI to check it out ...oh, and while you're there, be sure to look at the MEMRI video clip.

- - - - - - - -Another thing to check out is the growing suspicion that the Kana (or Qana) bombing that horrified the world with its images of the broken bodies of dead Lebanese children may, in fact, have been a fraud ?!!?.
Here's more on the "fraud".

- - - - - - - -And while we're at it, how 'bout this?!:

"Do you remember the Mohammed al-Dura video footage? The Muslim world does. The video shows a Palestinian father and son cowering against a wall, apparently taking cover from what sounds like an erratic spray of bullets, allegedly coming from IDF soldiers. The next scene in the video is of the father slumped over, as if injured, and the boy lying down, his face in his hands, apparently dead. Inexplicably, the actual shooting of the boy is not on the video, rather there is a cut to the end result.
The French reporter, Charles Enderlin, who presented the story on French television, claimed later that the actual shooting to death of Mohammed al-Dura was edited out because it was too gruesome. Karsenty asserted to France 2 that the entire video had been staged.
A simple Internet search of "Mohammed al-Dura" will turn up not only the many pro-Palestinian sites dedicated to the memory of their martyr, but analyses from several different sources explaining why the video is so phony it may as well have been performed by the puppets from "Team America: World Police."

-more

- - - - - - - -And there was that whole business about the Israeli massacres in Jenin?
Also a fraud?!
- - - - - - - -
Kana?, Mohammed al-Dura?, Jenin?
Could they all have been carefully staged frauds?
Here's an important piece at Jewish World Review that says just that! It's called The Theater of Jihad.

- - - - - - - -
Posing at a wall section of Israel's Security Fence for the Western Media.

Syria and the Region (1983)

This cartoon was done 23 years ago in 1983.
In it I used my "Two Angels" characters.
I love to use them.
Two angels.
Not guardian angels.
Just a couple of angels who happen to be looking over the edge of their cloud at the unfolding drama on the Earth below.
And we get to listen in.

Today, in 2006, Syria is still the region's spoiler.
... But now, by their support of Iran's Hezbollah puppets, they're opening the door to Persian domination of the area.

Kill the Jews!

A Moslem attacker who murders Jews in Seattle is just one crazy guy.

Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant was just because he was drunk.

Yeah right.

The world is being drowned in an incredible flood of anti-Semitism. It's as if some demonic force is at work. As if we were in a planet-wide battle between the cosmic forces of good and evil. It's practically supernatural.

So if we're going to discuss the supernatural I propose that we examine the following weirdness:

The Bible is not a book It is a collection of books. One of the books of the Bible is the book of Psalms. When I went to school we were taught that the book of Psalms is a book of poetry. Actually it's a book of prayers or incantations.

When the war broke out, religious Jews began reciting Psalm 83.
A rabbi, being interviewed on an Israeli TV news show called on viewers to read Psalm 83.
The Chief Rabbinate's governing council in Jerusalem announced that at 6:00 p.m. (Israel time) every day, Psalm 83 is to be recited simultaneously by Jewish communities all over the world.
Turns out that Psalm 83 calls out for Divine help to fight off an attempt to wipe Israel off the map.

Here's the text of Psalm 83.

So what's weird?
Archaeologists have just announced the amazing discovery of an ancient book of psalms by a construction worker who was digging in a bog in Ireland two weeks ago. The book, which was buried and lay hidden under centuries of mud, has been dated to the years 800-1000. Trinity College manuscripts expert Bernard Meehan said it was the first discovery of an Irish early medieval document in two centuries...

Oh, and the book was found "frozen open" to Psalm 83... With all other pages stuck shut.

More from CNN

Comments?

UN Peace Keepers in Lebanon (1982)

The UN already sent a peace-keeping force to Southern Lebanon.
They were a joke!
So in this cartoon done back in 1982 I drew them to look like the Keystone Cops (sometimes written as Keystone Kops) ... a silent movie troupe of funny policemen.
The Kops rushed around causing slapststick confusion and making any bad situation worse.
Sort of like the UN.

The Keystone Kops in a typical pose.

The desk officer using the telephone is Ford Sterling. The policeman directly behind Sterling (in extreme background, left) is Edgar Kennedy. The hefty policeman at extreme right is Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. The young constable with bulging eyes, fourth from right, is Arbuckle's nephew Al St. John. The casting of the Keystone police force changed from one film to the next; many of the individual members were per-diem actors who remain unidentifiable.