here’s a dry bones cartoon about the extent to which appeasers in the west are willing to bend over backwards to avoid seeing what’s happening.

Yaakov: Your comment is clearly right-wing (at least to me). I don’t see the controversy in the same terms you do.

As for your cartoon, no I wouldn’t call it right or left-wing. From what you wrote about the Iranian’s comment it sounds like he was being off the wall in the way that the Ayatollah lovers (but not all Iranians) always seem to be.

I recognize that there have indeed been Muslim voices raised in protest against some of the more eggregious responses to the the Cartoon controversy - but those are so not mainstream and sadly very exceptional.

And YOU are SO wrong. Just a short stroll through Googleland (only two of at least ten pages of results) takes you to these sites:
Muslim Scholars, Leaders Condemn Cartoon Violence, Islam Online
FMC Condemns Reaction of Muslims to Unfavorable Cartoons of Prophet Mohammad, Free Muslims Coalition
Musharraf, Karzai condemn blasphemous cartoons, violent ralliesIslamic Republic News Agency
Area Muslims condemn violence, Miami Herald
Muslims condemn violent protests over cartoons, Spero News
Muslim Crowds Decry Cartoons, Violent Retort, Washington Post
Danish Imam Condemns Cartoon Violence, Yahoo
American Muslims Give Moderate Voice amid Cartoon Violence, Christian Post

BTW, I’m averaging 250,000 unique visitors a year. And I’m averaging 20% growth in readership ea. yr. I guess those folks disagree with you. But whada they know? They certainly lack your acute insight into my intellectual “deficiencies.” Do you think maybe we should tell ‘em what a bad person you think I am? Maybe they’ll all desert me. Omigod.

I don’t think anyone here will miss you though, bud.

The blog post contains these choice morsels of anti-Arab hysteria:

…There’s an orchestrated, world-wide attack on Western values.

[Arab] “mind-numbing societies…

I realize that Arab-hatred is considered quite centrist in some Israeli circles. We even have it here in the U.S. But luckily we don’t get quite as mired in Islamophobia.

Let me make clear that I’m no fan of anti-Semitism or such cartoons published in the Arab press. But unlike Kirschen, I don’t engage in wholesale condemnation of an entire religion or ethnic group based on the actions of a minority of warped individuals. I’d no sooner endorse Arabs making judgments about all Jews or Israelis based on the warped actions of Baruch Goldstein, Meir Kahane, Yigal Amir or the extreme elements of the settler movement.

So yes, Kirschen can be quite right wing (though not always so). I’ve read his cartoons since I first lived in Israel in 1972-73 and, but for intermittent exceptions, I found them uninspiring and unwitty. To me that’s the kiss of death for a cartoonist. If the latter doesn’t inform or entertain in a meaningful way, then he’s not worth the paper his cartoons are printed on. If Kirschen tickles your funnybone–good on ‘ya. I know he’s popular with the Jerusalem Post/Anglo-American Israeli crowd. He doesn’t tickle mine. Plus I don’t like his politics much of the time.

My problem with Kirschen’s and your approach is that it’s all surface and lacks nuance. In a way that’s understandable because you and your people are in what you see as a death struggle with Palestinians in which they can and do do great harm to Israelis. I too sympathise with your plight. But I don’t extrapolate a global view about Arabs and Islam based on such actions as you both do.

If I’ve lumped Kirschen’s views and yours together I’m assuming that they’re similar since you’ve taken up his “cause” in your comment above.

Dry Bones
Israel’s Political Comic Strip Since 1973