The theatrical protest, organized by Planned Parenthood of Central North Carolina, wasn't the first time activists have employed a bit of razzle dazzle to draw attention to an issue and get people talking.

Below, a roundup of five protests that show how, sometimes, a little flare can make a big difference.

Mad, Mad Women

As noted above, the North Carolina group made a splash on Tuesday, wearing dapper vintage outfits to make their point that access to birth control is basic health care. The Republican-controlled judicial committee went on to approve the measure, which now heads for a full vote in the General Assembly, but the Mad Women caused a social media stir and brought national attention to a bill that may have otherwise flown under the radar, as Laura Basset reported for the Huffington Post:

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Syria has hinted at possible retribution against Israel since the Jewish state carried out the airstrikes over the weekend, although official government statements have been relatively mild.

In that light, the Assad regime's decision to allow a minor Syria-based Palestinian group to prepare for attacks is largely seen as a face-saving gesture unlikely to escalate the confrontation with Israel.

"Syria has given the green light to set up missile batteries to directly attack Israeli targets," Anwar Raja of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command told The Associated Press.

He said authorities also told the PFLP-GC that the group could carry out attacks independently without consulting Syrian authorities.

Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in the strikes on Syria. However, Israeli officials have said the attacks were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.

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Goldberg’s piece takes aim at, among other things, the alleged dishonesty of Qatari foreign policy. Citing Qatar’s dual policy of good relations with Israel and funding of the Hamas-led administration of the Gaza Strip, Goldberg excoriates Haim Saban – an Israeli-American and another major funder of Brookings (along with the Qatari government itself) – for his public embrace of Qatari Prime Minister Hamid bin Jasim Al-Thani. Denouncing Qatar as “seeing nothing incongruous about maintaining open contacts with Israelis while funding an organization whose declared goal is killing Israelis,” Goldberg fails to grasp the distinction between preventing the economic collapse of the Gaza Strip and of funding terrorist attacks against Israel. Qatar explicitly falls into the former category. Saban, the Israeli government and the Israeli private sector are willing to talk to Qatar regardless of its relationship to Hamas, so why isn’t Goldberg?

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It was the first deadly airstrike in Gaza since a truce was reached with Palestinian militants last November, and is the most serious test yet of the Egyptian-brokered agreement.

The strike came alongside the fatal stabbing of an Israeli settler in the West Bank, the first killing by a Palestinian of an Israeli in the territory in over a year.

The aircraft hit the motorcycle as it was traveling northwest of Gaza City, killing the driver and wounding a passenger. A bystander was also wounded, according to Gaza medical officials.

The Israeli military said it had successfully killed Haitham Mishal, describing him as a jihadi militant involved in an April 17 rocket attack on the southern Israeli resort town of Eilat and other violence. Ashraf al-Kidra, Gaza's Health Ministry spokesman, said Mishal was a policeman.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned in recent days that Israel would not tolerate rocket fire from either the Gaza Strip or Egypt's Sinai Desert.

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Last week, Israeli airstrikes once again hit targets in Gaza, officially breaking a ceasefire established last November (although cross-border clashes have informally breached the ceasefire in recent months, leaving four Palestinians dead). In retaliation, Anonymous relaunched #OpIsrael this weekend, and according to an Anonymous spokesperson offering a partial damage report, 60,000 websites, 40,000 Facebook pages, 5,000 twitter accounts and 30,000 Israeli bank accounts got hacked, causing an estimated $3-plus billion damage, the hacker collective claim. "Not bad for 24 hours," Anonymous noted.

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Just like mothers anywhere, they chat about their families and cooking — until a series of distant thuds stops the conversation: the sound of explosions. The mood suddenly tense, some whisper under their breath. “God is greatest” and “God protect us.” Others resume their discussion without a flinch.

An older woman sits in the corner, tears slowly rolling down her cheeks. Although everyone here has reasons to cry, only she succumbs today.

Another woman explains that women are suffering most from Syria’s war.

“Our husbands are always gone. We must deal with everything alone,” says Muna Basham, a 30-year-old primary school teacher and mother of four. “With no electricity, our work at home has become so hard. We must wash by hand and cook by fire. We must take care of children who have become obsessed by war. We’re not used to these things.”

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Wednesday's airstrikes were, according to the Israeli military, "accurate hits" on "terror sites." The attacks came in response to rocket fire aimed toward Israel and amid heightened Palestinian rage. Palestinian officials have blamed Israel for the death of Palestinian prisoner and cancer sufferer Maysara Abu Hamdiyeh, who was allegedly negligently treated. The 64-year-old's death has sparked hunger strikes and riots among Palestinian prisoners in Israel and may have catalyzed an intensification of cross-border hostilities. The AP noted:

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Like most myths, this one has elements of truth. Obama did say some important things. In a speech to young Israelis, he insisted that their nation’s occupation of the West Bank is not merely bad for their country, it is downright immoral, “not fair... not just ... not right.”

I’ve been decrying the immorality of the occupation for four decades, yet I must admit I never dreamed I would hear an American president, standing in Jerusalem, do the same.

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Clearly aware of first term missed opportunities in the relationship with America's closest Mideast ally, Obama chose to crown his two day trip to Israel and the Palestinian Authority with a passionate, forceful speech addressed to a group of more than 2,000 Israelis.

Whereas for the Obama administration the trip, and the speech, may represent a gamble on a second term commitment to the thorny problem of an Israeli-Palestinian peace, for Israelis it was a chance to see, up close and personal, a man who had remained for them a cipher.

Immediately following the address, Jeffrey Goldberg, a national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogged, "I spoke to several members of the audience, who confirmed my impression that Israelis just wanted to know that he liked them. It's hard to understand this from the US, but the idea really did take hold here that Obama genuinely hated Israel. So this whole trip is a bit of a revelation for ordinary Israelis."

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I'm talking about the Occupied West Bank, 60 percent of which remains under the full military control of Israel. You’d be forgiven for not knowing, as references in the U.S. to Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank have fallen out of favor. Dennis Ross, President Clinton’s architect of the Camp David failure, spent a full page in a New York Times op-ed, making “recommendations” for “both sides” in preparation for the president’s visit to the region, without once mentioning the word, or the concept. The Los Angeles Times managed the same feat, in side-by-side op-eds, both by Israelis, including one by a settler who argued for the legitimacy of the West Bank settlements.

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He says the activity does not advance the cause of peace.

Obama spoke at a news conference with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Obama says he recognizes that halting settlement activity is tough politically for Israeli leaders.

But he suggests that Palestinians should not make it a condition to resuming peace negotiations with Israel. He says there's no point to negotiations if the expectation is that everything must be figured out in advance.

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After a visit to Israel's national museum - where he inspected the Dead Sea Scrolls, which highlight the Jewish people's ancient connection to the land that is now Israel - Obama headed to the West Bank to tell the Palestinians that the creation of a Palestinian state remains a priority for his administration.

He is not bringing a new plan to relaunch peace talks, but in meetings with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and a speech to Israeli students later in the day, he will appeal to both sides to halt unilateral actions that make negotiations more difficult.

Those troublesome actions include continued construction of Jewish housing settlements on land claimed by the Palestinians and repeated Palestinian efforts to achieve recognition at the United Nations in the absence of a peace agreement.

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His arrival in Tel Aviv has fulfilled on that front: Obama hugged Bibi and cracked a joke about getting away from Congress. Then, even before heading off from Tel Aviv airport, Obama visited a missile battery that is part of Israel's U.S.-back Iron Dome missile defense system -- it was a well choreographed nod to U.S. commitment to Israeli security.

Obama's trip -- the first to Israel as president -- is understood to be an effort to reassure Israel of U.S. support, especially when it comes to Iran. Syria's civil war will also top discussion agendas between Obama and Netanyahu. Expectations for progress on the Israel-Palestine peace process are very low indeed.

Iran:

Bibi is once again expected to push Obama to define a "red line" for Iran's nuclear ambitions that, if crossed, would incur military intervention. And even the symbolism alone of Obama's visit could send a significant message to Tehran -- that despite the icy relationship between Netanyahu and the U.S. president, America and Israel remain unshakeable allys. (In speeches Wednesday, Netanyahu spoke of the “unbreakable alliance,” Obama the “unbreakable bond.”)

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Via Haaretz:

The Afikim bus company will begin operating Palestinian-only bus lines from the checkpoints to Gush Dan to prevent Palestinians from boarding buses with Jewish passengers. Palestinians are not allowed to enter settlements, and instead board buses from several bus stops on the Trans-Samaria highway.

... The buses will begin operating Monday morning at the Eyal crossing to take the Palestinians to work in Israel. Transportation Ministry officials are not officially calling them segregated buses, but rather bus lines intended to relieve the distress of the Palestinian workers. Ynet has reported that fliers are being distributed to Palestinian workers notifying them of the coming changes.

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Militants claiming affiliation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement took responsibility for the attack, saying they fired the rocket to avenge the death of a Palestinian in Israeli custody.

The detainee, Arafat Jaradat, 30, died over the weekend after interrogation by Israel's Shin Bet security services. Palestinian officials, citing an autopsy, said the detainee was tortured, while Israel says more tests are needed to determine the cause of death.

Jaradat's death sparked protests in the West Bank, including near the town of Bethlehem on Monday.

Two Palestinian teens, ages 13 and 16, were wounded in a confrontation with Israeli soldiers. The older boy was transferred to Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital after being shot in the head and was in critical condition Tuesday, breathing through a respirator, officials said.

In the West Bank, Abbas on Tuesday accused the Israeli military of using increasingly harsh methods to clamp down on Palestinian rock-throwing protests.

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Burnat, whose film is a personal account of Burnat's life as a farmer on Israel's West Bank, was interrogated by a customs officer at LAX, who asked him to show proof he was, indeed, coming into the country for the awards ceremony. "I had the emails from the Academy on my iPhone," Burnat told Salon, "and the immigration officer refused them. She asked me for documents, but all of them were there in my iPhone; in emails and pictures of the invitation. She told me I had to come up with documents and papers, and I told her there was no way."

The director, who said he had been to America five times previously but never asked for supporting documents beyond his passport, called the border officer's intransigence "strange."

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Abunimah gives some background on the image from Ostrovski's now-deleted Instagram account:

The context – particularly the character of the buildings seen in the background of the image – strongly suggests the child could be Palestinian.

There are no other images to suggest that the photographer actually fired at the person in the image in this case. The image is simply tasteless and dehumanizing. It embodies the idea that Palestinian children are targets.

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Yale can do what it wants.

The next day, Brooklyn College student activists hosted a similar panel—so similar, in fact, that it included one of the same speakers, along with the eminent social theorist Judith Butler. This time, Alan Dershowitz, the pugnacious lawyer, famed for his defenses of the state of Israel, began railing against the school’s sponsorship of the event. Subsequently, a battalion of New York lawmakers backed him up, threatening the City University of New York (CUNY) campus’s funding when its president refused to capitulate.

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