Australian Jews Respond to Ugly Cartoon
December 2, 2012 18:45 by Pesach BensonCommentary/Analysis
• Worth reading: Operation Pillar of Defense touched Forbes investigative journalist Richard Behar close to home. A rocket damaged a Rishon LeZion apartment building where relatives lived, the Tel Aviv bus bombing struck a line a cousin frequently rode, and then there’s another distant cousin who was injured when terrorists fired an anti-tank missile at an IDF jeep patrolling the Gaza border. That was the attack which critically injured four soldiers, sparking the war.
• How Will Big Media Refer to the Palestinian “State”? Palestine, PA, and Palestinian Territories are flawed references, so what’s an editor to do?
• Analysts quoted by the NY Times offered two reasons it won’t be simple for the Palestinians to drag Israel to the International Criminal Court:
Some analysts said that by accepting the jurisdiction of the court, the Palestinians could also open themselves up to prosecution for war crimes, including Hamas’s attacks on Israeli civilians.
“Maybe the Palestinians will not want there to be a case against Palestinians,” said Aeyal Gross, a law professor at Tel Aviv University.
They also question whether the Palestinian Authority can bring a case involving jurisdiction in the Gaza Strip, which Hamas, and not President Mahmoud Abbas controls. That raises questions on whether Gaza even forms a state along with the West Bank. “It is a double-edged sword for them,” said Srini Sitaraman, an international law professor at Clark University in Massachusetts.
• An Irish Examiner staff-ed says “It is time for President Obama to be more forceful and tell Israel that its diplomats, not its soldiers, must resolve this crisis.
• “The foreign ministers of Britain and France co-wrote a Times of London commentary (paywall) calling for more US involvement in the peace process.
• Israel’s Birth Didn’t Come at UN; Neither Will Palestine’s
Deborah Orr
• It’s disgusting that Deborah Orr (remember her?) equates settlement activity with terror. Funny, but I don’t recall ever seeing her condemn terror.
No one has any difficulty, surely, in condemning aggression, particularly in the form of rockets sent by Hamas into Gaza? A lot of us consider settlements and occupation to be acts of aggression as well, and simply don’t understand how Israel can manage to persuade itself that, somehow, some way, they’re not.
• The Peace Process Tooth Fairy
• Abbas can best cement his legacy by resigning and explaining “hard truths” to the Palestinians without the constraints of his position.
But in order to make peace, Palestinians must understand that Israel is not some freak of history, some alien invasion or malignant growth.
• Globe & Mail staff-ed: Canada shouldn’t penalize Palestinians
• Count on Comment is Free to be the platform of choice for Joseph Massad‘s historical revisionism and for Hanan Ashrawi.
• “If the UN decision to recognize Palestine was as meaningless as it’s made out to be, why did its opponents fight so ferociously against it?” asks Haroon Siddiqui.
• See also Paul McGeough, Jennifer Rubin, David Frum, Fareed Zakaria, John Bolton, Frida Ghitis, Boaz Bismuth, staff-eds in The Independent and Irish Times, cartoonist Jeff Danziger, and Tariq Almohayed. The latter doesn’t like Khaled Meshaal’s attempt to equate Hamas’s war with Abbas’s UN success:
What we must recall here is that Abbas secured recognition of the Palestinian state from the international community, whilst all Mishal is interested in is securing recognition for Hamas and himself, and there is a very big difference between the two, and that is the whole story.
Arab Spring Winter
Prime Minister Erdogan
• Worth reading: Turkish columnist Joost Lagendijk says Mohammed Morsi’s rising stature is coming at Ankara’s expense. And its squarely because Prime Minister Erdogan burnt his bridges with Israel. His anti-Israel vitriol left him a bystander in the Gaza ceasefire talks:
It has made him popular on the Arab streets, and I guess it goes down well with many Turks as well. The result however is that Turkey has lost its seat at the negotiation table because it is no longer perceived as an honest broker in conflicts in which Israel is involved.
Lagendijk buttresses his point citing recent commentary/analysis in the NY Times and Foreign Policy. By the way, the Toronto Star‘s Rosie DiManno channeled her inner Lagendijk with a similar commentary.
• Secularists are crying foul, but Egypt is moving towards a December 15 constitutional referendum. BBC coverage.
• Quite a few papers picked up on a NY Times report detailing how Iran’s sending arms to Syria over Iraqi airspace.
Regarding the arms shipments, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton secured a commitment from Iraq’s foreign minister in September that Iraq would inspect flights from Iran to Syria. But the Iraqis have inspected only two . . .
But one former Iraqi official, who asked not to be identified because he feared retaliation by the Iraqi government, said that some officials in Baghdad had been doing the bare minimum to placate the United States and were in fact sympathetic to the Iranian efforts in Syria.
• The Syrian Internet’s back up, but Asma Assad hasn’t Facebooked since Thursday.
• The Lede: Bomb outside Press TV’s Damascus office destroys satellite news truck and other vehicles.
• In his first interview with the Western press since defecting, Syrian Brig. Gen. Manaf Tlass told the Sunday Times (paywall) that Bashar Assad won’t hesitate to use chemical weapons against his people. Regarding the February deaths of reporters Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik in the shelling of Baba Amr (Paul Conroy and Edith Bouvier were injured), Tlass had this to say:
Asked whether the journalists were deliberately targeted, Tlass replied: “It’s possible. They were broadcasting the voice of the Syrian people, and killing a journalist isn’t hard for a regime which killed 500 people in Baba Amr.
“Anyone who relays the voice of the people isn’t welcome. The deaths of the journalists could be a message saying, ‘This is our affair, don’t get involved,’” he said.
Rest O’ the Roundup
• Iran stationed defense staff in North Korea. Reuters says they’re cooperating on missile development.
• Follow the progress of the HonestReporting-Australia Advocacy Mission in Israel. Click for more info.
• TechCrunch: British parliament summoned senior Google and Facebook officials to discuss media convergence and how it should be regulated.
(Image of Erdogan via YouTube/PBSNewsHour)
For more, see Thursday’s Israel Daily News Stream.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Australian Jews Respond to Ugly Cartoon | Blogs about Israel aggregation
10:09 pm
Dec 02, 2012
[...] Continued on Page 2 [...]
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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
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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!!
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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?
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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?
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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.
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