View From a Height

Much like the Danish cartoons, everyone's writing about them, some people are condemning them, but nobody's showing them. I put the Danish cartoons here because too many people were happy chatting away without a clue what they were talking about. And not just Democrats.

Likewise, it's all well and good to remind everyone what the mullahs are with words, but there's a reason that people still watch Triumph of the Will. The Caricature House hasn't posted the actual cartoons yet - probably worried about selling limited-edition prints, and wouldn't want to give the milk away for free - but they and some other outlets have posted photo galleries.

So let's get started, shall we? We need to be back in time for the afternoon beheadings.

You gotta admire their attention to detail. I mean really, you spend, what, thousands of dollars promoting the contest, inviting the press, buying figs and dates for kiddush for the opening, and then you screw up the poster. Half the cartoons are in English, which tells you a little something about the target audience, but also tells you that apparently their proofreaders are Reuters rejects. Someone's getting a stern reprimand over this.

Note, by the way, the theme of the contest. Take a close look at the right-hand edge of that top helmet. Others have noticed, but it bears repeating: these guys want to deny the Holocaust happened, while portraying the Israelis Jews as latter-day Nazis. The genius of good propaganda is doublethink.

Lost in thought. Probably unfamiliar territory. But look at the cartoon over the guy's shoulder. Sharon in a Nazi uniform! The caption hardly matters. There's a lot of stuff with this idea. In fact, pretty much anything with an actual Holocaust theme has this one. Ah well, dictatorship'll do that to creativity.

Bonus points if you noticed the name of the wire service on the microphone.

See what I mean? This guy, who looks kind of normal, so we can't call him, "Green Helmet Guy," or anything like that, seems to be the head of Caricature House. Maybe we'll call him "Houseboy."

Houseboy's the center of their attention, but focus on the cartoon to the right. Yes, that's Lady Liberty giving a Nazi Hezbollah salute. My guess is that Bernard Goldberg is right - you could probably find a half-dozen of these in Leftist US publications protesting the Patriot Act.

One long staircase just for the women,
And one even longer for the men.
And one more leading nowhere just for dhimmis.

Well, you know, once you're retired, you've got all this extra time. I mean, sure, you've got your 10,000-hour pin from the Men's Club down at the dungeon, but really, after a while, who needs it?

There's another one of those, "The Palestinians are the New Jews" cartoons again. The guy's in a concentration-camp uniform but he's wearing a kaffiyah, and look closely. Yes! It's a little yellow crescent. How clever! Especially given the Law of Dhimmitude, Clothing Chapter.

Like so much else, this is called, "projection," where you accuse the other guy of doing what you're a specialist at. Then you count on the moral laziness of the enemy to nod thoughtfully, sorrowfully, and ask if it's really come to that.

The one on the left looks like a little wind-up toy with a rifle going through his nose. There's red, white, and blue, and my guess is that there's a Magen David on there somewhere. Somehow, I don't think they'd get the Pinnochio reference.

On the right, it looks like a little girl asking a soldier, "Are you a Holocaust?"

No cute, little girl, I'm probably here to hand out candy and schoolbooks. Only these ones will have maps that actually show Israel, and won't refer to Jews as monkeys and pigs.

Here's Houseboy making an important point of some kind.

The last word on the cartoon over his shoulder is, "DEAD," and there's a little red-and-white swastika on top of Uncle Sam's head, although Uncle Sam, upon further reflection, looks a lot like Uncle Adolf. If anyone can make out the words in white, I'm sure that would help us all get the joke.

Here's another common theme - that Israel only exists because of the Holocaust. See, the hook-nosed Shylock uses the Holocaust to plant himself and his menorah on Palestine. Of course, Zionism began long before WWII. There would have been a state even without the Holocaust, because the Jews who founded it did the spadework necessary to create one.

Something symbolic in this picture, isn't there?

The first one doesn't have any Holocaust imagery that I can find, so really, the judges ought to be fined for misapplying the rules. The second cartoon seems to be saying that the Holocaust was a Christian activity, although the Nazis were pagans. Again, the idea is that whatever happened, the Muslims weren't involved, even though they seem to be trying to make up for lost time.

This one's unusual, in that it beats up on the British. I can't quite make out what the eggs are, though.

Here's another idea, ripped from today's Air America - the idea that little angels get baptised by fire through the flame of Israel, and are forged into Hamas-niks. Whatever you do to defend yourself, you just make more of them. Again, though, nothing to do with the Holocaust. Really, are these judges French ice dancing judges or something?

"You have to be carefully taught." Apparently, these people haven't heard that Hate Isn't a Family Value. Despite all the putridness oozing from the other cartoons and their admirers, this is probably the most chilling picture of them all. I remember when I was about fifteen, we took a family vacation to Montreal, and the site of the World's Fair. The Humour Pavilion was still there, and included a whole roomful of cartoons. L'havdil.

She's laughing! She's actually enjoys this stuff. And the kid is pointing at the cartoon in the corner (look carefully at his left arm). The only one with the decency to look the other way is the stuffed animal.

This is a case study in propaganda. The Iranians really believe that the main reason the West supports Israel is guilt over the Holocaust, so they try to 1) deny its existence, 2) tie Israel's existence to it, and 3) equate the Jews with their murderers. No, it's not intellectually coherent, but there's something there for everyone post-modern.