Cartoons and Cartoonists

August 5, 2003

Evolution of a Cartoon

In recent months, many Americans have been dismayed to see mainstream media outlets publishing cartoons with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic images reminiscent of Nazi-era propaganda. The latest such drawing is one by syndicated cartoonist Tony Auth of United Press Syndicate in which a Star of David fences off Palestinians. Not only is the message about the purpose and impact of the fence completely inaccurate, its use of a Jewish religious symbol to excoriate the Jewish state evokes anti-Semitic cartoons popular in Nazi Germany and in the Arab press.

July 7, 2003

New York Times Turns to Comic-Book Journalist on Arab-Israeli Conflict

Cartoonist Joe Sacco has made it a professional goal to champion the Palestinian cause, presenting their perspectives on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in easily-accessible, comic strip form to the American public. His longest work to date on this issue is a 9-issue comic book entitled "Palestine," originally published by Fantagraphics in 1993 and republished in book form in 2002 with an introduction by noted Palestinian polemicist Edward Said. Written after a 2-month backpacking stint in the Gaza Strip during the first Intifada, the comic book depicts Israeli interrogators, soldiers, and Jewish settlers brutalizing and harassing innocent Palestinians.

December 17, 2002

Washington Post Alert: Cartoon Calumny

Tom Toles, successor to the legendary Herblock as Washington Post editorial page cartoonist, is known for his simple if not simplistic style; small, "cute" doll-like characters; and droll, topical punch lines often echoed by a miniature secondary drawing in the bottom right corner of his panel. But Toles's formula failed utterly in his Sunday, Dec. 15 effort, undermined by a false moral equivalence apparently based on either ignorance or tendentious disregard of fact.

May 18, 2001

Anti-Semitic Cartoon in the San Diego Union-Tribune

The San Diego Union-Tribune printed an op-ed by Yuval Rotem, Israel's Consul General to the Southwest, accompanied by a cartoon worthy of the notorious Nazi paperDer Sturmer. The cartoon, drawn by a freelancer according to the paper, showed an apparent murder victim on the ground with a large Jewish Star protruding from his back. Blood seemed to be flowing from the point where the Jewish Star was embedded in the victim's back.