Israel Matzav

A blessing in disguise?

Roger Simon argues that Pat Oliphant did us all a favor by drawing the cartoon below and that the moonbats at the Washington Post did us all a favor by publishing it.

But it struck me that Oliphant - whose work I usually find humdrum in the extreme - has done us a favor. Deliberately or not, he has dropped the oldest of phony Leftist pretenses - that anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are not the same. The poor, diminutive woman and child of Gaza in his cartoon are being eaten alive by a rapacious Jewish star, not by the flag of Israel. It is the religion or ethnic group (you decide), not the state - Jews, not Israelis - performing this supposedly horrific act.

Well, thank you, Oliphant, you racial primitive you. You let the cat out of the bag we always knew was in there. And you did it in the pages of the Washington Post. [Do you blame the Post for that?-ed. Why bother? Papers will do anything to sell these days.]

J o s h u a p u n d i t is happy the cartoon was published and blames the New York Times and Oliphant.

Blaming the New York Times for being true to its nature at this point is cynical, self serving and meaningless. They've learned they can get away with this sort of thing with impunity.

For that matter, Pat Oliphant has been around a long time, has run a number of cartoons like this and is fairly well known in press circles as a Jew hater. Back when he worked at the old Herald Examiner, my father of blessed memory had to be restrained from punching his lights out when Oliphant started running his mouth off in his presence. The New York Times knew exactly what it was getting, and from whom.

So here's an interesting question to ponder. Why would the New York Times refuse to publish the Mohammed 'toons because they `didn't want to desecrate a religious symbol' but cheerfully print a cartoon denigrating a Jewish religious symbol?

Could it be perhaps because they knew that with Jews (or Christians, for that matter) the worst they have to fear is a few nasty letters they can sluff off with a pro forma 'apology' that rings about as true as one of Pee Wee Herman's?

...

Besides, as I said, I'm glad the Times ran this. Because I love clarity.

It should be obvious even to the most clueless what the agenda of the New York Times is.

It should be clear to anyone who despises Jew hatred that buying, advertising or subscribing to the New York Times or any other paper that ran this is subsidizing this kind of hatred. And for a Jew to do so is a fairly self-hating act one step above subscribing to the equivalent of Der Stürmer or Hezbollah's al-Intiqad.

Andy McCarthy disagrees with Barry Rubin's claim that calling the cartoon anti-Semitic is 'pointless,' but says Rubin is spot-on with this quote.

Oliphant like many or most Western intellectuals, academics, and policymakers, still doesn’t understand the concept of asymmetric warfare. In this, a weaker side wages war on a stronger side using techniques it thinks can make it win. What are these techniques? Terrorism, indifference to the sacrifice of its people, indifference to material losses, refusal to compromise, extending the war for ever. This is precisely the technique of Hamas: let’s continue attacking Israel in order to provoke it to hit us, let’s target Israeli civilians, let’s seek a total victory based on genocide, let’s use our own civilians as human shields, and with such methods we will win. One way we will win is to demonize those who defend themselves, to put them in positions where they have a choice between surrender and looking bad. This cartoon is a victory for Hamas. But it is also a victory for all those who would fight the West and other democracies (India, for example) using these methods. Remember September 11?

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that the quote from Rubin is correct. The problem is that the Left-leaning mainstream media has become a tool in the jihad against the West. While it may be helpful to have proof that the Times and the Post are run by anti-Semites and side with the jihadis, for their readership, a cartoon like Oliphant's is just preaching to the choir.

But I'm looking forward to Roger Simon's coverage of the Durban II conference. I wouldn't want to be there.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:14 AM