27 February, 2009

UAE blocks Israeli cartoon from YouTube

"ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates, Feb. 26 (UPI) -- United Arab Emirates officials blocked a YouTube cartoon from Israel, featuring two Muslim boys who deflect their father's efforts to make them suicide bombers.
Officials said the cartoon is anti-Islam and racist toward Arabs, al-Arabiya reported.

In one episode, the two boys, Salim and Ahmed make a detour to get ice cream on their way to place an explosive on an Israeli bus. Then they put the bomb on a UAE bus.

The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority said it had gotten complaints about the cartoons, which are subtitled in Hebrew and English.

A spokesman for the TRA said the agency has resisted calls to block YouTube completely. Adult content on the site is automatically blocked, he said."


Original article here

Found via fark.com

24 comments:

Veiled Muslimah said...

Uhmm its kind of hypocritical when the Israeli Cartoon shows that instead of bombing the Israeli Bus they bomb the UAE bus.

So its okay to bomb the UAE bus but not the Israeli bus?

hemlock said...

VM: it's not ok to bomb an israeli bus - it would be antisemitic.
the UAE bus, not so much.

Anonymous said...

Then they put the bomb on a UAE bus.

In Israel? I didn't know the UAE operated buses in Israel.

Wow!!!!

Anonymous said...

Then they put the bomb on a UAE bus.

I guess they were angry at the whole Tennis player thing.

I'd buy Ahmed and his brother tubs of ice cream if they bombed that israeli bus.

Anonymous said...

As I always say, JOURNALISTS are dead. no fact checking EVER takes place. I just watched the video. A. it has alot of potty humor, so it wasnt created by any official Israeli "propaganda" machine. It is just like most online cartoons, made by amateurs.

2. it WASNT a UAE bus. Its a bus flying a flag that doesnt even look like the UAE's flag, AND is filled wih "Arab citizens" not UAE citizens. NO WHERE in the cartoon is the UAE even mentioned.

I love how in this day and age, every jackhole feels he/she has the right and ability to report the "news."

Because of this misunderstanding, Im going to see 34567 emails at work calling for the death of Jews because they want to destroy the UAE.

Oh, and btw, the cartoon is pretty funny. Made in the south park style.

http://vodpod.com/watch/1305574-ahmed-salim-desenho-perfeito-para-semana-da-campus-party

Enjoy it.

Anonymous said...

jokes on you israeli cartoonist...no one of any importance takes the bus in the uae, and anyone who does is expendable

and dont you dare carpool either!

and now in predictable fashion, let's all count down till the usual types take notice of my affront and spit out the same spaz response, "if you dont like it" etc...

rosh said...

lol ABIT, yes, South Park humour! Anyhooo, the UAE flag is on the wall behind, "gaylord Yasser Majhayeff", the mastermind. Perhaps, that's reason enough.

Em said...

"deflect their father's efforts to make them suicide bombers."

how does that make it anti-Islamic? Are the inferring making bombs as Islamic?

*shakes head in disbelief*

Lirun said...

actually the text is flushed with hebrew words..

so i guess the audience is israel..

as an israeli i didnt think it was as racist as it was stupid..
makes us look kind of narrow minded and ignorant.. in a way a commentary about how two dimensionally many of us view arab society..

the funny part for me (if any) was that most palestinians i do know mix hebrew into their speech very randomly just like in the video..

other than that.. thumbs down from this israeli..

Anonymous said...

Lirun, IT WAS A JOKE. God.

I am the FIRST person to start pointing fingers, but seriously.

It was something funny, made by a couple of guys in Israel who like playing with their computers.

Get over it. I find nothing wrong with it, aside from the bad excuse for Arabic. They could have at least dubbed it with Nancy Ajram songs.

Darko, Seriously, if you are a human (I'm wondering,) and thus can think, logic would force you to weigh the benefits and cons of living here.

If you are still here, it means it isnt that bad, so STFU.

If you have made this logical comparison in your head, and decided that the cons outweigh the pros... AND you are still here.

You're just plain stupid.

Either way, you have no right to complain.

Anonymous said...

Rosh, No, this is just plain BS.

Fine, Arabs dont like Israelis. Fine. Ive lived with that all my life.

And Israelis, not too fond of Arabs, Fine, we are used to this now.

But seriously, this was just a funny cartoon made by a few friends who were bored, and it is kind of funny.

If anything, and this is a HUGE if, you want to look for meaning in this, you could argue that any terrorism, will backfire in the end.

See! a simple twist and I turned this harmless cartoon into an anti-terrorism piece.

I'm serious, this gets to ANY Arab media outlet, and we will have 3000 emails a day telling us that the Israeli Govt is hell bent of attacking Dubai!

Just like the BS about Starbucks and Israel. Lirun, Do you guys even have Starbucks in Israel?

There are sensitivities, I agree. especially in this kind of a culture. you have Islamic sensibilities, cultural (they arent the same) sensitivities.

Fine, I'm from here, I know.

But things are taken too far. Way too far sometimes. Nothing there was anti-Islamic, Anti-Arab, or Anti-UAE.

Bleh.

rosh said...

Agreed ABIT. South park humour won't go well with certain folks or places. The foursome of pre-teens have been at it about a decade, even though they are less than popular given fearless satirizing of anyone and everyone (remember they declared war on Tom Cruise, that was hilarious!)

hemlock said...

i hope they have starbucks in israel.
they serve the worst coffee ever.

=D

Rami said...

This is what annoys me about stories like this. I mean, look at the comments on this post so far.. people are discussing whether or not the cartoon was funny (in a similar vein, we could be discussing whether or not it qualifies as 'art' or whatever). That is a good thing.

The problem is, we wouldn't be having this discussion unless people had managed to see the cartoon in the first place.

See, discussion is good. Having Lirun express his opinion, having ABIT express his opinion.. all good things.

And yet most people will just read the headline and be unable to see the cartoon, so they'll make their minds up from (as previously mentioned) some idiot journalist's impression of the cartoon, without ever being able to see it themselves.

Censorship is never the answer. I wish the powers-that-be would get that eventually.

Anonymous said...

The fact that they take stuff like this seriously just shows the juvenile mentality of these censors.

rosh said...

Not related to this post, sorry. Does anyone know why there was much military personnel from AJ to RAK few days ago?

Anonymous said...

Rosh, it was all about the illegal immigrants *wink wink*

http://www.thenational.ae/article/20090227/NATIONAL/504482578/1010

Anonymous said...

And yet most people will just read the headline and be unable to see the cartoon, so they'll make their minds up from (as previously mentioned) some idiot journalist's impression of the cartoon, without ever being able to see it themselves.

I posted a working link to the vid above.

Lirun said...

sorry guys we dont have starbucks.. it didnt pass the israeli straight face test.. instead we have countless other home grown chains that follow a similar philosophy based on different variations:

arcaffe - more stylish and high quality sandwiches - also has great baked goods

aroma - bare basics

hillel - kosher

cafecafe - a bit more intellectual

we also have coffee bean but they dont seem so popular..

israelis live off coffee so they are typically fussy.. personally i think the drink is merely consumerised hot mud.. cant stand it.. give me hot water with nana anyday..

Anonymous said...

WHAT?! THAT CARTOON WAS HILARIOUS!!
My best friend and I were in STITCHES. Pathetic!

Lirun said...

dana do u speak hebrew? or at least arabrew?

Dubai Jazz said...

Not report-wrothy. There are gazillions of videos on youtube blocked someowhere or the other for 'inappropriate' content.

Em said...

i actually saw the cartoon on youtube. it was of the toilet humor south park and bevis and butthead style. funny. but in a really stupid way.

and the flag was just an amalgam of different types of arab country flag.

BuJ said...

it's interesting how criticising Israel has become such a faux-pas yet criticising the UAE is what this blog is famous for.

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