View From a Height

How is that possible? Well, it turns out that the conference at which the Iranian President declared his intention to, uh, redraw the map of the Middle East has a website. I admit, I'm at something of a disadvantage here, since most of the juicy bits are in either Arabic or Farsi, but they do have an English section.

Now, the English section doesn't actually have much English, which ought to be a tipoff that we're not likely to get the subtle, nuanced, witty political discourse of Jonathan Swift or Chuck Schumer. Instead, we get a lot of cartoons and pictures. Now admittedly, the state-sponsored conference & rally garnered fewer people that typically show up when a guy with a bullhorn yells "panty raid" at a frat party, but this is what the Iranian government wants you to know about them:

OK, ready?

First of all, anyone care to tell me now that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism? The Jewish noses all look like they were borrowed from Jimmy Durante, and I haven't seen that many black coats since, well, shul this weekend, which is kind of the point. Moreover, the Jews-not-in-uniform are all religious Jews - haredi - as though that were the driving ideology of Zionism. Aside from the endless irony of that assertion, what on earth is going on here?

These are Jewish representations, that have nothing whatever to do with the secular Jewish state and parties that runs the show. Now, maybe the mullahs just have an affinity for guys with beards dressed in black caftans, but by picking religiously Jewish symbols, they make it clear who exactly in their eyes is providing the intellectual backing for Israel. They make Judaism their enemy, and legitimize attacks on Jewish targets all over the world. So when it comes to criticizing Israel without being anti-Jewish, apparently that memo wasn't written in Farsi.

The other message is that War on Israel is all about the kids. But only very special kids. White ones. How many Arab kids have you seen with freckles? Now we know what's substituting for all those English words they left out. And for those of you who still think that the Religion of Peace is also the Religion Without Racism, check out this winning entry from a government-sponsored contest on, ahem, "Justice." (Speaking of Justice, or rather, not speaking of it, those crickets you hear are the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, and Cynthia McKinneys.)

As a side note, the URL is right there on the poster. Here. Small print at the bottom. Evidently a little too small for most western reporters to read.