Cartoon Criticizing Israel Sparks Controversy (Here We Go Again)

Godwin's Law:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

Which means that this discussion should have ended as soon as the post was put up.

"However, Godwin's Law itself can be abused, as a distraction or diversion, that fallaciously miscasts an opponent's argument as hyperbole, especially if the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate. A 2005 Reason magazine article argued that Godwin's Law is often misused to ridicule even valid comparisons."

Im offended, apphauled and outraged. Nazi? I never! DRACULA would have been much more appropriate.

New York Times tailcoat riding on NY Post's ideas and loot, how predictable.

How about these fine,upstanding Israeli's and their sickening T-shirts??

that shirt is appalling.

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=2510

But the is the cycle of violence, usually the abused become the abusers.

The comments in this thread are a laugh riot. I love gothamist!

It heartens me to hear that there are many Jews out there who do not blindly support the israeli policy of slow-burn genocide against the palestinians.

There is no strategic or material value in having israel as an ally - they are a liabilities in almost every respect. The sooner we are able to have a rational public discourse about our support for the nation without some pro-zionist lobby shouting out "ZOMGNAzIS!!!111", the better.

It disheartens me that you're surprised there are some Jews not blindly supporting Israel. Do you think all blacks follow Al Sharpton blindly or that all whites loved Bush? Obviously (hopefully) not, so don't assume all Jews think the same way.

And, "there is no strategic or material value in having Israel as an ally"? Seriously? You cannot possibly be that short-sighted.

"And, "there is no strategic or material value in having Israel as an ally"? Seriously? You cannot possibly be that short-sighted."

If he had said 'net value', he'd be about right. It's like being friends with Joe Pesci in 'Goodfellas' or 'Casino'....he'll get away with stuff you couldn't, but the heat he brings down isn't worth it.

The Europeans are much smarter in this regard.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with anything you say, I just want you to justify Israel's value, strategically and materially, with facts (not propaganda or demagoguery).

the reason for the cartoon coming out now is because of a very public inquriy being done in Israel thats mostly IGNORED in the US. The public is learning things

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1072475.html

"One of our officers, a company commander, saw someone coming on some road, a woman, an old woman. She was walking along pretty far away, but close enough so you could take out someone you saw there. If she were suspicious, not suspicious - I don't know. In the end, he sent people up to the roof, to take her out with their weapons. From the description of this story, I simply felt it was murder in cold blood."

Zamir: "I don't understand. Why did he shoot her?"

Aviv: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him. With us it was an old woman, on whom I didn't see any weapon. The order was to take the person out, that woman, the moment you see her."

Oh yes, Israel our great ally. Defend these actions to the end...and if you are THINKING person and don't tow the line this happens to you

Charles Freeman, president of the Middle East Policy Council, successful ambassador to Saudi Arabia with a distinguished career in the State Department, and a man who is known for always speaking his mind, would have been an excellent chair of the National Intelligence Council.

Unfortunately, he has withdrawn his name from consideration after repeated attacks by supporters of the Israeli right, sometimes called the "Israel Lobby."

Freemen's deadly sin was to criticize Israel's inability to make peace with its neighbors.

http://blogs.indystar.com/freshthoughts/archives/016727.html

Support for Israel at this point is absurd.

is this what you mean by mostly ignored?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/22/weekinreview/22BRONNER.html

because it sounds to me like you're one of the many people who have decided that only your side is not being reported, and that the Press is firmly in the pocket of whichever side you don't support.

So folks should support Hamas? Is that what you're saying?

And "successful ambassador" to Saudi Arabia.. that doesn't really mean much, but it COULD imply he likes to roll with the Wahabbists. Bling, young women (or men), etc etc etc.

Up until this recent conflict, I've never seen so much ultra-liberal guilt over Gaza. It's like now that Obama's our President, douches need to focus on something other than Iraqistan.

"So folks should support Hamas? Is that what you're saying?"

The OP said nothing of the sort, and this silly false dichotomy is the root cause of internet bitching on this subject.

its not either or - I give you a quote about israelis gunning down old ladies and you change the subject and talk about hamas thats why the israelis are where thy are -

when the zionists went there after first world war and displaced people they justified it with pogroms happening in eastern europe, after the second world war it was the holocaust, now an old lady is shot and its the fault of hamas.

Take some responsiblity. Stop killing people. Follow international law. stop building seetlements. give back land that was stolen, and I bet you good things will follow. At this rate Israel will have no future.

While the imagery in the cartoon is kind of hard to follow (why does the Star of David have a wheel? Why is it a shark? Why a sword instead of a rifle or something?) its overall message is clear. It expresses an opinion that Israel's use of force in Gaza is excessive.

Some people will agree, some will disagree. But what's odd to me is why political cartoons evoke such a loud response, while written or spoken political commentary does not. Plenty of editorials have been written expressing this view without sparking wild outrage. Why is it different when the view is expressed in a picture instead of with words?

Speaking as someone who nearly converted to Judaism, it really is a disservice to Jews that every time someone mentions AIPAC, questions Israel's policies, or the wind blows the wrong way there is someone out there screaming "anti-semitism" (fyi: arabs are semites too). Israelis are divided on its policy decisions, why can't other people have opinions too.

I see nothing wrong with comparing the Israeli military with that of a fascist, expansionist state (btw, lots of militaries goose-step, not just Nazis) when, in fact, the Israelis use the tactics of a fascist, expansionist state for purposed of civilian opression.

This overblown outrage by the ADL whenever anyone deigns to criticize Israel is sickening.

OH shit, they're going to start hacking people's heads off. Oh wait. Sorry. Wrong religion.

I will never understand why our country insists on getting involved in this crap. As far as I am concerned, both sides are arrogant, self-righteous thugs who will never get along. Ever. The only real solution is to nuke the whole area and make it uninhabitable for a few thousand years. People have been fighting over it for that long anyway.

A nuclear firestorm would be an excellent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian beef but the worst part would be having to waste valuable real estate in D.C. for a stupid memorial.

"The only real solution is to nuke the whole area and make it uninhabitable for a few thousand years."

You might want to check with Japan about that "few thousand years" thing...

Give the Pentagon some credit. They've advanced just a tad in that regard since '45.

And so have the WMD's. What we dropped on Japan is nothing compared to the efficacy of our nuclear arsenal.

The fact that the conflict is lopsided does not make the Israelis the jackbooted thugs this cartoon portrays them to be.

And somehow it omits rocket attacks and suicide bombings carried out against civilian targets. The Israelis have every tight to defend themselves against that bullshit.

http://www.emorywheel.com/detail.php?n=26732

really read and think about it. dont just answer blindly. think

You're right, but the Palestinians have every right to defend themselves against the tyranny of Israel too. And they'll both go back and forth defending themselves until they've completely annihilated each other or until they finally figure out the same thing that the War Games computer figured out... that total annihilation produces no winner. Also, they both have to get rid of the stupid ass religious doctrines that prevent them from being civil.

in my history books and on TV, they fail to mention those pesky jews firing rockets into Nazi Germany. silly how no one can see the parallels between the now and then.

/sarcasm

IMO, political cartoons are supposed to evoke emotion, and display an over-the-top exaggeration of what is really going on...a satire if you will. if you were offended by a political cartoon, grow thicker skin. people are going to think they way they want, they way they are fed. as the great arnold would say 'stop whining'

I am offended by the poor writing of the article.

Sorry, but just because you are Jewish that doesn't make you Israeli. People need to realize that. You need to seperate your faith from what the Israeli government is doing and the entitlement they feel they have. Israel wasn't even a country until 1947, when Palestine was ripped in half by the UN.

And Palestine was never a country. Your point?

The most offensive thing about the cartoon is that it's inaccurate.

This cartoon is not anti-Semitic and it is a fair criticism of Israeli military policy. No doubt Israel needed to respond to rocket attacks coming from Gaza. There is also no doubt that Israel's military operations in Gaza were targeted well beyond stopping the rocket attacks, and that civilian casualties were outrageously high. I don't want my tax dollars going towards any foreign country, especially ones in the Middle East that spy on my country and kill thousands of innocent civilians.

This cartoon doesn't make a damned lick of sense symbolically. I get that it's anti-Israel, but what's with the ridiculous imagery? A headless body is goosestepping with a sword and is pushing an inanimate Star of David that also HAPPENS to be a live organism (a shark). And it's using this weird half inanimate, half alive shark Star of David thing to push a woman off the cliff when it could just use the sword.

Huh?

And then cartoonists like this wonder why their stuff invites the type of speculation that has people reading into their work.

The Jews have historically used both sharks and swords as the two primary elements of their military forces.

Read a history book.

hmmm, not true. many people would like to live without the fear of being killed just for being gay/Black/Hispanic/etc. persecution is not aimed at the Jews, you just always see it that way. the moment anyone calls Jews out for using inappropriate measures to "defend" themselves, they try to reel in the Holocaust. come on. really?

if we're going to bring the past to the present, think about the people who were peacefully living in the Gaza strip, going about their daily lives. it reminds me of the many Jews in Warsaw and other areas of Europe prior to Nazi invasion. Suddenly, here come these troops to round 'em up and basically force them out of the place they've always called their home. these people are now displaced, homeless, and angry. Their families have been killed or severely maimed. Sound familiar? That you fail to empathize always astounds me.

Who's bringing up the holocaust? The people calling the Israelis Nazis. Israel PULLED OUT of Gaza and what did the people of Gaza do? They elected Hamas, a party sworn to Israel's total destruction and the elimination of all Jews from the Middle East, a party whose rule has caused almost all of the remaining Palestinian Christians to flee Gaza, a party that took physical control of Gaza following its election by shooting fellow Muslims who were members of Fatah in the streets, a party that immediately took over abandoned Israeli settlements to set up rocket launchers and aim for the nearest Jewish kindergarten. Are there analogies between the freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto and Hamas? Yes. But there are also some very, very fundamental differences. And the Israelis are certainly not Nazis.

The Nazis were driven by a racist ideology to rid the world of people who weren't like them. The Israeli invasion of Gaza was driven by a desire to stop rockets from terrorizing Israeli sovereign territory. The Jews of Warsaw never did anything to the Nazis prior to being forced into the ghetto. The Palestinian refugees who live in Gaza were forced there (by both Israeli AND Arab armies) during the Naqba/War of Independence, when the Arab leaders in the region thought they could grab all of Palestine by rejecting the UN Partition Plan and "pushing the Jews into the sea." Even then, Israel did not control Gaza. Egypt did. But did the Egyptians help the people of Gaza? No. They put them in refugee camps and helped lobby the UN to make the Palestinians the only people in the world who have multi-generational hereditary "refugee" status. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising occurred after the Jews learned of Nazi plans to ship them to death camps, and even then they attacked only military targets. Hamas rose up in reaction to a combination of bad Israeli policy and Fatah corruption (with a heavy dose of good old fashioned jihadist egging-on from around the Muslim world), and they celebrate the death of any Jew. The Jewish fighters of Warsaw wanted freedom, but were happy to live as a minority in Christian Europe. Hamas wants freedom, but do not want Israeli citizenship, they want to eliminate Israel.

Are there fascists in Israel? Yes, and I despise their ideology just as I despise Hamas's. Is Israel a major source of the misery of the people of Gaza? Yes. And something needs to be done about that. But unlike the Nazis, who murdered millions (not just Jews) with the goal of exterminating them, the vast, vast majority of Israelis bid the Palestinians no ill will, as long as the Palestinians are willing to reciprocate.

I and many other Jews have very, very serious reservations about the way Israel went about the Gaza invasion. It pains me greatly to see a single innocent Palestinian killed, let alone hundreds. I want to see a Palestinian state, and I want to see Israel make the difficult concessions that are going to be necessary for the Palestinians to achieve that goal. BUT THE ISRAELIS ARE NOT NAZIS.

Yeah but the Jews living in Warsaw weren't allowing their neighbors to send rockets willynilly into other neighborhoods and then crying when the other neighborhoods reacted.

I'm neither Pro-Israel nor Pro-Palestine, but I think that we don't have the facts, nor do we always look at what is really going on. Hamas is a terrorist organization that is using their own people to protect them, and then trying to get the rest of the world upset when those same people get killed.

oh boy -- here we go again. the jews crying bloody murder. we get it. you were targeted and many of your people were killed in WWII. we didn't do it, but we're sorry. now, let's live in the present and look at the FACTS. israel is a bullying military state, using excessive force to intimidate others and guilt-tripping the western world into accepting their war crimes.

their attacks on Palestine are no better than the attacks waged against Jews in WWII. the Jews aren't owed anything -- they're reproducing like bunnies, are making mad cash, and they have their own state (a luxury many other groups can't have)! what else do they want???

What else do the Israelis want blkiznewprez? Peace. And they want their neighbors to want the same thing.

we want to be left to live in peace without fear of being killed just for being Jewish. You asshole. But you'll probably never understand.

they want to be left to live in peace without fear of being killed just for being Palestinian. You asshole. But you'll probably never understand.

It's historically known in near east politics that the Palestinians (in this case the Hamas government, who by the way are a cruel terror regime, even against their own people) inflate the number of dead civilians to gain sympathy on a global level. It's a helluva strategy.

I hope this doesn't become misconstrued as anti-semitic, but how did six million of the supposed "chosen people" allow themselves to be slaughtered? Just food for thought...

I wish I could spoiler tag this for those who haven't figured it out but...

God isn't real.

Yeah, who would ever "misconstrue" that as anti-semitic..

Oh boy.

Like the Obama/Monkey cartoon a while back, this is another example of a piss-poor editorial cartoon that barely makes any sense.

What the hell is wrong with editorial cartoonists these days. The profession really seems to be full of talentless hacks. It's no wonder it's a dying a profession.

after the invention of Adult Swim, the cheap parlor tricks of political satire cartoons became redundant.

Yup. This cartoon not only doesn't make sense, but it comes across as someone trying desperately to fake the heavy handed, yet powerful political symbolism of great editorial cartoons of the past in order to get a Pulitzer.

I guess you guys didn't read the blurb at all. Pat Oliphant has been a cartoonist for 43 years, and has already won a Pulitzer, in addition to many other awards.

Chances are that he drew one of the 'great editorial cartoons of the past' that you refer to.

That doesn't make this cartoon any good, though.

"someone trying desperately to fake the heavy handed, yet powerful political symbolism of great editorial cartoons of the past in order to get a Pulitzer."

Heh. Quite the expert on political cartoons, I see. Except that he's already won a Pulitzer, for this:

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/oliphant/vc007224.jpg

He's also already often been criticized for "racist" and "anti-Semitic" imagery in his work. None of the noise over this latest one is going to make much difference in his career, his reputation, or his life.

its a shitty cartoon, contextually and aesthetically...although it does make me hungry.

Maybe I'm the only one who sees a glaring problem with this that has nothing to do with the Nazi-like imagery, namely: the display of Gaza as defenseless. Where are the rockets from Gaza into Israel? Where are the suicide bombers? Why aren't those depicted? If they showed Hamas with a rocket launcher hiding behind that woman then, surprisingly, I'd be okay with the whole thing.

Obviously the "baby" she's holding is a bomb.

Because proportionality makes sense. The number of Israelis killed versus the number of Gazans killed is heavily weighted towards the latter. All Gazans are being punished for what a few thugs are doing which sounds to me like the kind of disproportionate response that is reflective of the jackbooted soldier.

Yes, proportionality - the Israelis have some nerve allowing more enemies to die than of their own side. What they should have done, to please people like you, is to kill ten Palestinians, wait until ten Israelis die, then kill ten more, wait, etc. In this manner only an equal number from both sides die. That's fair, eh?

Of course, we didn't do that during WWII; we disproportionately killed more of the enemy than they killed of our side. How unfair of the Allies!

Too bad we didn't have more compassionate people like yourself during WWII the war would probably still be going on. You know, as soon as we kill too many Germans, we wait for them to kill an equal number of Americans, then we start over again.

The claim of "proportinality" is bullshit btw. No nation can accept a violent neighbor who launches multiple daily attacks on it's land.

Also, if the Palestinians were the one's with the high-tech military might and not the Israelis, the results would be far worse. Something akin to Holocaust #2. And why wouldn't it be since the Arab nations have been crowing about it for the last 100 years? "Push the Jews into the Sea" and so on...

proportionality?? perfectly symmetrical violence never solved anything. and don't think that Hamas is "just a few thugs"--it's exactly that kind of uninformed nonsense that makes people anti-semetic, they just don't know what the hell is going on.

Just throw in "anti-semite" any time someone has a complaint against Israel. It works every time! Take THAT Jimmy Carter!

Nice Futurama reference!

thanks! i'm impressed someone got that!

You mean they're being punished for the government of thugs that *they* voted for?

Collective punishment is considered a violation of international law, human rights, and common decency.

Because proportionality makes sense.

Then include a Hamas guy about the same size as the woman. And where are the Iranians and whoever else gives weapons to Hamas? Anyway, what would a proportional response be? Would you prefer if Israel just lobbed an equal number of unguided rockets back at Gaza?

no, really, what does the wheel represent? and why is the star a fish?

the wheel is a pivotal device making the star/shark top heavy and about to fall on the lady+child

I think the caption, "I wish I was taller" got cut out.

Hey, I've got a great idea. Let's make a racially homogeneous state. That way, whenever anyone wants to criticize our state's actions, we'll just label them a racist, and ride away on our moral high horse. What should we call this state? A democracy? A theocracy?... I've got it! A Hypocrisy!

"The implication is of an Israeli policy without a head or a heart."

If the shoe fits...

The cartoonist left out the American flag pin on the soldiers lapel.

I cycle through the cartoons on the NYTimes website fairly quickly, so when I saw this yesterday, the Nazi reference didn't register.

That being said, my Metro this morning had a story about the Israelis using white phosphorus shells against civilians in Gaza during the December-January conflagration.

"That being said, my Metro this morning had a story about the Israelis using white phosphorus shells against civilians in Gaza during the December-January conflagration."

Poor comparison. That hardly makes the Israelis hellbent on the systematic destruction of the Palestinians the way the Nazi were with the Jews.

wasn't actually comparing, if I were, I would compare Gaza to the Ghettos

what I was (perhaps unclearly) saying, is that Israel is no way innocent in any of this

I'm not sure what that cartoon is trying to tell me.

Just don't say the word 'Jew'.