Mardi Gras of Hate
I like to use Mr. History. He seems able to see and describe a situation with the cold objectivity that only the passage of time can deliver.
Labels: anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, Defamers, Islamic Jihad, Israel, Media, Purim
the Dry Bones BlogDedicated To Combating the Willful Rewriting of History and Fighting the Spread of Antisemitism |
Labels: anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism, Defamers, Islamic Jihad, Israel, Media, Purim
I drew this Dry Bones cartoon exactly twenty years ago today. In the cartoon I wrote that we were facing the rise of the "Shi'ite Jihad against the world". Shi'ism is the Iranian brand of Islam. If I were to do the cartoon today, I'd use the phrase the rise of "Iranian Islamofascism" instead.
Your thoughts?
Labels: 1989, Communism, Iran, Islam, jihad, Nazism, Rome, Shi'ite, World Jewry
"As the major supplier of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights. The Obama administration should immediately suspend US military aid to Israel," -more
Labels: Amnesty, Appeasement, Gaza, Hamas, Incitement, Terrorism, TV
For a moment, however, I tore myself away from the coalition guessing game to focus on how our next Prime Minister will be treated by the international media. And that does not require any guessing.
Labels: Appeasement, Bibi, Media, Naive Newsman, Netanyahu, Syria
I started doing Dry Bones on January 1, 1973, which means that the cartoon feature is now celebrating its thirty-sixth year! That's "twice chai".
The number 36 has special significance in Jewish numerology. Hebrew uses the letters of the alphabet to represent both words and numbers. The Hebrew word for life is chai and is spelled with the letters chet and yud. Chet is 8 and yud is 10, thus chai can be read both as the word "life" and the number "18".
"Twice chai" is "36" ...spelled with a lamed and a vav. .
Tradition teaches that the creator will allow the world to continue as long as at any given time there is a minimum of thirty-six good people in the human race.They are called the lamed-vavniks.
So this is a special year for me. It's Dry Bones at thirty-six! "Twice chai".
Congratulate me!
The cartoon marked the Israeli government's setting up a telephone company to handle what previously had been handled by the government. In the cartoon, the innovation was observed by two angels watching the Holy Land from a cloud. The new company, however, was totally owned by the government. It was called Bezeq (from the Hebrew word for lightning).
Twenty-one years later, in 2005, Bezeq was "privatized" when 30% of its shares were sold to a private group for $972 Million.
Labels: 1984, 2005, Bezeq, Knesset, Privatization, Telecommunications
Labels: Depression, Economy
Below is a photo of the inside of an Israeli voting booth. On the table is a tray of the little slips of paper that serve as our ballots. A cubbyhole for each. And each represents a different political party. Notice the blank slip of paper on the bottom left corner of the tray. To its right is the blue envelope into which you put your choice.
A question for you Israelis out there ...when you were in the voting booth and looked at the assorted slips of paper in the tray, did you consider casting a blank ballot?
Instead of providing a clear "winner" the two major parties ended up in a virtual tie. It was one of those times that our largely ceremonial President (then it was Yitzhak Navon, now it's Shimon Peres) was faced with a dilemma about deciding which party had "won" the election and therefore should be asked to try to put together a coalition government.
Today is another one of those times.
Interestingly, back in 1981 Peres was one of the two choices that the President had. In 2009, 28 years later, Peres is himself the President with the tough choice to make.
In 1981 it was between Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres. In 2009 it's between Tzipi Livni and Bibi Netanyahu.
Labels: 1981, Begin, Elections, Navon, Shimon Peres
...The punch line (that deciding which candidate was the least competent would be equally difficult) was an afterthought. So if you voted in the Israeli Knesset Elections of February 2009, tell me, did you vote for leadership you believed in ...or (like me) did you base your vote on who you wanted to prevent from taking power?
Hmmm?
Labels: 2009, Democracy, Elections, Israel, Knesset, Politics
Up until that time the idea that some political party other than Labor could or would win an Israeli national election was ...as indicated in the cartoon, unthinkable!
Today in Israel we are having our national elections and, according to the polls, the Labor Party may come in fourth!!! Yikes!
How times have changed!
So whom are YOU rooting for in today's elections?
Labels: 1977, Democracy, Elections, Knesset, Labor Party, Likud
"Saraa, my will is that you tell our beloved children never to forget Jerusalem, Saraa. You must pass this legacy on to our beloved children. They must never forget Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, the prisoners, or the refugees."Remind them, Saraa, that we have a land to which we must return, by means of the steadfastness of the resistance and the mujahideen, by means of the steadfastness of knowledge and the fear of God. Tell them that Assud died as a hero, as a martyr. Tell them that Assud died a martyr's death, Saraa."
"We should teach our children that we have a land to which we must return: Jaffa, Acre, Haifa, and Tel Aviv. We will return to all these cities, Allah willing.
"Saraa, I implore you... I entrust you with the legacy of protecting Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the blessed land of Palestine. Listen to me, Saraa: I bear witness that there is no god but Allah, and the Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."
Assud dies.
Labels: Defamation, Gaza, Hamas, Incitement, Palestine, palestinian, Palestinians, Pallywood, Tu B'Shvat, TV
"UNRWA has employed staffers affiliated with terrorism, including Said Sayyam, the Hamas Minister of Interior and Civil Affairs, who was a teacher in UNRWA schools in Gaza from 1980 to 2003; Awad al-Qiq, the headmaster of an UNRWA school in the Gaza Strip who also led Islamic Jihad's engineering unit that built bombs and Qassam rockets; Nahed Rashid Ahmed Atallah, a prior senior UNRWA employee from 1990 to 1993 who was responsible for the dissemination of assistance to refugees while he was also an operative of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and Nidal Abd al-Fattah Abdallah Nazzal, a Hamas activist employed as an ambulance driver by UNRWA, who confessed in 2002 to transporting weapons and explosives to terrorists in an UNRWA ambulance;" -more
Labels: Gaza, Hamas, Islam, Islamic Jihad, Media, Missiles, Naive Newsman, Palestine, palestinian, Pallywood, PFLP, Qassam, Terrorism, U.N., U.S.A., UNRWA
Today's Golden Oldie was published on February 9, 1999. The occasion was the passing of Jordan's King Hussein two days earlier on February 7, 1999. I think that the cartoon successfully sums up how we Israelis felt.
Labels: 1999, Jordan, King Hussein
We, the Israeli electorate, however, will not be voting for Prime Minister ...We will vote for the political party of our choosing ...and there are many parties from which to choose.
...but the Media, especially our Television News shows insist on seeing it as a race between individuals: Tzipi Livni (Kadima Party), Ehud Barak (Labor Party), and Bibi Netanyahu (Likud Party). The sudden rise in popularity of Avigdor Lieberman (Israel Beiteinu Party) has thrown our media mavens into a tizzy ...up until now they've been demonizing Netanyahu as the right wing threat and here comes Lieberman, to the right of Bibi! Yikes!!
Labels: America, Bibi, Democracy, Ehud Barak, Elections, Lieberman, Netanyahu, Tzipi Livni
At the end of January 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini had returned to Iran. The country was then rocked by ten days of student riots and demonstrations.
Today's Dry Bones cartoon was done during what is now called the "Ten-day Dawn" -- the days leading to the collapse of the Shah's regime on February 12, 1979.
The following is an official Iranian interview with Iranian Defense Minister Defense Brigadier on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the "Ten-Day Dawn":
"at the time of the revolution I was only a 22-year-old student, and our love for Imam [Khomeini] had drawn us to the scene, as we wanted to see our land governed by Islamic laws. That was our main objective, to see an Islamic Iran.
What we have achieved today was like a dream to us back then, and we could not even imagine that it would one day become reality. God delivered on his promise; that is 'to guide those who work for his cause'. Today, we stand witness to the deliverance of God's promises in various political, cultural, industrial and other fields.
Today the Iranian nation has become a role model for the freedom-loving people of world." -more
Labels: 1979, China, Communism, Cultural Revolution, Iran, Islam
"didn't mince his words during a debate with Israeli President Shimon Peres. He called the recent Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip a "crime against humanity" and "barbaric." He said a "curse" would fall on Israel for their actions during the 22-day military operation and then stalked out of the session after complaining that the moderator was not giving him the chance to respond to Peres. In a meeting with the United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon he even called for Israel to be excluded from the UN." -more
The Hebrew press here in Israel is running with the story of a major crack in Israel/Turkish relations ...So I wondered what was going on in the Turkish media.To find out, I turned to the MEMRI Turkish Media Blog, where I read that Turkey's state-run Anatolian News Agency has released what purports to be a transcript of an alleged phone conversation between the two leaders following the incident:
Peres: Such things happen between friends. I am very sorry for today's incident. Firstly, my respect towards the Turkish republic and you a prime minister has never changed.
Erdogan: Firstly, of course. There is no doubt that such arguments can happen between friends. But nobody can even speak to a tribe leader so loudly and in front of the international community, and not to the leader of the Republic of Turkey.
Peres: I raised my voice. In fact my friends tell me that I have a quite voice. This has nothing to do with my relationship with the prime minister of the Republic of Turkey. I am very sorry for what happened today.
Erdogan: I heard that you are going to hold a press conference.
Peres: Not today, but tomorrow.
Erdogan: If you express these sincere feelings, which I believe you will, in tomorrow's press conference, I assume this problem will be mostly overcome.
Peres: Of course I will publicly express these remarks.
Erdogan: Thank you very much for your call Mr. President.
Peres: I thank you and wish you a nice flight.
So did we apologize? And if we did ...what for?
Your thoughts?