PMWATCH  - April 12, 2002 -- In the clearest and rawest statement of outright, unbridled racism,
Mike Smith of the Las Vegas Sun published a cartoon on April 11, 2002, depicting Palestinians
as literally congenital haters of Israel.   Mr. Smith is not content with the canard that
Palestinians teach their children to go kill themselves and become suicide bombers.  No: he has to
take the next step of telling us that Palestinians are BORN to hate.

This is an unconscionable cartoon that is simply unacceptable.  Mr. Smith has the right to be angry,
he has the right to express himself, but he also has a responsibility not to demean and dehumanize
a whole people -- and a people that has suffered the inhumane treatement under Israeli hands for 
more than three decades.  If Mr. Smith were really interested in getting to the root of the hatred,
maybe he should read the article below that accuses the IDF of tolerating and even encouraging the 
intentional killing of Palestinian children.

Please send a note demanding an immediate, public apology for this despicable cartoon (slide below
for input interface).

Fill your contact info and your letter and click send.  It will be sent to:

	smith@lasvegassun.com
	mike@lasvegassun.com
	barbara@lasvegassun.com
	brian@lasvegassun.com
	sheila@lasvegassun.com
	danny@lasvegassun.com
	deskin@lasvegassun.com
	thompson@lasvegassun.com
	kelley@lasvegassun.com


For other cartoons by Mike Smith, go to: 
http://www.lasvegassun.com/opinion/mikesmith/

For a previous example of what we can do when we mobilize against a racist cartoon, please visit:
http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/cartoons/edmonton.html

You can also shame this cartoonist to his peers by going to:

http://www.pmwatch.org/pmw/TOPEERS/CARTOONISTS.ASP?TYPE=TBLCARTOONISTS

Palestine Media Watch
http://www.pmwatch.org

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=127894&contrassID=
2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y&itemNo=127894

Sunday, February 10, 2002

The message from the high command

By Gideon Levy

An 11-year-old boy was shot in the head from short range while fleeing after
he threw stones at Israeli soldiers who were posted at the roadblock next to
the refugee camp where he lives. That is the version given by eye-witnesses.
It took the boy a week to die, and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman
stated: "In the course of disturbances, use was made of means to disperse
demonstrations against a youth who was identified as the chief inciter- The
soldier who fired acted properly."

A 15-year-old boy threw stones at a tank that was besieging the headquarters
of a national leader. A soldier shot him in the head from short range,
killing him. The IDF Spokesman: "There was a large throng, which included
stone throwing. The force that reached the site reacted with means to
disperse demonstrations but did not identify any casualties. Nor were any
complaints made to the coordination and liaison authorities."

A soldier in an undercover unit gave hot pursuit to a boy of about nine who
had been throwing stones, shot him from behind and killed him. The IDF
Spokesman: "A group of Palestinians this morning attacked soldiers with
stones- In the riots a Palestinian youth aged 14 was killed."

These are the stories of three of the 80 Palestinian children younger than
15 and the 197 below the age of 18 (according to data of the Palestinian
Human Rights Monitoring Group) who have been killed in the intifada. The
first two children were brothers and their story was told in Ha'aretz
Magazine. The testimony on the third boy was reported by the Tel Aviv weekly
Ha'ir, citing a reserve soldier who was an eye-witness to the event.

The IDF has totally shaken off any and all moral responsibility for the
killing of these children. According to the army spokesman, one boy was a
"chief inciter" (and therefore deserved to die?). No "complaints" were
received about another (and therefore there are doubts about whether he was
killed?). The third took part in "riots" (and therefore the verdict against
him, death by shooting, was valid?).

In not one of these cases did the IDF spokesman take the trouble to do the
minimum human necessary thing - to express sorrow at the death of the
children. The only conclusion is that the IDF is not sorry about their
killing. That is the message to those who did the killing and to the
families of those who were killed. No less grave, the IDF did not even
contemplate investigating the circumstances of the deaths.

When this is the reaction of the IDF spokesman to the killing of children
and when the IDF's juridical system doesn't lift a finger to investigate the
incidents, the message that trickles down to every soldier is perfectly
clear - killing children does not result in any sort of investigation, so no
harm will come to a soldier the next time he shoots a child in the head,
whether the child is throwing stones or running for his life.

The wave of harsh testimonies by reserve soldiers who refuse to serve in the
territories, which has inundated almost every media outlet recently - and is
the most important achievement of this group so far - has again brought to
public attention atrocities that are being perpetrated in the occupied
territories. The fact that these testimonies come from Israeli soldiers -
and not from "dubious" Palestinian testimonies, reports of "extreme" human
rights groups or articles by a handful of "one-sided" journalists - has
given them greater credibility.

More important, the testimonies indicate that these are no longer
exceptional events but policy with a clear, if twisted, goal - to embitter
the lives of the residents so that they will put pressure on their leaders
to fight terrorism. That is what Israel did in Lebanon and it is displaying
the same behavior in the territories. The women in labor who are not allowed
to go through the roadblocks, the terminally ill patients in ambulances who
howl in vain in traffic jams at roadblocks, and the children who are shot -
if the IDF senior command truly wanted to, it could put a stop to events
such as these.

The soldier who a few weeks ago told Rada Zakin from the village of Yamoun,
whose wife was in labor and bleeding in the car, that he had the right to
kill them but no right to let them through the roadblock, expressed well the
terrible reality that the IDF high command has brought into being. The days
of seminar that various units occasionally hold on the subject of "human
dignity" become effectively meaningless if the spirit underlying the orders
is that now, since we are at "war," everything is permitted.

The fact is that not everything is permitted. When the IDF wanted to prevent
immoral and illegal actions, it was able to do so. There are two offenses
that IDF soldiers have rarely committed during the years of the occupation -
sexual harassment and looting. The main reason for this is that the IDF
fought with determination against both types of deplorable behavior.
Soldiers knew that they faced severe punishment if they engaged in looting
or rape. This is not the case with soldiers who open fire with such
intolerable ease at children, prevent the ill from passing through
roadblocks or abuse residents of the territories.

These offenses are no less grave than rape or looting, but they are
considered less grave by the IDF. If in the perception of IDF senior
officers the killing of unarmed children - an act that former Shin Bet
security service chief Ami Ayalon has called "flagrantly illegal" - does not
merit investigation, denunciation or contrition, it is no wonder that a
soldier who was manning the Kalanya roadblock a week ago Saturday opened
fire, in the midst of a conversation with his buddies, at a group of
children who were throwing stones from a distance at which the soldiers were
out of range. This time no children were killed.