Monday night marks the national premier broadcast of the American Masters installment on Mel Brooks. To mark the occasion, we’ve put together a collection of Brooks’ best Jewish clips.
What exactly that means is a good question. As with two others recent subjects on the PBS series — Woody Allen and Phillip Roth (hey, guys, maybe change it up a bit, before Pat Buchanan notices) — you could make the argument that Brooks’ entire oeuvre is an extension of his very Jewish background, sensibilities, hang-ups, etc., and hence any and all of his work can be considered Jewish. Take “Young Frankenstein”: It lacks any explicitly Jewish gags, but some critics (here and here) have no trouble making the case that the film is very Jewish.
Babushka's all time favorite Mel Brooks films are:
Blazing Saddles History of the World Part I The Producers Spaceballs
The Coen Brothers' "The Big Lebowski" is a challenger to the best of Brooks, but Woody Allen and Philip Roth are lame, lame, lame. Monty Python's "Life of Brian" is way more hilarious than anything produced by "I Shtupped My Stepdaughter" Allen or penned by the excruciatingly self-hating Mr. Literary Giant Douche Roth, even though Monty Python is not really Jewish humor.
BERLIN -- "Are there still Jews in Germany?" ''Are the Jews a chosen people?"
Nearly 70 years after the Holocaust, there is no more sensitive an issue in German life as the role of Jews. With fewer than 200,000 Jews among Germany's 82 million people, few Germans born after World War II know any Jews or much about them.
To help educate postwar generations, an exhibit at the Jewish Museum features a Jewish man or woman seated inside a glass box for two hours a day through August to answer visitors' questions about Jews and Jewish life. The base of the box asks: "Are there still Jews in Germany?"
"A lot of our visitors don't know any Jews and have questions they want to ask," museum official Tina Luedecke said. "With this exhibition we offer an opportunity for those people to know more about Jews and Jewish life."
But not everybody thinks putting a Jew on display is the best way to build understanding and mutual respect.
Since the exhibit - "The Whole Truth, everything you wanted to know about Jews" - opened this month, the "Jew in the Box," as it is popularly known, has drawn sharp criticism within the Jewish community - especially in the city where the Nazis orchestrated the slaughter of 6 million Jews until Adolf Hitler's defeat in 1945.
"Why don't they give him a banana and a glass of water, turn up the heat and make the Jew feel really cozy in his glass box," prominent Berlin Jewish community figure Stephan Kramer told The Associated Press. "They actually asked me if I wanted to participate. But I told them I'm not available."
The exhibit is reminiscent of Holocaust architect Adolf Eichmann sitting in a glass booth at the 1961 trial in Israel which led to his execution. And it's certainly more provocative than British actress Tilda Swinton sleeping in a glass box at a recent performance at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Eran Levy, an Israeli who has lived in Berlin for years, was horrified by the idea of presenting a Jew as a museum piece, even if to answer Germans' questions about Jewish life.
"It's a horrible thing to do - completely degrading and not helpful," he said. "The Jewish Museum absolutely missed the point if they wanted to do anything to improve the relations between Germans and Jews."
But several of the volunteers, including both German Jews and Israelis living in Berlin, said the experience in the box is little different from what they go through as Jews living in the country that produced the Nazis.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/29/3313042/exhibit-of-jews-in-germany-raises.html#storylink=cpy
WARSAW – If you look through the bars of the locked gate at 14 Prozna Street in Poland’s capital, a place that was the center of the Jewish ghetto 70 years ago, you may spot a small statue of a figure kneeling in prayer. That figure is Adolf Hitler.
“Amen,” a new exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, which includes the praying Hitler, has caused outrage among the Jewish community in Poland as well as among Jewish and Catholic organizations worldwide that regard the exhibit as extremely offensive.
Cattelan, 52, an Italian-born sculptor living in New York, is known for his controversial work. One of the most famous is “La Nona Ora” (“The Ninth Hour”) depicting Pope John Paul II being struck down by a meteorite.
Last month, Cattelan opened a show at the Center for Contemporary Art in Warsaw.
Most of the exhibits are displayed inside the museum, which is elsewhere in Warsaw. Only the praying Hitler has been placed in the middle of the former Jewish ghetto.
The Center for Contemporary Art has a description of Cattelan’s exhibition on its website: “In a Warsaw ravaged by the cataclysmic 20th century, Maurizio Cattelan’s works take on a particular dimension; they become an artistic commentary on the Catholic credo. What, in fact, does love thy enemy mean? What does forgive those who trespass against us mean? Evoking the traumas of history, they deal with memory and forgetfulness, good and evil.”
Cattelan’s decision to put the Hitler figure in the former Jewish ghetto has angered many in Poland, Jews and Christians alike. The organizers of the international film festival Human Docs being held in Poland and dedicated to human rights, have decided to hold a debate on the question “What’s Hitler up to in Poland? The moral impact of provocation in art.”
Historians and artists have tried to explain Cattelan’s decision to place the figure in one of the most sensitive places for Jews in Poland and to resolve the question of whether it is a legitimate art exhibit or an offensive provocation. Some said the kneeling figure appears to be vulnerable and ambiguous. On one hand, the hero is an icon of evil; on the other, the view of Hitler kneeling may evoke sympathy in the viewer. Viewing this object, they say, provokes mixed feelings.
A few days after the Hitler figure was placed in the yard of 14 Prozna Street, someone covered its face and hands in an attempt to obscure its identity, perhaps fearing the reaction it would produce.
Another sign of the strong emotions the figure has raised is that, despite there being no public access to the exhibit, the museum’s management has mounted 24-hour security around it.
Carl Michael von Hausswolff mixed the ashes from the infamous Nazi facility with water to compose a small painting of grey streaks. The work now hangs in a gallery in the Swedish city of Lund.
But Salomon Schulman, a leading voice in Sweden's Jewish community who lost many relatives to the Holocaust, has condemned the painting as "revolting".
"Who knows," he wrote in a letter to a local newspaper. "Maybe some of the ashes originated from my relatives. No one knows where they were deported: all my mother's siblings and their children, and my grandparents.
"I will never go to this gallery and it as view the desecration of Jewish bodies," he added. "I am sickened by his work and obsession with necrophilia."
Mr Von Hausswolff took [STOLE--VB] the ashes during a 1989 visit to Majdanek, which, during its 34 months in operation from 1941 to 1944, claimed around 79,000 lives, the vast majority of them Polish Jews. The artist said the ashes appeared to "contain the memories and the souls of people: people tormented and murdered by other people in the most viscous [sic! Telegraph typo, not Vicious Babushka's] war of the 20th Century".
The kerchief on her head and long skirt she was wearing didn't stop Zvia Margaliot, an Orthodox Jewish wife and mother from Jerusalem, from winning the Poetry Slam competition last week at Tel Aviv's Levontin 7 club.
As opposed to many spoken-word (memorized text) artists as well as prophets of doom or ordinary street-corner poets, Margaliot does not preach anything; on the contrary, she succeeded in conveying her profound ideas through a great deal of humor and charm.
At Poetry Slam, Margaliot performed two of her original selections: In "Charity Will Save From Death," she spoke about her complex relationship with the poor of Jerusalem, while "A Third Breast" was about breast feeding, couples and family.
"May He be blessed and His name be blessed, who created His world/ With such fatal disharmony, with such total lack of coordination/ Between nothing and not a thing/ Eternity he gave to stones, and to words, to world-famous poets, the poor things. And to me he gave dishes,/ laundry, laundry, yes, why hide it/ And the nights that end only when the three of us are already exhausted,/ And to be the materials from which poems are created," she declaimed towards the end of the "The Third Breast."
While the audience was still surprised by the words, Margaliot took an artistic pause, then ended the selection with a line that resolved the ostensible contradiction contained in her blessing. To those interested in hearing how, she will take part in another evening of Poetry Slam tomorrow at Jerusalem's Avram Bar.
Margaliot, 29, studied acting and works as a tour guide in Jerusalem. She says she does theatrical tours in which she plays imaginary Jerusalem characters, and under cover of these characters performs spoken-word selections. "I started to do spoken word - and discovered that that's what it's called - about half a year ago, when I was pregnant with my daughter. I write poetry, but I think that there's something very annoying about poetry: All the pomp that accompanies it, that heaviness at poetry evenings. On the other hand, 'spoken' has the atmosphere of the slam, in other words of a contest. You have to be relevant, to speak simply, in everyday language. I like that."
Also, GOP dog sweaters so your pet won't get cold on top of the car.
It's an election year, so we know that there are going to be a bunch of candidate-related souvenirs, tchotchkas and stuff from both sides. For example, you can get an Obamulka or a Romnulka.
However, there is also a genre of artwork that is specifically dedicated to either venerating or demonizing President Barack Obama. The most famous image of this sort is the iconic Shepard Fairey poster:
In addition to this poster, which is already a collector's item, other artists have devoted their work to portraying President Barack Obama. Lucas Ketner has created this adoring portrait of the President, bare-chested in a meadow, with a unicorn, farting roses:
Then there is Ron Keas, who has created ordinary Presidential portraits, like this one of Obama in the clouds:
If you're not creeped out enough, Jon McNaughton will do it for you. McNaughton is a far-right extremist conspiracy Birther kook who has created apocalyptic hellscapes with President Obama officiating as Satan, kind of like a latter-day Hieronymous Bosch, but without the fun and the nudity. Here is "Obamanation":
Obama and his liberal friends were determined that all Americans switch
to the CFL, eco-bulbs by 2014. The cost was far more than the standard
bulbs and it was not only ugly, but gives out less light. Thank heavens
Congress repealed another great liberal idea to control American’s
lives. OMG OMG OMG !!!1!ty
These epic words led
Spider- Man to pursue a life of justice and fighting villains. But with
great power also comes the ability to sue the pants off of small businesses that
illegally use Spider- Man’s image on a crocheted kippa.
On Wednesday,
Jerusalem’s landmark kippa store on the Ben-Yehuda pedestrian mall, Kippa Man,
suddenly found itself caught in a web of drama worthy of Spider- Man’s twisted
storylines.
Owner Avi Binyamin was informed that he is being sued by
Marvel Comics for NIS 100,000 for selling unlicensed Spider-Man merchandise:
Kippot with Spidey’s likeness.
On July 30, Marvel’s representatives in
Israel visited the Kippa Man shop and bought a Spider-Man kippa.
“A
reasonable consumer could be fooled into thinking that the infringing product is
manufactured and/or sold by the plaintiff with the knowledge and/or approval of
the defendant,” the court document states.
Attorney Amir Ivtsan, a
partner in the Ivtsan, Netzer, Wolecki & Co. law firm that has represented
Marvel in Israel for the past decade, said any business in Israel suspected of
selling illegal Marvel merchandise would be sued for NIS 100,000. He added that
Marvel received information about Kippa Man specifically, which is why
representatives visited his store.
Binyamin’s famous store is about two
meters wide and four meters long, and stuffed full with colorful kippot. He
sells only kippot and does a brisk business, with a steady stream of
customers.
Other kippa salesman on the pedestrian mall grudgingly
acknowledge he sells the most kippot and is the best-known name
internationally.
Binyamin was dismayed to learn he was the subject of a
lawsuit. “They make them in China, I just bring them,” a frustrated Binyamin
said on Thursday.
“There are 20 stores on this street, they all sell the
same thing,” he added. He hypothesized that they targeted his store because his
name was well-known.
But Binyamin isn’t the only villain on Ben-Yehuda
Street. If Marvel is looking for justice, there are dozens of shops that sell
touristy knick-knacks and piles of kippot that feature popular superheroes,
including Spider- Man. They also feature other registered trademarks, including
Starbucks, Apple, Pringles, Superman, BMW, all the major football, basketball
and soccer teams, and college mascots.
On Thursday, almost every store
proudly displayed a Spider-Man kippa outside, and owners were shocked when
informed of Marvel’s decision to sue Binyamin.
Tel Aviv University announced Monday that it would not permit a scheduled Wagner concert to take place on its campus, after it had evoked angry protests.
In a letter to Attorney Yonathan Livni, who had submitted the request to hire the campus' Smolarz Auditorium for the event on June 18, the university denied the request, accusing him of deliberately concealing the intention to perform Richard Wagner's works. The university also claimed that Livni did not mention the name of the organization he represented.
Livni, the founder of the Israel Wagner Society, asked the university last week to hold a concert, conducted by Asher Fisch, in the auditorium, making no mention of planning to perform Richard Wagner's works, the university spokesman said.
"You deliberately concealed this basic fact from us...We received angry protests calling to call off the controversial event...[which] would deeply offend the Israeli public in general and Holocaust survivors in particular," he said.
Wagner, who espoused anti-Semitic views during his lifetime, was also Adolf Hitler's favorite composer. Attempts to perform Wagner in Israel over the past 30 years have always generated heated controversy.
Babushka loves Wagner's music and will continue to listen!
How many Jews did Wagner kill?
Which of Wagner's musical works explicitly portray Jews as bad people, or at all?
"Wagner, who espoused anti-Semitic views during his lifetime" this is not expressed in his music so who cares? Was Wagner significantly more anti-Semitic than other prominent composers of that period? OK maybe he was more anti-Semitic than Mendelssohn, but what about Brahms? Franz Liszt? Johann Sebastian Bach? Georg Frederich Handel? You can probably find more anti-Semitic stuff in the scores of Bach and Handel (they composed predominantly church music) but their music isn't banned in Israel.
Wagner was not a Nazi. Wagner did not kill any Jews. So please stop this silliness.
Vogue cover of award-winning vocalist Adele. She looks like she eats well.
Lately I have been receiving issues of Vogue and Glamour magazine in the mail, even though I never ordered a subscription to these magazines and not really interested in what rich, thin anorexics are wearing this season.
The Zedushka (Babushka's dear partner) look at the photo of Adele on Vogue cover and said, "that young lady looks very healthy, she doesn't look anorexic at all!"
Adele said about herself, after a comment from a fashion designer that she was "too fat," saying, "I've never wanted to look like models on the cover of magazines," the 23-year-old told People. "I represent the majority of women and I'm very proud of that."
So it appears that Vogue and Glamour magazine have decided to feature a celebrity that the overwhelming majority of women can identify with from the way she looks. She's a beautiful woman but not super tall or super thin, and she is a very talented singer.
I don't understand why Vogue and Glamour have decided to send me a subscription since I am so not the type to want to read their magazine. Maybe they are in trouble, and the skinny sticks they think women want to look like are not appealing, and have decided to feature an artist with a more normal body type.
If this is a trend, it's a good trend. Maybe young women will want to all look like Adele instead of Kate Moss. That would be something to see.
Meanwhile I won't throw away the issues that Vogue and Glamour send me for free, I can donate them to the salon where I get my nails done.
The crochet artist, Olek, surrounded by G-rated creations.
The editors of an ultra-Orthodox magazine were embarrassed to realize that they have published photographs featuring smutty language recently.
The popular gossip weekly, whose content centers on the who's who of the haredi world, often publishes several pages of photographs from around the globe. In one recent edition this section focused on Olek, an artist who makes crocheted sculptures.
One of the pictures that the magazine published shows one of Olek's installations – an entire room covered in her knitted creations. But what the editors failed to notice were the inappropriate English-language sayings crocheted onto the walls.WARNING: Link is NSFW.
EPIC FAIL II: The naughty phrases are spelled incorrectly.
The publication's management only realized the mistake when the edition reached religious readers in the United States and the United Kingdom, who were shocked at the sexual content. A London rabbi even published a letter admonishing the magazine.
Jerusalem - More than 250 women participated in a flashmob in Beit Shemesh Friday morning, dancing in protest of the gender segregation in the public space.
Passersby and locals running to the bank in the Old Beit Shemesh city square were surprised to see a group of women grooving to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now” in the small town outside Jerusalem, a flashpoint of conflict over gender segregation in recent weeks. Inspired, some residents joined into the dancing, which was organized via Facebook over the course of three weeks.
Dance organizer Miri Shalem said that the event was organized in protest of the violent extremist actions of “the group of crazies,” and to show that there is another side to Beit Shemesh. “Today the women and girls demonstrated our unity in public and I hope we will continue to do this in the future in order to improve our city,” she said.
In recent weeks, an ultra-Orthodox man spit on an 8-year-old girl for “immodest” dress, and a subsequent protest for women’s rights drew national attention, featuring speeches from national political leaders.
“We wanted to express our feelings in a unique way and highlight a different face of Beit Shemesh,” said Brenda Ganot, a flashmob organizer and Beit Shemesh resident.
“We love our city and want peaceful coexistence between the different sectors of the population; however, we will not sit quietly and let a group of crazy extremists set the tone for our city.”
Austrian President Heinz Fischer (L) welcomes Israel's Defence Minister Ehud Barak in his office at the historic Hofburg Palace in Vienna December 9, 2011.
The portrait is Queen Maria Teresa, probably the most anti-Semitic monarch of her time, having inherited the traditional prejudices of her ancestors and acquired new ones. This was a product of deep religious devotion and was not kept secret in her time.[114] In 1777, she wrote of the Jews: "I know of no greater plague than this race, which on account of its deceit, usury and avarice is driving my subjects into beggary. Therefore as far as possible, the Jews are to be kept away and avoided." [From Wikipedia]
Nice to see a flag of Israel next to her portrait.
Due to many requests that we have received, Vicious Babushka's Hebrew version of the Gadsden Flag is now available on a T-Shirt, ball cap, button and car magnet. This is the original graphic that first appeared on the net! All the copies that you may see on other websites contain this blog's watermark!
Guardian supplement profiles work of cartoonist Carlos Latuff, notorious for frequent comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany and for award-winning entry in Iranian Holocaust cartoon competition.
The Guardian’s ‘G2’ supplement today contains a profile of the Carlos Latuff, a cartoonist ‘who has become an unlikely star of the Arab spring – and, more recently, cartoonist to protests and conflicts around the world.’ The article concentrates on Latuff’s ubiquity during the Arab Spring, and details how he has risen to such prominence by shunning traditional media and promoting his work online. However, it presents allegations that his work is anti-Semitic as part of a campaign against him, and fails to adequately articulate the sheer viciousness of his work, which frequently resorts to comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
‘Carlos Latuff: The voice of Tripoli – live from Rio’, by Jack Shenker, opens by providing the background for the Brazilian-born cartoonist. Having described the development of his career, it cites the praise of Graham Fowell, the chairman of the Cartoonists’ Club of Great Britain, who states that Latuff’s work ‘depict[s] the ridiculous ironies of our imperfect civilisation, only much quicker.’ Shenker notes, however, that ‘[n]ot everyone has been so flattering’:
‘Since visiting the West Bank in 1999, Latuff has become known for his support of the Palestinian cause; some campaigners claim his work is antisemitic. “Part of the supposed ‘evidence’ for my antisemitism is the fact that I’ve used the Star of David, which is a symbol of Judaism,” he says wearily. “But check all my artworks – you’ll find that the Star of David is never drawn alone. It’s always part of the Israeli flag. Yes, it’s a religious motif, but in Israel it has been applied to a state symbol; and it’s the institutions of the state – the politicians and the army – that I’m targeting. Including the flag of Israel in a cartoon is no more an attack on Judaism than including the flag of Turkey would be an attack on Islam.”’
The statement that ‘some campaigners claims his work is antisemitic’ suggests that these allegations are only raised as part of a campaign to discredit his advocacy for the Palestinians, as opposed to being a genuine concern about the images he produces. While Shenker provides Latuff with the opportunity to dismiss the charge that he is antisemitic because of his use of the Israeli flag, he fails to mention any other reasons for the controversy surrounding the cartoonist.
Despite Latuff’s statement in an interview with the pro-Hamas lobby group MEMO that ‘respect’ was key to his understanding of freedom of speech, and that there was a ‘BIG difference between criticism and attack’, his work frequently consists of equating Israel with Nazi Germany, with Palestinians recast as Jews awaiting genocide.
For example, in 2006 Latuff participated in the International Holocaust Cartoon Competition, which was sponsored by the Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, to denounce what it called ‘Western hypocrisy on freedom of speech’. The event drew criticism from a wide variety of states and individuals, including UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and the US State Department, which called the competition an attempt to ‘denigrate the horror that was the holocaust.’ The exhibit’s curator, Masoud Shojai, spoke of a desire to make the exhibition an annual event:
‘Actually, we will continue until the destruction of Israel’.
Latuff’s entry, which gained second place, was a direct comparison between the Palestinians in the Middle East and the Jews in Nazi Germany, with an Arab man in concentration camp garb, including a red crescent badge affixed to his uniform:
There was Superman in red leather boots, Ronald McDonald clutching a bottle of beer, and Santa Claus about to look through a pair of binoculars.
A benign if motley bunch, you may think. But they were enough to provoke an international diplomatic rebuke, it emerged on Wednesday, after they featured in an impudent make-over of a Soviet war memorial. Members of Russia's government were said to be seething.
An unidentified street artist struck last weekend, daubing paint on a high-relief statue in Sofia, Bulgaria, to transform the monument's Red Army soldiers into a tableau of storybook characters. The artist's caption spray-painted on the statue read: "In step with the times."
Moscow was not amused. In a statement issued Wednesday, the foreign ministry urged Sofia to expose and punish the "hooligans behind the vandalism" and stop the "desecration of the memory of Soviet soldiers who fell in the name of freeing Bulgaria and Europe from Nazism".
Captain America and Batman's sidekick, Robin, also featured in the composition, which quickly became a tourist magnet.
Imposing socialist-realist war memorials have become painful reminders of Soviet rule for some countries that threw off their communist shackles in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 2007 ethnic Russians rioted in Estonia when authorities there removed the Bronze Soldier statue. One man was stabbed to death and dozens were injured.
The statue in Sofia, built to mark the 10th anniversary of Russia's "liberation" of Bulgaria in 1944, has been cleaned up. Police say they are seeking the culprit.
I met Mr. Schumer during my adventures at Comic-Con. In the audience of our panel discussion, he afterwards politely came up to me and proffered his eight-page, lavishly illustrated comic book before quietly going on his way.
The next day, having read the fine print inside Captain Israel, I googled Mr. Schumer’s name, and from there learned about MGMbill.org, the “intactivists” out there vigilantly fighting for the rights of infant boys to one day have their dicks look as long as possible, and, of course, the handsomely blonde Foreskin Man, who might as well have a swastika on his chest instead of that Bat-Butt thing he’s now sporting.
As I hope is already obvious, what fuels MGMbill.org is good old-fashioned antisemitism.
I was never a big fan of Captain America; I just can’t get excited about what amounts to Captain Geopolitical Entity. And my first thought upon seeing Captain Israel was that a comic book from Bizzaro World had accidentally fallen into ours.
Without in any way referencing to the whole Jewish-Palestinian issue, I would just like to say, on behalf of the six million Jews killed by the Nazis in WWII: Go, Captain Israel. Go.
BAYREUTH, Germany (Reuters) - The Israel Chamber Orchestra will play a work by Adolf Hitler's favorite composer Richard Wagner in Germany Tuesday, challenging a seven-decade taboo in their homeland.
Israeli ensembles rarely play Wagner because of the seminal 19th century composer's anti-Semitism and the appropriation of his music by the Nazis, calling it insensitive to Holocaust survivors.
But orchestra conductor Roberto Paternostro said Sunday it was time to separate Wagner's worldview from his music.
"Wagner's ideology and anti-Semitism was terrible, but on the other hand he was a great composer," he told Reuters. "The aim is in the year 2011 to divide the man from his art."
The orchestra will play Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, an orchestral piece, in Bayreuth, Germany, famous for its annual Wagner opera festival in July and August.
It will be the first time an Israeli orchestra plays Wagner in Germany.
"It was a very difficult and rocky path to get to this point," Paternostro said earlier at a news conference. "There wasn't a moment when I had any doubts about this project."
"It was my greatest conviction to bring together these two sides -- Israel and Wagner," said Paternostro, who is Jewish and whose mother and other relatives were Holocaust survivors. "For me it wasn't much of a problem."
Attempts over the years by some musicians in Israel to perform Wagner's music have caused audience members to walk out in protest and have triggered heated public debate.
Wagner is also taboo on state-owned media in Israel which largely keep his work off the air.
It's about time! Wagner was a great composer and his music should not be banned just because Hitler Y"S enjoyed it. Was Wagner an anti-Semite? Maybe, but who cares? No one gives that kind of scrutiny to Mozart, or Bach, or Beethoven. Should we ban all composers except for Mendelssohn?
Zionist gremlins at work. Not shown: Sharks with laser beams.
Owner of Irish ship Saorise presents photos of damaged propeller shaft, which he says was damaged in order sink ship after it had set sail for Gaza. 'Israel only party likely to have carried out this potentially murderous act,' he says
The coordinator of the Irish ship Saoirse, bound for Gaza in an international flotilla, told Ynet Thursday Israel had sabotaged the ship so that it would sink in mid-sail, not in order to prevent it from sailing.
"This was a potentially murderous act," said Dr Fintan Lane, who also owns the vessel.
"If we had not spotted the damage as a result of a short trip in the bay, we would have gone to sea with a dangerously damaged propeller shaft," he said.
"One of the most shocking aspects is the delayed nature of the sabotage. It wasn't designed to stop the ship from leaving its berth; instead, it was intended that the fatal damage to the ship would occur while she was at sea and this could have resulted in the deaths of several of those on board."
The sabotage claims against Israel Wednesday succeeded similar claims made by the operators of the Juliano vessel, a Greek flotilla ship which also requires repair.
Twenty activists that had intended to sail with the Saorise from Göcek port, in Turkey, will have to seek a new mode of transportation as the vessel cannot set off in its current state. Six have reportedly already done so.
Operators of the flotilla sent Ynet photos of the damaged propeller shaft, which they present as evidence of intent to damage the ship in a dangerous manner.
Lane says passengers noticed some trouble Monday night, and that divers who went down to investigate discovered the damage and alerted an expert team.
He explained that divers had damaged the shaft in order to cause it to bend, which would eventually have led to a breach in the hull while the ship was navigating the high seas.
The damage was very similar to that caused to the Juliano in Greece, Lane said, adding that the damage was most certainly intentional and a product of human intervention.
"Israel is the only party likely to have carried out this reckless action and it is important that the Irish government and the executive in Northern Ireland insist that those who ordered this act of international terrorism be brought to justice. This was carried out in a Turkish town and shows no respect for Turkish sovereignty and international law," said Lane.
He added that the damage would take weeks and around 15,000 euro to fix, effectively preventing the ship from taking part in the flotilla.
UPDATE: I am getting tweets from outraged tweeters demanding to know where is the "proof" that this alleged "sabotage" was committed by Israel. As you can see we have supplied a Photoshopped picture of the cute little Zionist gremlins.
The original is a Warner Brothers cartoon from the 1940's, "Russian Rhapsody" in which little Soviet gremlins attack a warplane that is being piloted by Der Führer his very self. The cartoon critters are based on caricatures of Warner Brothers animators.
Please just re-imagine this cartoon with Hamas in place of Adolf and the flotilla unseaworthy scows instead of the aircraft.
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