Don’t forget, this Thursday, March 15th, is the fifth annual International Eat a Tasty Animal for PETA (IEATAPETA) Day, the day on which we annoy vegans the world over, and PETA, which is right here in my state of Virginia.

This year, Sarah and I are taking the twins to lunch at Brock’s again, so we can take pictures and contrast and compare.

Go to PETA Is Full of Crap for meat-up, er, meet-up information.

From the original IEAFPD post:

PETA has started yet another offensive ad campaign. This one really reaches bottom—they are using Holocaust terminology, quotes, and pictures to liken the “slaughter” of animals to the slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis.

I’ve already received a letter from a child of Holocaust survivors who is, of course, extraordinarily offended. But here’s the thing: PETA is known for this kind of outrageous publicity stunt—and that’s what it is, an outrageous publicity stunt—and while I am also offended and outraged, there is absolutely nothing we can do that will make PETA change their ad campaign. I’m sure they knew exactly what they were doing, have a plan in mind, and, if they withdraw the campaign, will do it according to their deadlines and their decisions.

So let’s make up our own outrageous publicity stunt. Let’s designate Saturday, March 15th, as International Eat an Animal for PETA Day. Everybody set the date on your calendar, and either go out and enjoy a great steak, or cook one at home. Or cook up some chicken or fish or anything else that PETA wouldn’t want you to eat.

From last year’s Shire Network News podcast:

The Holocaust is regularly invoked in improper and offensive ways. The one that hit my outrage button the hardest three years ago was an ad campaign titled “The Holocaust on Your Plate.” It was created by the radical animal rights organization, People for the Ethical Treatment for Animals, or PETA.

The PETA ad campaign compared the slaughter of chickens for food to the slaughter of six million Jews by the Nazis. They traveled the country with a series of billboards that used Holocaust imagery next to images of animals. They lied to the American Holocaust Museum to obtain permission to use these pictures in their ad campaign.

It’s a well-known fact that PETA has always chosen sensationalism in their ad campaigns. They’re usually stupid and offensive, but this campaign caused enough pain that a child of Holocaust survivors wrote me a letter asking if there weren’t something we could do about it. That’s why I created the first International Eat an Animal for PETA Day (IEAPD).

The fourth annual celebration is coming up again on March 15th. On that day, I ask everyone who thinks PETA is offensive and over-the-top to eat meat or animal products like cheese in at least one meal. It’s the exact opposite of what PETA wants, and is our little protest to their offensive ad campaigns. Our theme (besides eating lots of meat that day) is “don’t get mad, get even.” IEAPD is gaining strength and notoriety every year.

Don’t get me wrong. I am utterly against animal cruelty. But I am also utterly against cruelty to humans, and especially against the misuse of Holocaust imagery to get a point across.

During the first IEATAPETA, a few friends and I actually gathered outside PETA headquarters in Norfolk with protest signs. It was a Saturday. Nobody was there. But we were.

For my second IETAPETA, Sarah and her children joined me for lunch at Brock’s. Her daughter Rebecca refers to all beef as “Yummy cow.”

There are plenty of posts from the past. Just Google IEAPD and this site.

I would like to be perfectly clear. Animals like this are not on the menu. In fact, this particular animal (and her brother) will be treated to tunafish on March 15th. It’s a good thing to include your pets in International EATAPETA Day. PETA doesn’t like us having pets, either.

Don’t forget! And for you vegetarians out there, if you’re not strict vegetarians, there’s always cheese and eggs.

Why am I still doing this? Well, PETA is still offensive. When they stop, I’ll stop.

Update: I should just like to point out that Lair Simon and I have been publicizing EATAPETA for a while now. We couldn’t get any of the big guns to link us until today. Just sayin’.

We all remember the Nutty Karta Jews who made kissy-face with Ahmadinejad at the Holocause Denial conference in Tehran, right?

Well, so did this group of Israeli Jews while visiting Poland. They expressed their dislike rather forcefully.

A fervently Orthodox Austrian Jew who embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly was assaulted by a group of Israelis in Poland. Ma’ariv reported Monday that Moshe Aryeh Friedman, who attended the Holocaust denial conference hosted by Ahmadinejad in Tehran in December, was spotted while visiting the former Auschwitz and Birkenau camps over the weekend. A group of fervently Orthodox Jews from Israel also touring the sites set upon Friedman, who was born and raised in Monsey, N.Y.

“We gave him a good beating, the kind we have not given in a long time,” a member of the Israeli group, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, told Ma’ariv. “We took off his coat and hat, so he would not look like a Jew.” According to the newspaper, Meshi-Zahav, who is one of the founders of the Israeli volunteer emergency service ZAKA, was later honored with a special Torah reading in the synagogue.

Okay, let’s count the symbolism:

1. Friedman, who went to Iran to help publicize a conference that was called specifically to deny the Holocaust, was beaten on a site where many of the Jews killed in the Holocaust were murdered.
2. Friedman, a Brooklyn Jew who does not believe the state of Israel should exist, was beat up by Israeli Jews.
3. The Israeli Jews are from ZAKA, the volunteer organization that recovers remains after terrorist attacks, among other things. In effect, he was beat down by a bunch of extreme EMTs. (No offense meant to ZAKA, and while you’re at it, donate if you have a few bucks to spare.)
4. The guy who led the beat-down got an honor for it from his fellow Jews.
5. The guy who led the beat-down’s name is Yehuda, which is Hebrew for Jew.

Now, I normally do not cover events like this. There are enough Jew-bashers out there without going into the internecine squabbles. But this one is different on so many levels, and I’m afraid I feel absolutely no sympathy for Friedman. The man would have been a kapo in the death camps. He invited a Holocaust denier to his son’s Bar Mitzvah, and made nice with Hamas, the organization that has murdered or wounded thousands of Jews.

This is one event I’d have paid money to see. If only they’d taken pictures.

Yes, I know, that’s extremely uncivilized of me. But this is a man who enables the enemies of the Jews. What the religious Jews did by removing his hat and coat were to, in effect, cast him out of our group. They were saying he is not a Jew. And I agree.

When you work hand-in-hand with the enemies of the Jew, you are no Jew. You are the enemy within. The Neturei Karta are bad enough. This guy gives even them a bad name.

I caught this little item a few days ago but didn’t get to post on it. File under: “Bullshit“.

The former head of the Egyptian army’s Operations Branch, General Hassan al-Gridli, claims that during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, his army treated Israeli POWs humanely and even organized “tourist trips to Cairo.”

[..] In statements made to the Egyptian establishment newspaper Al-Aharam, Al-Gridli said that when he and then-Defense Minister Ahmad Ismail Ali went to inspect the POW camp in which Lieutenant Colonel Asaf Yaguri and other Israeli officers were being held, “the defense minister asked to verify that the prisoners were receiving good treatment” and ordered the camp commander to organize tourist trips to Cairo sights for the captives.

Yes, and they also gave them fluffy bunnies and kitties and puppies while they waited to be repatriated into Israel.

Uh-huh.

Tours of Cairo.

Riiiiight.

You have to hand it to Hamas. The organization will clearly never get the hang of modern public relations. Stung by accusations by Al Qaeda’s Number Two accusing them of having gone soft on Israel, Hamas released these statements:

The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas rejected on Monday criticism by al Qaeda’s second-in-command and said it was still committed to Israel’s destruction despite a power-sharing deal with the Fatah faction.

“We will not betray promises we made to God to continue the path of Jihad and resistance until the liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine,” Hamas said in a statement, in a clear reference to Israel as well as to the occupied West Bank.

In an audio recording posted on the Internet on Sunday, al Qaeda’s Ayman al-Zawahri accused Hamas of serving U.S. interests by agreeing to respect past Palestinian peace accords with Israel in a recent Saudi-brokered unity government deal with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah.

What astonishes me is that Reuters did not try to downplay these words, and even titled their article “Hamas says still seeks Israel’s destruction.”

They’re slipping.

And the punchline of this story? Well, Hamas openly admits its genocidal purpose. Hamas, time after time, tells the world that its main cause is the destruction of Israel, and her replacement with an Islamic state. And still, the world insists that A) Hamas has reformed B) Hamas is not a terrorist organization and C) Hamas can be reasoned with, negotiated with, and should be dealth with. Failing that, the world says that Israel should ignore Hamas’ control of the Palestinian Authority and deal with Abbas, who has now become effectively the Hamas puppet, thanks to the Mecca Accord. And the Saudis pushed the Mecca Accord because—bonus points if you already knew this—they want to wean Hamas away from Iran, and don’t give a damn about peace with Israel. So now Saudi money will fund the murder of Jews. Actually, more Saudi money. They’ve been funding terrorism for decades.

I will remember these facts every time I hear some schmuck say that Israel will deal with Hamas. But much of the world will not. They will, in the face of tons of evidence to the contrary, insist that Hamas can be reasoned with, and Israel is the stumbling block on the road to peace. Ex-presidents, even.

Here’s the proof that will be ignored:

“Zawahri’s recent statements were wrong … Resistance is our strategy. How and when? This depends on the reality at the time and our corresponding view of things,” Hamas said.

“So be assured doctor Ayman, and all those who love Palestine like yourself, that Hamas is still the group you knew when it was founded and it will never abandon its path.”

Hamas said its decision to run in the January 2006 Palestinian election that brought it to power and last month’s unity deal with Fatah “came only to preserve the higher interests of the Palestinian people.”

Those “higher interests” should be read as “the destruction of Israel.” Because that’s what Hamas is all about.