Tuesday, May 19, 2009

 

277th post

I'll bet you've all been wondering why I've stopped posting my IsraTimes cartoons. (And those of you that haven't, should have been.) The reason is that we've finally parted ways--no skin off my nose. So today, I bring to you my favorite unpublished IsraTimes cartoons!


Short, sweet and to the point. I think the foreground terrorist kind of looks like the original Bip Bipadotta.


More simplicity. I also have no idea how to draw a tank.


The example par excellance of the Left-Hand-Right-Hand idea. PM Ehud Olmert was keeping ultra-religious political party Shas in his government by promising them that he would not try to negotiate with the Palestinians on Jerusalem's status--while almost every other day stories leaked out indicating him doing just that. (Shas eventually split over economic issues.)


Something about the idea of Olmert and Syrian President Basher Assad as British vaudevillians just appeals to me.


As the election campaigns heated up, candidates (l-r: Binyamin Netanyahu of Likud, Ehud Barak of Labor, and Tzipi Livni of Kadima) pulled out all the stops.


Moshe Feiglin is Netanyahu's in-party nemesis, the religious leader of the Jewish Leadership faction who perenially challenges him for the party's no. 1 (and getting closer every time). In 2008, Netanyahu helped fix it behind the scenes so that Feiglin was dropped from 19th place on the Likud's list to the virtually unelectable #36 spot. The concept of Feiglin always "bouncing back" after each defeat inspired this cartoon.


My take on the Bernie Madoff (tfui!) scandal.


Feiglin's demotion (see above) coincided noncoincidentally with Likud's status in the polls changing from "rising" to "hovering". Kadima, previously a solid #2, began rising and eventually ended up getting one more seat than Likud. The other names on Netanyahu's balloons--an image inspired by Larry Walters--are other solidly right-wing candidates, all MKs today.


When Kadima wound up getting 29 Knesset seats to Likud's 28, attention shifted to Avigdor Lieberman and his nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, which at 15 seats--and upseating Labor as Israel's third-biggest party--would tip the balance in favor of whoever asked nicely enough forming a coalition.


Likud won the bidding wars, and Lieberman was appointed Foreign Minister. This caused consternation for those who viewed him as unacceptably right-wing, which was just about everybody...


...And no wonder, for he spouted such ideological heresies as rethinking Israel's long-standing approach to negotiating with the Palestinians, which was rather one-sided and non-fruit-bearing. (Oslo, Wye et cetera are past failed agreements and accords; Peace Now is Israel's most prominent leftist NGO.)


TODAY'S BOOK: "Letters From Camp", by Karen Klise ((c) 1999)

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Comments:
GOOD political cartoons!
 
You are too kind :-)
 
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