Australian Jews Respond to Ugly Cartoon
December 2, 2012 18:45 by Pesach Benson
Everything you need to know about today’s coverage of Israel and the Mideast. Join the Israel Daily News Stream on Facebook.
Today’s Top Stories
1. Loads of commentary on Thursday’s UN statehood vote. See it all below.
2. Howard Zwier blasts back at the Sydney Morning Herald for this disgusting Michael Leunig cartoon.
After taking apart the implicit Israel-Nazi comparison based on Pastor Martin Niemoller’s original statement, Zweir writes:
However the cartoon is also clever, because the reaction of the Jewish community as articulated in the Anti-Defamation Commission media release is in fact encapsulated within the cartoon. As Leunig said, ”bitterness and spiteful condemnations would follow”, duly obliged by Dr Abramovich in his comments.
And so the Jewish community has been wedged . . .
Perhaps, in the end, we might ask whether the cartoon is really about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or in fact about the conflict between the Jewish community and Leunig. It’s all a question of perception and interpretation – the power of the cartoon.
3. The US finally set a deadline for Iran to cooperate with the IAEA. Reuters writes:
“If by March Iran has not begun substantive cooperation with the IAEA, the United States . . . would urge the board to consider reporting this lack of progress to the U.N. Security Council,” Wood said, according to a copy of his statement.
Israel and the Palestinians
• UN votes to to recognize Palestine as non-member observer state:
The 193-member U.N. body voted 138 to 9, with 41 abstentions, to recognize Palestine as a “non-member observer state,” a status that falls well short of independence but provides Palestinians with limited privileges as a state, including the right to join the International Criminal Court and other international treaty bodies.
• Ambassador Ron Prosor talked to CNN about the statehood vote and Mahmoud Abbas’s speech.
• Israel to move forward with 3,000 housing units in eastern Jerusalem and a patch of land between the capital and Maale Adumim. But despite Big Media’s hype, E1 doesn’t cut the West Bank in two.
• Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz said he won’t transfer tax funds to the PA. The Jerusalem Post writes:
Steinitz said he would “use the funds to offset the PA’s electricity debts,” Channel 10 reported.
• Pathetic UN fail on Twitter. Spot the typo that forced the UN to remove this tweet and post a corrective tweet. Nowadays, people don’t wag their tongues without screengrabs. More backstory at Forbes, Poynter, and the Toronto Star.
• What possessed the Czech Republic, Panama, and four Pacific island countries to join Israel, the US and Canada, in voting against Palestinian statehood? The Washington Post looks at this nine-state “coalition of the opposing.”
• Nabil Shaath has a big time credibility problem says Elliott Abrams. It not only explains why the PA’s top negotiator was frozen out of Washington for years, but also the sad state of Palestinian leadership and why the chances of peace are slimmer than ever.
• Washington Post: Support for Hamas fading as Gazans begin to ask what the war accomplished.
• Boycott shmoycott. The NY Times reports that Singapore and South Korea are already in talks with Israel to purchase an Iron Dome system.
Dany
9:11 pm
Dec 02, 2012
This world has gone to the liers, the thieves
and to the bluffers. We can only trust our
LORD, as it is spelled out in the Torah “THE
LAND YOU DWELL ON I GIVE TO YOU,
ISRAEL, and TO YOUR DESCENDANTS
for EVER” “GO FORTH AND SETTLE ALL
THE LAND”.
This Divine promise was first made to
Abraham, then to Isaac, and again to Jacob
(Israel), and further reaffirmed to other
personalities of our outstanding history!
Now let the world know that this promise
cannot be undone, not by any and all means.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
48 
0
Charlene
9:58 pm
Dec 02, 2012
What an inversion of reality that gross and nauseating cartoon is. Lies and even bigger lies, it is truly sickening. Unfortunately too many idiots who do not think, believe these gross lies and libels. Israel is the Promised Land and is the historic and Biblical homeland of the Jewish people. Jerusalem, Judah, the clue is in the name. Those who deny the truth are fighting with the Creator of the Universe, God. Oh foolish and ignorant people who stand on the side of those who are the heirs of the Nazis. I stand with Israel and would not give the time of day to the ridiculous propaganda and lies of Haman oops meant Hamas and co. Shalom Israel.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
33 
0
batya dagan
10:08 pm
Dec 02, 2012
Who is this TV person who calls Israel a cancer? This is really funny.Someone who is a
cancer and who spreads cancer calls a democracy who does not stop looking for a cure for
cancer- cancer?
This is an upside down world.The disease calls the healer a disease.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
23 
0
Australian Jews Respond to Ugly Cartoon | Blogs about Israel aggregation
10:09 pm
Dec 02, 2012
[...] Continued on Page 2 [...]
Agree or Disagree:
1 
0
josephBaruhovic
11:06 pm
Dec 02, 2012
To be honest ! I do not understand , Dear US,Canada,Germany UK,why You spend money on thise corrupt voting machinery UN.
To be honest ! I do not understend why Israel supply electricity and food via Israel ?
regards Joseph
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
16 
0
Ben Derusai
11:14 pm
Dec 02, 2012
To put things in some perspective, Harold Zwier belongs to a far left Jewish organisation that regularly joins with Palestinian activists to advocate for their cause. His newspaper article on the antisemitic cartoon was actually in defense of it, and he has been roundly condemned by the mainstream Jewish community. In fact, if it wasn’t for the Age, a left wing anti-Jewish newspaper, giving him oxygen, his organisation would have been relegated to irrelevance years ago.
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
13 
0
Frank Adam
11:29 pm
Dec 02, 2012
In Nov 2000 as te Second Intifada got under steam Hanan Ashrawi admitted on BBC 2 Newsnight that the rejection of the Peel Report was a mistake. Anybody who comes up before her should ask whether the rejection of UN 181 was also a mistake? and while about Arab mistakes in Palestine ask whether the failure to respond to the Israeli June 1967 post war offer to return to the Green Line for a Peace Treaty ending the conflict and claims was not also a mistake?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
9 
0
Nigel Blumenthal
11:30 pm
Dec 02, 2012
Re the Deborah Orr quote, you missed that she can’t even bring herself to condemn the obvious: She talks about “No one has any difficulty, surely, in condemning aggression, particularly in the form of rockets sent by Hamas into Gaza?” Didn’t she mean “sent into Israel”? Or can’t she bring herself to even criticize her beloved terrorists for that?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
12 
1
Frank Selch
12:12 am
Dec 03, 2012
What can you expect from political puppets like Michael Leunig when the Australian Prime Minister does not have the courage to stand up for what she really believes in the UN vote last Thursday. Abstaining is not a noble thing, it is merely saying I am puttin ‘two bob each way’. If she has no character and does not hesitate to stab her own colleagues in the back, what can one expect from the Media? Australia’s leftist Jewry also better watch out when they have outlived their usefulness.
There is no other term for the cartoon, but disgusting!!
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
15 
0
Heather Kennedy
12:22 am
Dec 03, 2012
Just wanted to point out not only Australian Jews — but many non-Jewish Australians — are appalled by Leunig’s disgusting cartoons.
His views are notorious, predictable & bizarre.
However it gives many of us a certain amount of (unkind?) satisfaction that the two newspapers for whom Leunig works have the smallest circulation in the country — & each week the figures drop further.
Karma?
Well-loved. Agree or Disagree:
17 
0
Sylvie Schapira
11:51 am
Dec 03, 2012
First the Nazis came for the Jews, and nobody spoke out because they didn’t care about the Jews.
Then the Arabs came for the Jews and nobody spoke out ” ” ” ”
Then the Leftists came (as above)
Then anybody who felt aggrieved, envious, inferior, resentful, angry or lustful for Jewish blood came.
Is there anybody left to speak out?
Agree or Disagree:
3 
0
Larry Stillman
3:04 am
Dec 04, 2012
If Pesah Benson was honest, he would admit that he has engaged in a complete distortion of what Harold Zwier said in the Melbourne Age, engaging in selective quotation of what Mr Zwier wrote, to produce an opposite effect, as if the cartoon was intended to cause hurt, hatred or ill-feeling.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/leunigs-cartoon-deserves-a-more-thoughtful-jewish-response-20121129-2aimi.html.
Agree or Disagree:
0 
0