PLAYBOY Drops Plans for "Girls of the Intifadah" Photo Feature Under Pressure

PLAYBOY Magazine has announced that it is cancelling its proposed photo spread "The Girls of the Intifada" that was to feature naked Palestinian lovelies from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Los Angeles chapter of the B'nai B'rith had denounced the feature, saying that it justified terrorism and hate. The B'nai B'rith was tipped off about the feature by a PLAYBOY insider, who leaked a piece of doggerel that was going to be used to illustrate the photo spread:

We are the girls of the Intifada!
To all Jews we're definitely nada!
We'll yield not an inch of land
But there's one catch --
Only selfless Muslim martyrs
Shall colonize our snatch!

PLAYBOY editor-in-chief Philboyd Studge denied that the venerable magazine, which debuted in 1954 with a nude Marilyn Monroe as its "Sweetheart of the Month," had any intention of making light of the tense situation in Israel with light-hearted verse.

"The reports that we intended to caption the photos with patently offensive, nay, anti-Semitic poetry are nonsense," Studge said.

Hugh Hefner, the founder and nominal publisher of PLAYBOY, was unavailable for comment. His daughter, Christie Hefner, the president of Playboy Enterprises, issued a terse statement saying that she supported Studge and was sorry for any aspirations against Israel the feature might have caused. No criticism of Israel was intended.

Studge said that PLAYBOY never intended to entitle a proposed spread of girls from the Middle East as representing the Intifada. He believes that an internal trickster was responsible for the rumors.

"I tell you, it's not even decent doggerel, let alone poetry," an irritated Studge complained. "The metonymy, is so meretricious.... How could anyone believe it was authentic PLAYBOY doggerel, ferkrissakes!"