Safire and satire

William Safire (1929-2009, pictured). Wikipedia calls him an American author, columnist, journalist, lexicographer and presidential speechwriter perhaps best known as a long-time syndicated political columnist for the New York Times [1]. For the obvious reason, satire reminds me of Safire. Dictionary.com defines satire as ‘the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule or the like in exposing, denouncing or deriding, vice, folly etc’ [2]. I thought of William Safire early this week when I read this item on CiF Watch – which monitors and exposes anti-semitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free’ blog [3]. It’s titled: ‘Israeli NGO’s [sic] preparing Flotilla from Ashdod to Dublin*’ [4]. The superscript asterisk flags to readers too dumb to otherwise realise, that the piece is satire. It uses irony, sarcasm and ridicule to expose, denounce and deride the vice, folly and evil of the Viva Palestina [5] flotilla that sailed towards Gaza in mid 2010, and which included the Mavi Marmara. The satirical CiF Watch piece starts: ‘Israeli NGOs horrified by the developing humanitarian crisis in Ireland have organized a flotilla called Viva Dublina. And it rolls – or perhaps more aptly, sails – on from there. It’s brilliant. I heartily recommend it. It exposes Viva Palestina’s motives and hypocrisy in a way no serious analysis could. I think if William Safire had read it, he’d be jealous he didn’t write it.
H/t Elder of Ziyon [6].