“Using only a red felt-tip pen and a cartoon that seemed straight out of Danger Mouse or Wacky Races, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood on the podium of the United Nations General Assembly and drew Israel’s red line in the face of the grave strategic threat facing his country. If Iran enriched enough uranium to twenty percent or higher, making it too difficult to prevent a breakout to the bomb, Israel would strike. Netanyahu estimated that point would be reached, if diplomacy and sanctions failed, in the spring or summer of 2013.

He was deadly serious, but within hours a satirical response had exploded cross the Internet. The meme of Bibi-as-warmonger returned with a vengeance. Ami Kaufman at the anti-Zionist website +972 mocked ‘Bib E. Coyote’ who ‘had a lot of people worldwide holding their stomachs with laughter as he held his Looney Tune ACME bomb.’ The New Yorker initiated a competition to caption the image of Netanyahu standing at the podium with his felt-tip pen, the editor telling readers, ‘With the justification that the ridiculous deserves ridicule, I invite you to pile it on.'”

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