No Mohammad Doodles: Never Had Them, Never Will

The end has to be near, right? I mean, world diplomacy has always been kind of sophomoric, but I don't know that the international dialogue between nations has ever been so much like junior high school as it has been the last few weeks.

"Hey, they drew a photo of our prophet with a bomb on his head! I'm telling!"

I haven't seen people this upset over a cartoon since the unfortunate introduction of Poochie.

I saw those cartoons. I'm not going to republish them here, mainly because I'm too lazy to go find them and they're not funny. Not for fear of angry jihadists, because I'm already an American Jewish guy, right? How could I make them want to kill me any more than they already do? I could be drinking a fifth of Cuervo while eating a pork sandwich and dunking a copy of the Koran in a vat of menstrual blood as I make obscene phone calls to their 12 year old sister in Riyadh, and fundamentalist Muslims wouldn't want to kill me more than they already do.

Some of them are kind of offensive, in a generally racist way. (Like, images of Arab's as scimitar-wielding, moustachioed goons straight out of Walt Disney's Aladdin.) But none of them are so offensive that you should start a-sploding embassies and Kentucky Fried Chickens! Okay, people! Because, man, dude, burning down a KFC...That's going to release toxins into your environment that ain't never going away. Get used to the stench of 800 types of processed, chemically-treated animal fat as it slowly seeps its way into your thoroughfares and fresh drinking water, geniuses!

And now there's this whole "if a newspaper doesn't publish the racist Mohammad cartoons, the terrorists win" nonsense. Look, that's just playing into the fundamentalist's dream of a Clash of Cultures. It's choosing a side - "I'm publishing these cartoons, so fuck Muslims!" Those cartoons aren't newsworthy, they aren't worthwhile social criticism. I don't think you should cave in to pressure and not run something in a newspaper that people need to see (like, oh, say, photos of people being tortured by U.S. Soldiers or the bodies of dead Americans coming in from overseas). But I do think exercizing restrain in not provoking violence by running dumb, racist cartoons makes practical sense.

And as I said, publishing racist cartoons that have sparked riots plays right into the hands of the stupid evil terrorists! They want to provoke moderate Muslims into a war for control of the entire planet, okay? They're crazy delusional fucks. Everybody got that?

Just like those idiots in our country who want to make it illegal for gays to marry and women to wear pants, okay? Imagine if those guys had total control of U.S. policy. It shouldn't be that hard to imagine...They'd be doing stupid crap like this, too. If Sean Hannity, today, were given the choice on whether or not the United States should just invade all the countries with presidents who have ever said anything bad about us, he'd probably think for a minute, then give the go-ahead.

Anyway, the best way to respond to people who can't take a joke is to keep telling more jokes, right? Either they'll come around or they'll give up and start just ignoring you. Either way, you win! Some very clever Jews came up with the notion of starting a contest for...the most anti-Semetic cartoon imaginable. Brilliant!

Eyal Zusman (30, back from anonymity) and Amitai Sandy (29), graphic artist and publisher of Dimona Comix Publishing, from Tel-Aviv, Israel, have followed the unfolding of the “Muhammad cartoon-gate” events in amazement, until finally they came up with the right answer to all this insanity - and so they announced today the launch of a new anti-Semitic cartoons contest - this time drawn by Jews themselves!

“We’ll show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew hating cartoons ever published!” said Sandy “No Iranian will beat us on our home turf!”

YES! This is how you convince people that you're right. Not by continuing to offend them pointlessly, just to prove that you can. But by turning the situation around on them, making them appear foolish and silly. It's called "taking the high ground."

So far, there aren't really any fabulous submissions, but the contest just started and I'm willing to give them some time. I wish I was a better artist.