Anti-circumcision agitprop anti-Semitic?

Here we go again. I'm not going to weigh in here on the question of whether circumcision should be banned. But the propaganda campaign for the voter initiative against "male genital mutilation" that has made the San Francisco ballot for November (with a similar effort underway in Santa Monica) is literally Nazi-like. Comic books are being distributed that feature a blond, Aryan-featured super-hero named Foreskin Man, who goes around rescuing babies from a malevolent, leering Orthodox rabbi called Monster Mohel. We are helpfully informed that "Nothing excites Monster Mohel more than cutting into the penile flesh of an eight-day-old infant boy." Mohel's thuggish sidekick Jorah sports a kippah and an Uzi. Foreskin Man has his own sidekick, dubbed Warrior, who, "Caring little for rules, protocol, or even the law," carries out his mission to save innocent babies from mutilation "by any means necessary."

Is there anything about this which could possibly be construed as not anti-Semitic? Yet Peter Rowe in the San Diego Union-Tribune cluelessly asks in his June 8 headline, "Is anti-circumcision comic anti-Semitic?" No, ya think?! He lets the comic's creator (and apparently the main brains behind the San Francisco ballot initiative) Matthew Hess issue his requisite denial: "There were accusations that this is anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish. That's not what it's meant to be. It's anti-mutilation."

Well, if it's "not meant to be anti-Semitic," it is failing miserably. Why is this fascistic little creep being given the benefit of the doubt (especially when there isn't even any doubt to give him the benefit of)? Has there been a peep of protest over this ugliness by the so-called "Intactivists" (get it?) with their self-righteous struggle for "genital integrity"? Not that we've heard. That, of course, falls to right-wingers like Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle's Token Conservative blog, and the Anti-Defamation League—which is routinely pilloried by the left for engaging in cynical alarmism about anti-Semitism.

Now, there is plenty of good reason to thusly call out the ADL. But when are the lefties going to get it? Unless they speak up against real anti-Semitism when they see it, they have no moral credibility to call out cynical alarmism of the ADL variety.

So whatever the merits may or may not be of banning circumcision (this isn't the place for that argument), we hope this San Francisco initiative falls flat on its face, just to give a well-earned humiliation to Matthew Hess and his vile ilk. Try making your case without resorting to Nazi-like propaganda next time, guys.