'Sunday Times' Posts Israel Cartoon On Holocaust Day
The Sunday Times marked Holocaust Memorial Day in a less-than-traditional manner, running a virulently anti-Israel cartoon depicting a big-nosed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu paving a wall with the blood and limbs of writhing Palestinians.
The cartoon included a caption beneath the image entitled "Israeli elections- will cementing peace continue?" Drawn by Gerald Scarfe, the cartoon appeared in the national paper on Sunday.
This cartoon would be offensive at any time of the year, but to publish it on International Holocaust Remembrance Day is sickening and expresses a deeply troubling mindset,” said European Jewish Congress President Dr. Moshe Kantor. “This insensitivity demands an immediate apology from both the cartoonist and the paper’s editors.”
“Amazingly, as this cartoon was published days after the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, underwent fully democratic elections, as others in the Middle East were being butchered by the tens of thousands, the Sunday Times focuses its imagination solely on the Jewish State. This contravenes many of the criteria laid out in EUMC’s Working Definition of Antisemitism and is part of a worrying trend to legitimize the growing assault on Israel by opinion-shapers.”
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http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=301128
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"Textbook blood libel" asserts that Jews - or other minorities - consume the blood of children in their religious rituals, or in some other core feature of the culture. It makes the collection and consumption of blood a standard feature of the group so being libeled, a defining quality of their being.
This cartoon presents a warlike national leader as playing with blood and the lives of people it spills from. It being a particular individual, rather than a class of people depicted, and that person being a national leader known for his hostile behavior sweep it out of the "blood libel" category. It displays a policy of that leader and the repercussions the cartoonist sees from that policy.
Compare it to this cartoon:
This is blood libel. Yes it depicts a leader particularly known for butchery and warmongering. Sharon is most definitely a person who deserves depiction with blood on his person and dead people at his feet. What makes it different than the Netanyahu cartoon in the OP? Sharon is depicted as a shopkeeper with a cleaver, offering dead children and their blood as salable commodities; and who do you suppose is going to buy them? And for what purpose?
Now, have a look at this one:
Again, this is blood libel. You have the child, whose blood is being guzzled by a Jewish vampire. It is not an individual being depicted; the kippah and star of David are simply a way to label the creature "Jew." The consumption of blood is thus attributed to Jews as a body; you have the full spread of "textbook" blood libel here; Jews depicted as sustaining themselves from the blood of a child.
In the Netanyahu cartoon, we have a specific individual being depicted, and without any marks of "Jew" - no kippa, no Stars of David, not even so much as a torah scroll laying somewhere. The face is caricatured, but not in a way that resembles caricature of "Jews." In fact the features make him look like a chunkier twin to a George W. Bush caricature, if anything (if intentional, an apt comparison.) The blood is being used as a tool, but is not being consumed; it is mortaring a wall, and as you might know, there's a certain wall that Netanyahu is a fan of.
I'm not going to say the cartoon isn't questionable; it could very easily tip over into "textbook blood libel." Put a kippa on him, there you go. Make it the wall of a settlement home instead of a barrier, and there you go. Make it an indistinct "Israeli" working the spade, and it would qualify. Hell, if you trade Netanyahu out for Lapid even, it would fit, as Mr. Lapid certainly doesn't have Netanyahu's record.
Not every depiction of bloody-handed Israelis is "blood libel." Certainly a lot are - the two cartoons I provided are just an extremely tiny sample of what I found in a google search - but to assume that each and every single instance always is, is simply incorrect. It's fair to be wary, or even to assume the wosrt, but it does bear examination and consideration before you press the red button.
be bigoted in some way? Right?
I've heard that Israel never does anything wrong that is worthy of criticism. I've also heard that George Dubya Bush never did any wrong either so any cartoons of him must be equally evil. Right?
