Krake Zuckerberg (Octopus Zuckerberg): its distinctive face makes sure that we don’t lose sight of Zuckerberg’s Jewishness.

Most German publications no longer even pretend any wariness about coming off as anti-Jewish. Gone are the days when Germans had to at least appear a tad more cautious than their fellow Europeans. The latter reverted quickly enough to their old Jew-baiting habits but the Germans have willy-nilly caught up.

A cogent example is being consistently provided by Munich’ s left-liberalSueddeutsche Zeitung, which also happens to be Germany’s largest broadsheet daily. It recently featured a cartoon lampooning Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after his outfit had acquired WhatsApp. The idea was to show Zuckerberg as a voracious octopus that swallows up everything around it. The caption at the bottom left-hand corner of the cartoon clearly read “Krake Zuckerberg” (German for Octopus Zuckerberg.) Up to this point, it’s tolerable criticism.

But the octopus, as drawn by cartoonist Burkhard Mohr, was also given quite a distinctive face. Its function, presumably, was to make sure we don’t lose sight of the fact that young Zuckerberg – innovative enough to have given the world a social network which millions of Germans also use – is a Jew. To that end, Mohr portrayed him with a preposterous hook-nose and thick fish-lips – as per the freakish stereotype sinisterly ascribed to Jews by their tormentors. Continue reading →

Legendary political caricaturist Dosh’s pre-1967 view of the existentially threatening Green Line – into which Abbas insists Israel again compress itself

When it involves Israel, the international community’s hearing is notoriously selective yet never capricious or random. There is method in the apparent arbitrariness of what does and does not compellingly impress the self-appointed adjudicators of all that’s virtuous and/or villainous in our setting.

Israel’s own largely left-dominated media – forever engaged in advocacy journalism and tendentiously promoting hyped humbug – isn’t remarkably better.

The obliging etiquette of de rigueur enlightenment demands that Israel’s culpability be accentuated and amplified in all circumstances. Simultaneously, any Arab belligerence must by the niceties of politically correct protocol be disguised, discounted and ultimately denied. Stonewalling must be ascribed exclusively to the uncool Jewish state.

The hardly unforeseeable upshot is that nowhere was much interest shown in Ramallah figurehead Mahmoud Abbas’s latest song and dance. Deprived of resonance, the story of his two recent meetings in Paris with US Secretary of State John Kerry expired virtually unnoticed.  Continue reading →

A victorious Hitler parades in just-occupied Prague: “painful sacrifices” hardly sated his appetites

Palestinian Authority figurehead Mahmoud Abbas (Abu-Mazen) has this week assured us – at a meeting with a pre-selected group of left-wing Israeli students – that happy days are (almost) here again. That in itself should suffice to allay our anxieties – all, he says, products of that well-oiled Israeli propaganda machine. If we merely take his word for it, we could sleep soundly.

If Israel only improves its act, and conducts its affairs as per Abbas’s directives, peace and bliss will surely be ours. To hear him, there’s no obstructionism whatsoever on his turf. The obstacles to peace are all Israeli-made. Abbas has absolved himself of any responsibility if things go awry.  He’s only seeking justice for an indigenous population oppressed by an artificial entity, a foreign interloper.

Those among us who still possess historical perspectives will recognize the resemblance to contentions made by one Adolf Hitler on the eve of the infamous Munich Agreement, which sold out Czechoslovakia as the alleged cause of all that ailed Europe. Continue reading →

Deutsche Bank, Germany’s largest bank, shows signs of mild embarrassment in the wake of reports that it had consigned Israel’s largest bank, Bank Hapoalim, to a list of firms deemed too “ethically questionable” for investment by the ostensibly more ethically-minded investors.

Bank Hapoalim indeed featured on the list but Deutsche Bank later averred that this was merely a recommendation by an outside consultant from Denmark.

It needs be stressed that the actual damage to Bank Hapoalim is likely to be minimal at most. If anything, the impact on Deutsche Bank’s image would be more acute. It goes beyond the mere specter of a German financial giant boycotting a Jewish concern. Deutsche bank has a particularly dark past, even as far as veteran German corporations go. Continue reading →

General Evelyn Hugh Barker: “punishing the Jews in a way the race dislikes”

It’s a safe bet that John Kerry hasn’t heard of General Evelyn Hugh Barker, GOC (General Officer Commanding) of British forces in Palestine (Eretz Yisrael).  Lack of erudition, however, has hardly prevented anyone from regarding Jews much in the same light as Barker did.

Of course Kerry, unlike Barker, operates in an age of rigorous political correctness, so the US Secretary of State dare not give full vent to prejudice, not even when he cannot fully hide it. A case in point is Kerry’s proposal that Jews from Arab countries be compensated in the framework of the “peace” he strives to impose on Israel.

The subtext of his suggestion is that Jews can be bought, that they’ll ditch all that’s dear and sacred to them for a little lucre.

It’s here that we backtrack to Barker. In 1946 the British GOC set out to make all Jews of pre-state Israel “suffer punishment and be made aware of the contempt and loathing with which we regard their conduct.”  Continue reading →

Direct unfiltered substantiation of bias – Obama and Sarkozy at Cannes in November 2011

Decades ago singer-songwriter Carole King gave voice to her dread:

I feel the earth move under my feet
I feel the sky tumbling down
I feel my heart start to trembling…

That was sort of how some of us felt last weekend when US Secretary of State John Kerry delivered a thinly disguised ultimatum to little Israel – sacrifice your most vital interests or be pronounced a pariah among the nations.

His insolence was underscored by the irony that he issued his cynical warning to the Jewish state from German soil  – more specifically from Munich where appeasement-minded democracies once signed a perfidious “peace agreement” that in no time plunged the world into its blackest nightmare.

But, despite keenly orchestrated leftwing panic-mongering, we shouldn’t have been so shocked. We had already been slapped before with Kerry’s every single earth-shaking admonition. Last November 6, for instance, Kerry was interviewed jointly by Israel’s Channel-2 and Palestinian TV. What he said then wasn’t meant as a private off-the-record caution. It was literally broadcast for all to hear and be awed. Continue reading →

We hardly relish another updated sequel of the same farce, but every seven years we’re compelled to watch a bunch of by and large has-beens vie for the post of president. This prestige-laden sinecure has become a golden-age retreat for assorted flunkies. No finer end-of-career-in-the-limelight can be had.

The trouble is that, as time goes by, the list of candidates becomes exponentially more preposterous, even downright embarrassing.

The really worthy sorts don’t toss their hat in the Knesset’s skewed ring. They may know better than to participate in a scarcely equitable contest. They may be genuinely modest and unassuming or they may not have invested sufficient energy and means in order to make friends and influence factions ahead of the July vote.

The upshot is that the likes of Moshe Arens or Uzi Landau would never nominate themselves nor be considered by others as fitting nominees with a fighting chance. Continue reading →

A quip in a private conversation got Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon into hot water. Quite a hullabaloo was stirred up by his suggestion that US Secretary of State John Kerry may be messianic in his obsessive keenness to impose a pseudo-solution upon us.

Ya’alon’s observation can, plausibly, be interpreted on several levels. It may be that Ya’alon perceives Kerry as naively putting his trust in visions of an unrealistic deliverance and the advent of an irrationally idealized era of peace and prosperity. That would be bad enough.

But higher up on the scariness scale is the possibility that Kerry isn’t just another gullible sap. He may have assumed for himself the role of savior. In psychology this is known as the “messianic complex,” categorized with analogous aberrations under the “grandiose delusions” disorder.

Of course the most chilling likelihood is that Kerry is neither of the above but that he is a realpolitik cynic who merely pretends to conjure a messianic miracle. Like old-time Midwestern snake-oil salesmen and purveyors of syrupy elixirs, Kerry in our day knows full well that he is bamboozling the Mideasterners on whom he calls with exasperating frequency. Continue reading →

It was all too easy to engage in wishful thinking and assume that the Germans would stick to the plan they had announced. The Germans had succeeded in dividing the Jews of the ghetto into two groups – those destined for deportation, and those hoping to evade the danger.

Moshe Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto.

With obvious name changes, the same dichotomy of orientations can be ascribed to the citizens of the sovereign Jewish state, here and now.

There are those among us who serially find it “all too easy to engage in wishful thinking” and assume that the Arabs would honor their announced commitment to peace.

Despite all the ill-will and treachery with which each and every one of our existentially risky concessions had been repaid, the Arabs had succeeded in dividing the Jews of Israel into two groups – those destined to suffer and those trusting that they would evade the danger.

Doubtless, the above analogy is sure to stir up scorn and righteous indignation. The self-appointed guardians of other people’s consciences cannot but be scandalized to the core.  The overbearing priests of our political correctness disdain historical parallels, especially those that hark back to the darkest days of the Jewish past – with the glaring exception of parallels they themselves draw in the service of spiteful taunts.

But, as the old adage goes, anyone who doesn’t learn from history is doomed to relive it. Of course, there are no absolute replicas of what was. Circumstances and protagonists inevitably differ.  But overall directions, processes and mindsets – as well as their derivatives and consequences – may well be spine-chillingly similar.  Continue reading →

Sarah is taking a short R & R but will be back with the Tack during January.

Have a good 2014!