The latest attack by Israel on Gaza and the United Nations approval of Palestine to have observer status at the UN has produced some dramatic results which the zionists seem not to have anticipated.
The facts on the ground are that there is more and more opposition to Israel and the zionists than there has ever been before, and there are signs that young people in the United States are no longer following their elders blindly into unthinking support for the US support of the state of Israel and the loud cries of AIPAC to make them toe the "party line"!.
In Australia the latest outcry from the zionists and the rabid religious right fundamentalist rabbis and their supporters such as the Australian Jewish News aka the Israeli zionist times is because of some recent cartoonists such as Leunig and Petty.
They are now labelled with that catch-all cry "ANTI-SEMITES!".
Here are the three cartoons at the centre of the argument and here are some Jewish commentators:
From the Australian jewish news aka Israel Zionist times:
The Age defends cartoons
November 30, 2012
THE editor-in-chief of The Age has defended a series of cartoons published over the last week, one of which the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC) labelled as “virulent hate-speech”, that have outraged the Melbourne Jewish community.
A cartoon by Michael Leunig last Wednesday (see the first cartoon above) adapted German pastor Martin Niemoeller’s famous “First they came for the Jews” statement about the apathy of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power, changing it to “First they came for the Palestinians”.
The cartoon then states: “I did not speak out because if I did, doors would close to me, hateful mail would arrive, bitterness and spiteful condemnations would follow.”
ADC chairperson Dvir Abramovich said the cartoon “crossed the line”, using anti-Semitic words and themes.
“‘They’ of course referred to the Nazis. In Leunig’s cartoon, however, it is the Israelis who are the Nazis,” he said. “Leunig’s second anti-Semitic theme [is] that anyone who supports the Palestinians will immediately be besieged by the all-powerful Jewish lobby. This is the kind of hateful rhetoric you would expect on anti-Semitic websites, not The Age.”
A second Leunig cartoon on Saturday (see second cartoon above)portrayed a character – presumably Jewish – at Mount Sinai receiving the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” before shooting both Moses and God dead, then standing on the mountain wearing God’s crown. Then a Bruce Petty cartoon on Monday, November 26, (third cartoon above)showed a boat of Palestinians with the banner “The Right of Return – UN” approaching a heavily fortified and armed Israel flying the banner “The Right to be Here – Bible”.
“This not only ignores the unquestionable fact that the UN created the modern Jewish State, but also overlooks thousands of years of Jewish history in the Land of Israel,” Abramovich said.
Defending the cartoons, Age editor-in-chief Andrew Holden said the cartoonists were all “very experienced, and well aware of the sensitivities around Middle East politics”.
“However, they are also entitled to express their personal opinions, even if these are challenging.”
But Abramovich said there was a “clear moral difference” between something that was challenging and something that was racist. “The same applies to something that is a lie. I strongly suggest that editors have a responsibility to their readers to prevent both of the foregoing,” he added.
By GARETH NARUNSKY
----------------------------------------------------------------
From the age newspaper 301112
Leunig's cartoon deserves a more thoughtful Jewish response
November 30, 2012
By Harold Zwier
The power of a cartoon lies in the many ways it can be interpreted.
ON NOVEMBER 21, The Age published a cartoon by Michael Leunig which commented on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The device Leunig used was a parody of the famous poem by Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller about the need to be vocal when one sees a wrong - even if not directly affected by it.
First they came for the communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.
There are variations to the poem and it seems it was first used in speeches Niemoller gave in 1946. In Leunig's cartoon there are four frames to match the four stanzas of the original poem. There is an almost universal view in the leadership of the Victorian Jewish community that Leunig's cartoon is anti-Semitic. The media release from the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission quoted chairman Dr Dvir Abramovich presenting the following arguments to support that claim.
'''First they came …' introduces a celebrated statement attributed to German pastor Martin Niemoller about the apathy of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and their gradual elimination of certain groups. 'They' of course referred to the Nazis. In Leunig's cartoon, however, it is the Israelis who are the Nazis.
''And Leunig's second anti-Semitic theme? That anyone who supports the Palestinians will immediately be besieged by the all-powerful Jewish lobby, similarly jackbooted, treading on all who oppose them, closing doors in their faces, spiteful, hateful and bitter. In Leunig's black-and-white world, Palestinian/Arab/Muslim lobby groups are muzzled and The Age would never dare to publish an article (or cartoon) critical of Israel.''
My reaction to the cartoon was very different. The power of a cartoon is in the many ways in which it can be interpreted. Once the cartoon is in the public domain it lives its own life - as indeed does Niemoller's poem. My comments should therefore be understood to reflect a personal view.
That Leunig comes to his cartoon with the perspective of a Palestinian supporter merely sets the scene. The baseline of the cartoon is that Palestinians are always the victims. We know this isn't a universal truth, but the cartoon isn't a balanced dissertation on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - it's a cartoon. It uses exaggeration to tell us something.
The parody of Niemoller's language is playful: ''First they came for the Palestinians … Then they came for more … '' And in this respect Leunig can be criticised - or maybe he is being self-critical. Is he being too playful about the plight of the Palestinians in complaining overtly about silence as a form of tacit acceptance and covertly that publicly criticising Israeli treatment of Palestinians will be met with anger - from ''the all-powerful Jewish lobby'', to quote Dr Abramovich?
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. A more thoughtful response might have been to silently reflect on the sometimes appalling and disgraceful level of the debate about the conflict - and not just from one side. However, the genuinely held perception of anti-Semitism mandated a public response.
The Jewish community is a wonderful community, but sometimes I wish it was a little less weighed down by its collective memory and a little more informed by it. Sigh.
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.
Harold Zwier is on the executive of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society.
