Girls eating snakes – not only in China? (Archive)
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Israeli envoy: Syrian girls bite snakes
In academic paper, Consul in Miami says Syria is barbaric and cruel, charges Syria girls bite snakes
Members of the Miami Jewish community were shocked last week to receive an official email from the city’s Israeli Consulate featuring an academic article describing Syrian "barbarism and cruelty," authored by the Consul General Dr. Yitzhak Ben Gad.
The essay, which Ben Gad sent without approval and which directly counters Israel’s official stance, demonizes Syria by graphically describing barbaric scenes which its author claims are typical Syrian practices: girls slaying snakes with their teeth and soldiers strangling puppies to drink their blood.
In the essay, Ben Gad refers to the Hama massacre conducted by former Syrian President Hafez Assad in 1982, in which some 15,000 people were killed for challenging his regime, in attempt to illustrate “Syrian barbarism.”
He alleges that at the time Syrian television showed adolescent girls training with the Ba’ath party militia caressing snakes while Assad and senior party members gazed at them approvingly. Ben Gad embellishes a graphic scene in which the girls bite the snakes and skin them with their teeth, blood dripping down their chins, and then the Syrian militiamen drink the blood. We certainly live in tough surroundings, the Consul General writes, as Syrians are well known for their barbarity.
'Article goes against Israel's publicity line'
Ben Gad, a member of the Likud known for his extremist Right-wing views, was appointed to the post in Miami by then Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom as one in a series of political appointments. His dubious CV, which is proudly displayed on the Consulate’s Web site, includes his authorship of a book against the Road map peace plan, called “The Roadmap to Nowhere” alongside his academic education in Middle Eastern affairs.
Upon receiving the scathing article in their inboxes, members of the Miami Jewish community complained to the Israeli Foreign Ministry. “I hope that the State of Israel will replace (Ben Gad) or will at least prohibit him from sending articles like this one,” a representative of the Miami Jewish community said.
The Foreign Ministry’s response avowed unequivocally that Ben Gad’s racist line contradicted Israel’s official stance. “If anyone else in the world raised such accusations against Israelis, people would decry them as anti-Semitic attacks. Israel’s line of publicity generally employs positive and updated messages and shuns demonization,” the ministry said.
Dr. Ben Gad defended his article Wednesday saying that he had heard no complaints against it but refused to give any further statements except that he would do nothing out of line the Foreign Ministry’s standpoint.
Story first published in Israel's leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth
