On The Beach

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Knock Knock

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Stampede

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The Scarecrow

According to Israel National News:

"Kerry Warns Israel: Strike on Iran Would Be 'Enormous Mistake'
After indicating in Senate US will defend Iran from Israeli attempt to take out nuclear program, Kerry warns Israel against making a move." -more

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Snake Oil Salesmen

According to Wikipedia:

"Snake oil is an expression that originally referred to fraudulent health products or unproven medicine but has come to refer to any product with questionable or unverifiable quality or benefit. By extension, a snake oil salesman is someone who knowingly sells fraudulent goods or who is themselves a fraud, quack, charlatan, or the like."

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Tisha Be'Av 2015

Tisha Be'Av (literally the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av) is a day which marks a number of disasters in Jewish history, including the destructions of both the First and Second Holy Temples in Jerusalem. This year, 2015, Tisha Be'Av begins on sundown of Saturday, July 25.

-more

Save the Druze

The emergency is dire but to understand it you'll have to examine the map.

We are proud to call Israel "the Jewish State", but ever since our fight for independence we have had a covenant with our Israeli Druze brothers and sisters. They are as "Israeli" as Jews are. On the map I've shown the Israeli Golan Heights as blue. When we won control of the Golan from the Syrians we "inherited" these additional (non-Israeli) Syrian Druze. They still live there in peace with us.

Inside Syria I've labeled "Jabal Druze" as "the Trapped Druze". About 750,000 Druze now live there. From 1921 to 1936 it was an independent Druze State (Jabal al-Druze). They are about to be attacked, raped, tortured, and slaughtered by ISIS, the Islamic State.

These trapped Druze need weapons to defend themselves. We are in a position to arm them.

I believe that we cannot/should not ignore their plight.

For further info: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/191891/druze-israel-syria?utm_source=InforuMail&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Jerusalem+Letters+36+-+The+Case+for+a+Druze+State

Not the Donald

The media is so shocked by Trump's pronouncements that folks can't believe that the quote in the cartoon is not by Donald S. Trump but rather by a liberal Democrat.

Back in 2000, Al Franken wrote the following:

The 2000 election will determine whether we continue going in the direction Clinton started — a sort of common-sense, doable liberalism — versus going back to the tax-cut, anti-environment conservative agenda. The best thing the next president can do is to find a way to keep the economy going so we don’t have to make the awful cuts we did in the 1980s, like closing psychiatric institutions and making the mentally ill homeless.

The biggest problem we’ll face depends on which neighborhood you live in. If you’re in a bad neighborhood, it’s crime and violence. If you’re an international businessman, it’s terrorism. My biggest fear about the election is that Americans will decide George W. Bush is a lightweight and vote for him anyway. I’d love to have Bush, McCain, Bradley and Gore over for dinner. I’d serve lots of wine and get them looped. I’d ask Bush about the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act). Just to see if he knows what it is. I’d also ask him what part of Jesus’ philosophy he draws on. He said Jesus was the biggest influence on him, but he seemed to have trouble explaining why. He didn’t seem terribly familiar with Christ’s teachings.

I doubt I could cross the line and vote Republican. I have tremendous respect for McCain but I don’t buy the war hero thing. Anybody can be captured. I thought the idea was to capture them. As far as I’m concerned he sat out the war.

Latest "Good News Bad News"

Today the UN showed its support for Obama's appeasing of Iran.
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What Happens Next?

Today a friend asked me what I thought "happens next".
Today's cartoon is my answer.
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Fools

We've been there before!
Churchill had so accurately and wisely condemned the Munich Agreement with the Nazis. Ironically it was then Winston Churchill himself who would became the Prime Minister to lead Britain through the terrible war years that followed the foolish agreement. His words of warning seem to speak directly now to America's current weakling leaders and to the sheep who follow them.

Again?

We've been there before!
Back in 1994 President Bill Clinton explained how his agreement with North Korea would prevent them from developing nukes.

At the time the New York Times reported:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 21, 1994
— Following are excerpts from President Clinton's White House news conference today:
"Before I take your questions, I'd like to say just a word about the framework with North Korea that Ambassador Gallucci signed this morning. This is a good deal for the United States.

North Korea will freeze and then dismantle its nuclear program. South Korea and our other allies will be better protected. The entire world will be safer as we slow the spread of nuclear weapons.

South Korea, with support from Japan and other nations, will bear most of the cost of providing North Korea with fuel to make up for the nuclear energy it is losing, and they will pay for an alternative power system for North Korea that will allow them to produce electricity while making it much harder for them to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States and international inspectors will carefully monitor North Korea to make sure it keeps its commitments. Only as it does so will North Korea fully join the community of nations." -more

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The News

Together we CAN change things!
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Reality

According to FOX News:

All Trump all the time: How The Donald achieved media domination
By Howard Kurtz

Donald Trump has gone from dominant to inescapable.

Somewhere between my interview with Trump and Katie Tur’s MSNBC interview with Trump and Anderson Cooper’s interview with Trump and the Washington Post’s front-page story about Trump, I came upon this breaking news: “The Simpsons” have put out a promo making fun of…Trump

Hillary Clinton granted her first national television interview, to CNN, and even she has been overshadowed by Trump. Let’s face it, Trump’s presidential candidacy is no longer a political story. It’s a cultural phenomenon. We’re all living in Donald’s world now. Clicking around the web, I happened on these headlines:

New York Times: “G.O.P. Leaders Struggle to Rein In Donald Trump.”

Politico: “Donald Trump, Clickbait.”

Huffington Post: “Donald Trump Acts Like Total Jerk During Interview”

And: “Jeb Bush Responds to Donald Trump’s Comments About His Mexican-American Wife”National Review: “Donald Trump: Not Telling It Like It Is.”

Salon: “The Daily Donald: GOP Now in Full Panic Mode As Trump Runs Wilder.”

The Daily Beast: “Donald Trump Makes Me Want to Die.”

Okay, this is getting serious. To back up a bit, it’s clear the media establishment completely and totally underestimated Trump when he first jumped into the 2016 race. Fox’s Mara Liasson predicted his coverage would plummet after that first day—which she has now admitted was spectacularly wrong. Next, much of the media treated Trump with great snark—either openly dismissing him or reporting on his exploits with a wink—until he shot up to second place in the Republican polls (and now first place in a survey in North Carolina). In the next phase, plenty of pundits used the uproar over Trump’s remarks on illegal Mexican immigrants including criminals and rapists to portray him as the epitome of the Republican Party—despite the fact that he’s hardly an establishment figure and given tons of dough to Democrats. As companies right and left were dropping The Donald, the press asked every Republican candidate what they thought about Trump’s controversial comments. His rivals were tepid at first, but soon divined that they could grab headlines by denouncing Trump—which generally led to him smacking them back in Rick Perry-needs-new-glasses mode, thus producing more media fodder.

By yesterday, it seemed that the Republican Party really had become worried about Trump, not least because he was consuming most of the available media oxygen.

The Washington Post ran a front-page piece headlined “GOP Leaders Fear Damage to Party’s Image As Donald Trump Doubles Down”:

“There is little they can do about the mogul and reality-television star, who draws sustenance from controversy and attention. And some fear that, with assistance from Democrats, Trump could become the face of the GOP.”

The story quoted sources as saying that RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had a 45-minute call with Trump and, on the subject of immigration, repeatedly asked him to “tone it down.”

Which brought this rejoinder from @RealDonaldTrump:

“Totally false reporting on my call with @Reince Priebus. He called me, ten minutes, said I hit a ‘nerve’, doing well, end!”

Although in a subsequent call to the Post’s Robert Costa, Trump backed off the falsehood charge, saying that Priebus told him, “You know, if it would be possible, maybe you could tone it down just a little bit, but you are who are you, and I know you have to do what you have to do. ”

Trump is a media master who knows how keep stoking a story by doubling and tripling and quadrupling down. And the press is now happy to play along for ratings and clicks, turning the campaign coverage into The Daily Donald.

What's in a Name?

According to Palwatch:

Killer of 67 Israeli civilians honored by independent Palestinian TV Ma'an

Ma’an visits home of bomb maker, “heroic prisoner Abdallah Barghouti”

Barghouti’s father:
“I ask every Palestinian to follow in the footsteps of Abdallah Barghouti for Palestine and Jerusalem”

Attacks Barghouti prepared bombs for included:
Sbarro restaurant -15 killed
Sheffield Club - 15 killed
Moment Café - 11 killed
Triple attack at Ben Yehuda pedestrian mall - 11 killed
Hebrew University - 9 killed
Bus 4 in Tel Aviv - 6 killed
- more

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Interview in Dispatch from Jerusalem

AS you probably know, I am seeking funding to launch an Online Dry Bones Academy of Cartoon Advocacy. Dispatch from Jerusalem has just published an article about my crowdfunding campaign at indiegogo (http://igg.me/at/drybones)

“We are at war,” says Yaakov Kirschen, the man behind the popular Dry Bones comic strip. The battle lines of this war, he says, are clearly drawn. In contemporary society, according to Kirschen, combat is no longer confined to traditional warfare and tactics. The advance of modern technology brings with it a host of unchartered fronts of attack—all of which require fortification and defense. Take electronic media for example. The rapidly increasing popularity of social media and instant messaging means that the battle for public opinion is won and lost on the internet. And cartoons have become a propaganda weapon of choice—especially when it comes to launching an attack on the existence, values and culture of Israel, the United States and Western society as a whole.

Cartoons have become one of the most important means of communication in today’s society, says Kirschen. The recent massacre at French satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, arguably supports this notion. Controversial cartoons ribbing Muhammad are widely believed to have been the motivating factor behind the attack, thus illustrating the strong emotional response that images can evoke.

Recent years have seen an alarming increase in the volume and venom of political cartoons being wielded as a weapon of attack against Judeo–Christian values and Western society. A simple Google search yields countless pages dedicated to anti-American and anti-Semitic imagery. The graphics typically pitch a bloodthirsty, evil and overpowering US–Jewish coalition against a tiny, peace-loving and downtrodden few. It is a growing market with a rapidly increasing audience. Every day cartoons of this nature flood the electronic media.

Kirschen is not taking the assault lying down. His counter offensive comes in the form of the Dry Bones Academy of Cartoon Advocacy and Activism. The online academy’s strategy is simple, he says. “As a 20th-century cartoonist, I want to train a generation of 21st-century cartoonists in the art, science and techniques of being activists and advocates—to use their cartoons to spread Judeo–Christian values, to fight for who we are and what we believe.”

Kirschen’s aim is for cartoonists to use their pens as powerful weapons to curb the flood of radical anti-Judeo-Christian rhetoric. “The enemy we face is a group of people whose aim is to subject the whole world to their god, belief and culture,” he says. “And in the process, they will destroy anything that does not conform or subjugate.”

It is in this area that Kirschen wants to raise up an army of artists to draw on behalf of human rights and freedom of expression. Cartoonists, he believes, are ideally positioned to do this job. “They should be fighting for Western rights, culture and values. If Yazidis or Nigerian Christians are being slaughtered, they should condemn it. And they should speak out forcefully. They should see themselves as warriors.”

The power of cartoons, says Kirschen, lies in their unique ability to creep past defensive radars. A message that uses the written word only often allows the reader to dismiss the author’s statement or simply ignore the article. “But if I make my case in the way of a cartoon, then people will laugh at it,” explains Kirschen. “At the point at which they laugh, for that moment they see the world through my eyes.”

Kirschen’s Dry Bones comic strip has kept readers chuckling for nearly half a century. The name, he explains, refers to the vision of the Valley of Bones in Ezekiel 37. Since taking its first bow in The Jerusalem Post on 1 January 1973, the award-winning strip became a daily staple in Israeli life. Hailed as “a treasure of the Jewish people,” Dry Bones has been reprinted and quoted internationally in the likes of the New York Times, the Times of London, Los Angeles Times, News Week, Time Magazine and Forbes.

Now, according to Kirschen, the time has come for him to pass the baton to the next generation of talented artists. “Before I go I want to teach cartoonists the lessons I have learned in more than 40 years of how to do it.”

“We are not going to teach people how to draw, but rather show them what the goal of their drawings is,” explains Kirschen. “It is to do something that will present the truth to someone who does not want to see the truth. That is what the Dry Bones Academy is all about.”

Yaakov Kirschen started Dry Bones in 1973. He has been published in the Jerusalem Post for more than 40 years and reprinted in the New York Times, Times of London, Los Angeles Times, News Week, Times Magazine and Forbes. For some more Dry Bones humor and information on the Academy, visit http://drybones.com/

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Main Stream Media Journalists

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Blame the Jews

According to the Huffington Post:

'Middle East Peace Process?' High Time for a New Name
There are those in the international community who have long claimed that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the root cause of the Middle East's problems.Among the more prominent voices articulating this notion has been Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. He has asserted that the absence of a Palestinian state is the crux of all problems in the Middle East.And former British Prime Minister Tony Blair once wrote: "How can we bring peace to the Middle East unless we resolve the question of Israel and Palestine?" Achieving peace, he continued, "would not only silence reactionary Islam's most effective rallying call, but fatally undermine its basic ideology."

The widespread use of the words "Middle East Peace Process" (MEPP) has served to reinforce this view that if the heart of the region's problems is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then, ipso facto, solving it could usher in a Kantian era of "perpetual peace." Consider, for instance, the job titles of these officials dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian agenda: Nickolay Mladenov, United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process; Fernando Gentilini, the EU Special Representative for the Middle East Peace Process; and Tony Blair, until recently the Representative of the Quartet to the Middle East Peace Process. (For the record, the American counterpart position is named U.S. Special Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations.) Or this statement from the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "Ireland has a long record of support for a lasting peace in the Middle East based on a two-state solution."

But, of course, there's one fundamental flaw in this reasoning -- it defies the facts on the ground." -more

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"In His Defense"

The Latest According to the Times of Israel:

Israel angrily warns powers caving to Iran in nuke talks
Jerusalem reacted furiously over reports Saturday that world powers were closing in on a long-sought pact that would see the lifting of sanctions in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program.Concessions growing, will allow Tehran to build nuclear arsenal even if it does keep to deal, officials in Jerusalem say

Officials in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office accused the six world powers negotiating with Iran of caving to the Islamic Republic’s demands, breaking even their own publicly stated “red-line” demands.
“With each passing day, the concessions from the powers to Iran are growing and growing,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office read. “Concessions over the inspections regime, concessions on how sanctions will be lifted, concessions on the amount of centrifuges, research and development of advanced centrifuges and more.”

The officials said the concessions would lead to a situation which would “pave the way for Iran for an arsenal of atomic weapons within a decade if it keeps to the deal,” and a bomb in a shorter time if Iran breaks its commitments. The comments came hours after the Associated Press reported that powers and Iran had drawn up a draft document on the pace and timing of sanctions relief, advancing on one of the most contentious issues at their negotiations. The development indicated the sides were moving closer to a comprehensive accord that would set a decade of restrictions on Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in economic benefits for the Iranians, as they race to complete a deal after extending a June 30 deadline to July 7.

Israel has loudly lobbied against the emerging deal, arguing it will let Iran continue to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapons program while lifting sanctions that have crippled the country’s economy. The US and much of the world fears Iran’s enrichment of uranium and other activity could be designed to make nuclear weapons; Iran says its program is meant only to generate power and for other peaceful purposes. “As soon as sanctions are lifted, tens and hundreds of billions of dollars will flow into the Iranian economy. There will be no turning back,” the PMO officials said in the statement. Officials from the US and other power have argued that sanctions will be able to be “snapped back” into place should Iran not comply with the deal. Saying Iran was more dangerous that the Islamic State, the officials warned against the threat that would be posed if Tehran were allowed to develop a nuclear weapon, which Netanyahu has described as an existential threat. The Iranian terror machine that operates worldwide will only be strengthened,” the officials said. “We must not let Iran acquire the most dangerous weapon in the world and fill its terror coffers with hundreds of billions of dollars.” Western officials have described sanctions relief as one of the thorniest disagreements between Iran and the United States, which has led the campaign of international pressure against Iran’s economy.

Written by technical experts, the sanctions document revealed Saturday document still must be approved by senior officials of the seven nations at the table, including US Secretary of State John Kerry, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and the foreign ministers of Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany, expected to join Kerry and Zarif in Vienna this weekend for a push to meet the July 7 deadline. Diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on this past week’s confidential negotiations, said the sanctions annex was completed this week by experts from Iran and the six world powers in the negotiations. They did not provide details of the agreement. A senior US official did not dispute the diplomats’ account but said work remained to be done on “Annex II” before the issue could be described as finalized. And beyond a political agreement that was still in the draft stage, details also needed to be finalized on tough issues contained in four other appendices. They include inspection guidelines, rules governing Iran’s research and development of advanced nuclear technology and the nuts and bolts of reducing the size and output of Iran’s uranium enrichment program. As part of a deal, the Obama administration also wants Iran to fully cooperate with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s investigation of allegations that Tehran worked secretly on nuclear arms — something Iran vehemently denies. But chances of progress on that issue appear to be dimming.

IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told reporters on Saturday that “more work will be needed” to advance the probe, in a statement similar to previous ones from his agency, which has struggled for nearly a decade to resolve its concerns.

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Changing Times

Latest AP Dispatches:

CAIRO (AP) — The latest on the aftermath of a coordinated militant assault on Egyptian security forces in the restive northern Sinai that killed dozens of troops and set off the bloodiest fighting in the peninsula in decades. The Israeli prime minister has warned of the growing threat to the region from Islamic State militants and has expressed condolences to Egypt over the deadly IS-linked attacks in Sinai the day before.

Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that "we see in front of our eyes IS acting with extraordinary cruelty both in our northern border and at our southern border."He says: "Our hearts are with the Egyptian people, we send our condolences to the Egyptian government and the families of those who were killed in battle with the cruel terror."

Egypt and Israel share a border in the Sinai and have cooperated in the past on cross-border militant threats.

Egyptian security officials say the military has killed 23 Islamic militants in the Sinai Peninsula in dawn air raids south of the north Sinai border town of Rafah.They say the army was seeking out militants house to house on Thursday in the town of Sheikh Zuweid, and demining roads in and around the town that extremists had booby trapped with mines and improvised explosives devices.

An Associated Press reporter across the border in the Gaza Strip heard explosions and saw smoke rising in the area as airstrikes continued in the afternoon and warplanes roared overhead.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to talk to the media.The raids came a day after militants hit military positions in northern Sinai. The army said 17 troops and 90 militants were killed, but security officials and media reports said dozens of soldiers and some 100 militants died in the fighting.

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Cruelty in America

I originally did this cartoon back in 1993!
For info about the U.S. constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishement: The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified in 1791) specifically prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the ban applies not only to punishments that are inherently cruel, but also to punishments that are "grossly disproportionate" to the offense in question. To understand how "grossly disproportionate" is Pollard's sentence, click on http://www.jonathanpollard.org/sentences.htm * * * For info about the online Dry Bones Academy of Cartoon Advocacy and Activism: www.igg.me/at/drybones

Fight their Ideas

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