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Israeli embassy puts Mona Lisa in a hijab — ‘Israel now, Paris next’

Mona Lisa and other art works featured in Israeli embassy Islamophobic offensive
Mona Lisa and other art works featured in Israeli embassy Islamophobic offensive, from al-Bab

Well this is one way to win hearts and minds when the world is expressing outrage against the slaughter in Gaza. From the Irish Times (and thanks to Ed Moloney):

The Israeli Embassy in Dublin has removed controversial images from its official Twitter feed, including one of the statue of Molly Malone wearing a Muslim headscarf.
The four photos featured well-known statues and artwork associated with different European countries. Weaponry and traditional Muslim headscarves were superimposed on the images. The pictures were posted last Friday but were removed after online backlash.
In a photo entitled “Israel now Dublin next”, Dublin’s famous Molly Malone statue is covered in a traditional Muslim niquab, a long black headscarf.
A picture addressed to Paris features the Mona Lisa covered in a hijab and holding a large rocket. In an image called “Israel now Italy next”, Michaelangelo’s David wears a skirt fashioned out of explosives.
The fourth photo depicts Denmark’s statue of the Little Mermaid holding an enormous gun with the words “Israel now Denmark next”.
All four photos contain the caption “Israel is the last frontier of the free world”.

This reminds me of Scott McConnell’s analysis that Israel served as “transmission belt” for a lot of bad ideas about the Arab world to the U.S. Today it’s in the twitter feed. But this same cartoonish view of Islam’s threat and of Israel’s role as the firewall was surely conveyed to Dick Cheney by the likes of Bernard Lewis and Bill Kristol, and played an important role in the decision to invade Iraq. As Kristol said, Israel’s war is our war. Though he left out the Mona Lisa.

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Israel is not “the last frontier of the free world”. It’s over the border on the road to fascism.

The zionists get more and more crazy with each passing day. Similar to how the nazis were. This is Israel’s feeble effort to win back the support of the thousands and thousands who marched all over the world, protesting it’s brutal massacre of children, and civilians. Not going to happen.
Pathetic.

The Love Song of Yossi Israeli

LET us go then, you and I,
When the IDF is spread out against the sky
Against Gaza, a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain Sderot streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap mentalities
And cinemas with cries from hell :
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Netanyahu .

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hasbara
(They will say: “How his hasbara is growing flimsy!”)
My Mark Regev , my IDF Twitter mounting firmly against logic,
My chutzpah rich and modest, but asserted by a simple F15—
(They will say: “But this not self defence !”)
Do I dare
Disturb the AIPAC universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with Gaza wars;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the bombs from just beyond Erez.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated hasbara phrase, you self hating Jew
And when Gaza is formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When it is pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the purity of arms already, known them all—
Child arms that are not braceleted and not white and butchered
(But in the hasbara light, they are not dead!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a beach, or are wrapped up in a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
. . . . . . . .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through Sderot streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of deluded men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by Iron Dome ,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Jabotinsky hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the birthright, the aliyah, the Jewish policemen,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Hebrew, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all, you self hating Jew.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the surgical strikes and the Zionist response and the destroyed streets,
After the torture, after the hasbara, after the explanations that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“Israel is a not a democracy ,
That is not what it is , at all.”
. . . . . . . .
No! I am not Max Blumenthal , nor was meant to be;
I am a vector of hasbara one that will do
To beat up an Arab , start a scene or two,
Advise the internet surfers, no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I will always do what I am told.

Shall I part meat from dairy ? Do I dare to eat a sausage ?
I shall sing Hatikva , and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the Birthrighters singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

We have lingered in the chambers of the Likud
By IDF conscript girls wreathed in Palestinian blood
Till human rights voices wake us, and we drown.

Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat. (Those whom [a] god wishes to destroy, he first makes mad.

Breaking News. Israel has hit a hospital again. Children are dead, and many injured.
These monsters have no decency, even hospitals are not spared. THIS IS BREAKING INTERNATIONAL LAW AND A WAR CRIME – over to you Obama and Congress.
What stinking excuse will Israel make now? No wonder Israelis one of the most disliked nations in the world (but adored by America).