Current Shareware 1994 January/SHAR194.ISO/textfile/antisem.zip/NOFUN.INT

Text File | 1993-08-04 | 8KB | 126 lines

From messages in the Judaism Section of Religion Forum, 30-July-1991:
Sb: NO FUN INTENDED
Fm: Kayza & Shmuel Zajac 72411,3125

I'm posting an article by David Bar Illan which I see it to of importance.

I have gotten permission to post this message. (I will with g-d's help post
another VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLE of his with regard to Judge's Kama ruling on
the Temple Mount Incident, in which we have experienced some distortions
(which are defamatory) and it shows on the bias and total unfairness in
"REPORTING" what has beend said!!!! (not an analysis), but unfortunately i
don't have yet the article in full (in clarity as some parts are blurred, but
as I said with G-d's help we will try to get the article in its entirety and
clarify the situation so that the people should SEE what kind of slanderers we
have around and be able to remove silly position which are stated to us).

This article appeared in the JERUSALEM POST Of July 19, 1991, in David Bar
Illan's article on page 10 in "EYE ON THE MEDIA": "Humor is one area in which
most inhibitions and restrictions can be shed. The taboos - pervasive
particularly in the USA - on racist, sexist, antisemitic, ageist, anti-men,
anti-women, anti-children, and now even anti-animal jokes, have reached
ludicrous proportions. In the context of entertainment, the most offensive
insult must be considered accpetable. Otherwise, there will be little left to
laugh about, and few shperes in which to let off steam. It would be
insufferable "square" then, to measure cartoons, intended to amuse and
entertain, by the yardstick applied to the written word. But politicalcartoons
are not just entertaiment. They are editorials which use caricatures and  a
few words of irony, pathos, satire and sarcasm instead of verbal arguments to
sell a point of view. They are seldom funny, nor are they intended to be.
Their purpose is to hold up a distorting mirror, a magnifying glass, to man's
folly.

"But while cartoonist must use hyperbole, savage mockery and snide innuendo to
be successful, they cannot enjoy the impunity to censure accorded a cabaret
comedian. The revolting cartoon steretyping of Nazi Germany and the
preglasnost USSR should be sufficient reason to deem certain caricatures not
only beyond pale of civilzed taste but outright incitement.

American cartoonists, like other editorial writers and columnists, can be
pro-Israel, Anti-Israel or neither. It says something about Israeli artists
and their cause that they seldom use humiliating stereotypes of Arabs.
Drawings by Anti-Israel caricaturists, are often indistinguishable from
Anti-Semitic excesses.

The best known of the avowed Ant-Israeli cartoonists in the U.S. are OCnrad
and Oliphant, both widely synidicated extraordinarily gifted artists. Of the
two, conrad seems more partial to reliigious themes. He likes to depict
Israelis as bearded, haredi fanantics, dressed in black coats and hats, or as
faceless, helemt-wearing Nazi-like soldiers with the Shields of David. His
bearded Jew stands on top of a supine Palestinian holding a placard reading
"free Soviet JEws"; he once drew a Sghield of David made up of Uzi
submachineguns; his Western Wall worshippers look up to see G-d's handwriting
on the Wall. The scrawled inscription says: "Gaza-West Bank."

Conrad's religion preoccupation reaches a special plateau when he depicts
Israelis as Christ Killers and Palestinian as Christian MArtyrs. The drawing
is of a natiivity scene, with the star in the east and the donkey, except that
th emembers of the holy family are dead on the road. The caption reads "three
more were killed yesterday near Betlehem in continued violence." Oliphant
mention of the same theme has t epregnant MAry on the donkey, led by Joseph to
the "no vacancy" inn.

"The inkeeper says, "YOu might try down Balata canp refugee camp, but try not
to get yourshelves shot by Israeli security."

A puzzling psychiatric twist was added in a conrad cartoon publication in teh
Los Angeles Times three weeks ago. It shows a tiny Shamir facing a grotesquely
tall Bush in a field filled with markers of "settlement sites." Shamir is
playing with a stone, hiding a sling shot behind his back, and the caption
reads, "I think now this David-GOliath thing comes out." It could be nothing
more than the standard "Israel can twist America around its little finger"
line, an Israel' bashers favorite. Except that in this one, Shamir is stark
naked.

WEll perhaps Conrad thinks he has nothing to hide.

Oliphant is a far writer artist, with an ascerbic, misanthropic pen. He
reminds me of a character in a famous New Yorker cartoon who yells in a
crowded pub, "I hate everybody regardless of race, creed, religion." He draws
Arabs with almost as muc h venom as he does Israelis. But it is difficult to
shake the unconfortable feeling that there is little difference between
Oliphant's masterpieces and the AntiSEmtic obscenities of the Thrities and
Forties.

Oliphant's Shamir almost invariably speaks with a Jewish heavy accent. Carried
off by two bearded haredi types to "way off-Israel" he says, "Mein golly, I
hope Bush von't criticize me for allowing meinself to be carried avay by some
screwy, right wing fundamentalists!" A Shamir being stoned by a Plaestinan
child cries, "Ve vill let zem freely elect anyone ve approve of, but first zey
haff to stop mit zis - ouch!" But, there is an "improvement" of sorts in a
recent cartoon. Shamir is depicted as ungrateful, parasitic kid advising
Gorbachev how to finagle money out of Bush, who is shown as a naive
Salvation Army officcer standing under a cross in his mission's doorway.
Here Shamir whose shirt is emblazoned with a Shield of David, talks just
like a regular hoodlum - no Jewish accent is discernible.

Israeli greed and sweenish ingratitude is one of Oilphant's favorite themes.
In a recent two-frame cartoon, a small Shamir slaps Bake rin ht eface, then
topoints to his slapping hand, now open for a handout and says, "donations
accpeted". When Baker announced the White House telephone number and suggested
Shamir call when he was serious about peace, Oliphant showed a Baker growing a
long beard waiting for the call, while tiny sideline commentators (an oliphant
trademark) say "I bet he'll call collect, and he does he'll ask for money."

That almost all the aid money Israel receives are spent in the U.S>A. is of
course, never mentioned. The money, according to the cartooninsts, is spent on
beating up Arabs in the occupied Tertories." It must be sheer conscience, but
both Englehart in the Hatford Courant and Palmer in the SPrignfield (MIssouri)
News leader drew almost identical scenes os soldiers savagely beating
defenseless Arabs next to a sign saying, "Your American tax money at work."

The most offensive cartoons are of course those that depict Israelis as Nazis.
An analogy is a favorite Arab propaganda line, abetted by Israelis
self-flagellants who get their thrills from calling IDF soldiers Judeo-Nazis.
A drawing often encountered in the American press is of concentration  camps
whose barbed-wire fences are shaped like a shield of David.  Oliphsnt draws an
Aushwitz-bound train on one cartoon panel and a bus marked "Palestiains" on
the others and captions it "Deportations - then and now."

"But perhaps the lowest depths were reached by Marlette in an Atlanta
Constituion cartoon (the theme was used by danziger of the Christian Science
Monitor). It shows Nazi like Israeli troops, with large shields of David for
insiginia, bursting into an attic in which a young girl is writing in a diary.
As they enter, the Uzi-carrying, Gestapo-type Israeli officer gasps, "Anne
Frank."