Anti-Israel hatefest at Sunday Times - Zapiro

The latest Zaptrash from this week's Sunday Times

This is the second part of the anti-Israel hatefest at the Sunday Times this week.

The cartoon is so outrageous that it seems appropriate to say that Zapiro has never been so wrong before. But – we are talking about someone who has depicted Israeli leaders as SS soldiers, so for Zapiro this is par for the course.

Zapiro, who again reminds us that Jews can still be cool! depicts Israel as an ugly Goliath violently beating and smashing a defenceless Palestinian's head into the ground.

But even a child looking at any atlas would realize that the Arab world is infinitely larger than Israel. Their population is at least 50 times greater that Israel's and they have infinitely more natural resources than Israel.

Regarding the Intifada it is true that the ratio, in terms of raw conventional military strength, between the Israelis and the Palestinians is 100:1 in favour of Israel. But this war was launched by the Palestinians who enjoy the power of underdog status. And Israel never sees the advantage from its actual firepower. As Benny Morris writes

The photograph of the disheveled stone-throwing or Kalashnikov-brandishing fighter facing down the Merkava Mark-III main battle tank became a representative image of this conflict. But it was a misleading representation. For the fearsome Merkava tanks almost never used their firepower against the Palestinians, much as the IAF F-16s and Apache attack helicopters usually (but not always) attacked empty Palestinian public buildings or individual terrorists in cars. The Hamas and Fatah fighters operated from behind a shield of Palestinian civilians and from crowded urban refugee camps and neighborhoods, and so Israel fought with both hands tied behind its back. Its actual firepower--its tanks, aircraft, and cannon--was never unleashed. This accounts for the relatively low number of Arab deaths (four thousand in five years of warfare), and the relatively low proportion of Arab to Jewish deaths (3.5:1), as compared with the actual calculus of Israeli versus Arab military strength (100:1)

The cartoonist, Zapiro, has a long history of outrageously evil Middle Eastern cartoons - IAS search.

Comments and complaints to [email protected]

Update
Don't forget to check out the editorial that accompanied this article - "The new apartheid slur".

There is actually another article that completes the anti-Israel hatefest in this weeks Sunday Times. The third item is "So it goes, on a beach in a war zone" by Khadija Margerie (whose earlier article in the Mail & Guardian was fisked here).

Comments

[Gary]

I would urge everybody to get down and write a letter of protest to The Sunday Times.

We cannot let this anti-semitic , hateful propaganda go unchallenged.

[Gary]

You can write to the Sunday Times at [email protected]

[Lawrence]

what do you expect from the ST, their editor once called for South African Jews to apologise for Israel's killing of that Hamas terrorist Yassin and had glowing tributes to their favourite jihadist Arafat when he died, you would think he was Steve Biko or Ghandi or someone like that. Zapiro is so disgusting words fail me. If Israel were to be nuked by Iran, the ST and more than a few other SA papers, would blame Israel for it and say they had it coming.

Israel is a Devil nation to many in the media, so it doesn't matter what it does or does not do, it is evil simply because it is the Jew nation. It doesn't matter what the Palestinians and other Arabs do, no matter their relentless terrorist jihad, they are at war with the Devil nation and therefore they are justified and essentially good, no matter what they do.

The anti-Semitism runs so deep within the media, that they are not even aware of it even though it is simply bloody obvious.

[Lawrence]

another thing SA Jews are doing way too little to combat this virulent Jew-hate in our society. We need to do more, and writing letters to the Jew-hate media is fine and must be done, but we need to do much more in our communities, our SA Jewish newspapers and the like needs to focus significant levels of attention and call a spade a spade here re the horrible anti-Semitism in our media. This more than anything must become our number one priority.

I know W Goldstein is doing his bit, but our actions in this regard need to be better coordinated, and we need to become much more vocal within our own communities somehow about exposing all the Israel-hate lies for what they are. And so-called Jews like Zapiro and his ilk must be taken to task and ostracised and exposed for what they are. The SA Journal of Jewish Affairs and the other community papers need to bring considerable energy and focus on all this, in our schools, our synagogues etc this must be our number one focus and it simply isn't.

The attitude among many Jews seems to be don't offend the Jew-haters otherwise they might hate us.

[Lawrence]

and yes of course "it's almost supernatural" is doing more than it's share of exposing the lies in our media, that's the very purpose of this blog I know! But we all need to be "it's almost supernatural" in our own way.

[Steve]

heh...thanks

[mike]

Thanks and well put Lawrence.

Unfortunately the organised Jewish community does not want to face up to the extent of the problem. Digging your head in the sand and pretending its all going to be ok is all they know how to do. I read the Jewish Report week in and week out and it never ceases to amaze me how they can put a positive spin on everything.

Its important that everyone who cares be involved in this struggle against anti-Jewish bias in South Africa.

[Brett]

I applaud the efforts of our community in this regard. The vitriolic sentiment expressed against Israel borders on libel and it a veil for the blatant anti-semitism which is once again taking root within society. We must put an end to this peril, lest we become victim to its pervasive malody. The voices of reason must be heard; the voices of our people must ring out and we must not allow this blatant rhetoric to go unanswered. People are easily swayed by hate-speech and media bias, so it is imperative that we contribute to this ongoing debate by voicing our concerns. I recently attended a screening of Wayne Kopping's OBSESSION and I challenge the SA Censorship board to allow for the screening of this expose into the real world we all inhabit. The truth is so frightening that it will do more than change a few opinions in this country, it will go a long way in exposing radicalism for the very real imminent danger it poses to us all!