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One of Israel’s diplomatic challenges in arguing their position vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is that it is difficult to explain their requirements in a pithy sound bite.
While Palestinians can simply say that “all they want” is an end to “the Occupation”, explaining the myriad of complex strategic and security implications of further territorial withdrawal simply does not lend itself to a simple slogan or set of catch phrases.
While I’ve repeatedly noted that the common assumption, that withdrawing from more land (in Judea and Samaria) would inevitably bring peace, has been contradicted by the subsequent political results, and strategic consequences, of Israel’s withdrawals from South Lebanon in 2000, and from Gaza in 2005, its vital to clearly stress the dangers Israel would face in the aftermath of a withdrawal which didn’t take this recent history (where terrorists movements, Hezbollah and Hamas respectively, filled the vacuum created by the IDF’s absence) into account.
The following video was produced by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and serves as brief yet clear primer on Israel’s vital security issues in the context of negotiations with the Palestinians over a final peace agreement.
H/T Just Journalism
Today’s Guardian “Palestine Papers” update included the following illustration by one of the most prolific anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic cartoonists, Carlos Latuff – depicting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a sinister looking (gun wielding) Orthodox Jew. (The Guardian casually referred to Latuff as “a Brazilian based cartoonist.”)
As I noted previously (in a piece for the JCPA, as well as a guest post for Elder of Ziyon), Latuff is a Brazilian political “activist” and cartoonist with an impressively large portfolio of work – much of which openly express anti-Semitic themes. Some of his caricatures seem to suggest that Israel is a unique and immutable evil in the world. His work includes imagery frequently suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and Nazi Germany – and he has explicitly acknowledged that this is indeed his political view.
Latuff’s work has been posted on various radical left websites and blogs, as well as several terrorist affiliated websites such as ‘The Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance’ (JAMI) magazine. Norman Finkelstein’s official website has also featured Latuff cartoons. As I noted in my Elder of Ziyon post, a blogger at the site, Mondoweiss, made use of one of Latuff’s cartoons during the flotilla incident. (Scroll down to bottom to see link to Latuff‘s cartoon)
Latuff’s notoriety includes his participation in the 2006 Iranian International Holocaust Cartoon Competition – for his cartoon comparing the Israeli West Bank security barrier with the Nazi concentration camps. Latuff placed second in the contest.
In their 2003 Annual Report, the Stephen Roth Institute compared Latuff’s cartoons of Ariel Sharon to the antisemitic caricatures of Philipp Rupprecht in Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer.
Even the Guardian’s Ian Black noted that Latuff was among those cartoonists “drawing, without inhibition, on judeophobic stereotypes in the service of the anti-globalisation movement.”
Latuff also has employed racist themes in service of his critiques of President Barack Obama.
Here is some of Latuff’s work:
The Latuff cartoon above, showing Sharon kissing Hitler, appeared on the (Washington) DC Indymedia site.
Here is an essay I had published in the Jerusalem Post on Jan. 3
Some would call me a masochist. I spend most of my day reading a reactionary blog – one which often advances narratives warning darkly of a dominant “Zionist” lobby which stifles debate and has a corrosive effect on the political system. This blog has been identified as one of the main purveyors of antisemitic hate in the British mainstream media by the CST – the organization dedicated to collecting, analyzing, and responding to antisemitism in the UK.
Clearly a glutton for punishment, I also scour the comment section of such posts where I often find quite palpable expressions of hatred towards Jews.
This site, home of such far-right views, also happens to be the most widely read blog in the UK – 37 million unique visitors a month.
I must admit that I omitted one crucial detail about this blog. It describes itself as a progressive left publication.
Comment is Free, the blog of the UK paper, The Guardian, not only brands itself as progressive left, but has stated its aim to become “the world’s leading liberal voice.”
“Oh, come on”, you’re thinking. “Surely the Guardian is an anomaly. The progressive left, by their very nature, are anti-racist and opposed to antisemitism. Expressions of hatred towards minority groups are a phenomenon uniquely prevalent on the right.” Well, actually, that’s not the case.
As my report for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs demonstrated, some of the more popular progressive left blogs in the US – Huffington Post, Glenn Greenwald and Daily Kos – with extremely large liberal audiences – freely engage in Judeophobic invectives. In addition, the most popular and influential conservative blogs in the US – such as National Review’s blog, The Corner, Hot Air, Instapundit and many others – tend to be strongly philo-Semitic. My follow-up report for the JCPA analyzed the presence of antisemitic cartoons on such progressive sites. Indeed, there is credible polling data that such expressions of bigotry are not anomalous.
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Guardian issues ‘progressive in good standing’ card to Carlos Latuff: racist and anti-Semite
August 23, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: anti-Zionism, Antisemitism, Carlos Latuff, Guardian, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs | by Adam Levick | 10 comments
Associate a political activist with the bucolic imagery evoked by the term “Arab Spring” – a movement whose often decidedly illiberal aspects are routinely ignored by the Guardian and most of the MSM - and, no matter how compromised the person is by a quite reactionary ideological orientation, the halo effect is secured.
The Guardian’s Jack Shenker, writing in the Art and Culture section, “Carlos Latuff: The voice of Tripoli – Live from Rio“, Aug. 22, bestows upon Latuff the honor of “progressive” political cartoonist in service of the “democratic” ideals of the Arab revolution.
Shenker benignly characterizes Latuff, thusly:
Shenker, later in the piece, says:
Of course, Shenker, conventiently fails to note the extreme left activist’s well-documented record of not merely “using the Star of David”, but publishing cartoons which demonstrate an obsessive, visceral, and vicious hatred of Israel which, quite often, employ the Star of David to characterize the Jewish state as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany - imagery which often devolves into other expressions of outright anti-Semitism.
Indeed, Latuff appeared quite prominently in my essay for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, “Anti-Semitic Cartoons on Progressive Blogs.”
When he’s not using his “art” to promote the Arab Spring he can be seen advancing racist depicitions of Jews and, on at least one occasion, African Americans.
His body of work pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians evokes an immutably villainous Jewish state similar to what can be found in the most anti-Semitic Arab media – and include clear assertions that Israelis take pleaseure in murdering innocent Palestinian children.
Israel as Nazi Germany: Here’s one out of dozens of Latuff cartoons which portary Israel as the new Nazi Germany and Israeli Jews the new Nazis.
He’s also not beyond illustrations containing even more explicit anti-Semitism.
Dual Loyalty and conspiratorial notions of Jewish control: The Jewish lobby (and/or Israel) controls the U.S. government
Jewish supremacism: Mockery and distortion of Jews as the chosen people
As this blog continually documents, the greatest and most dangerous ideolgocial vice of Guardian commentators, reporters, and correspondents is not, per se, explicit expressions of anti-Semitism but, rather, anti-Semitic sins of omission: Their capacity to ignore those who advance clear and unambiguous Judeophobic narratives.
In this case, the Guardian’s Jack Shenker could have easily, with a few Google hits, uncovered Latuff’s record of using his political cartoons in the service of evoking hateful narratives of Jews and Israel.
Editors of a paper which truly championed liberal values would never have white washed such rank bigotry.
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