Kiwis for Balanced Reporting on the Middle East
May 21, 2009
Fairfax Cartoonists Attack Israel ... Again.
Following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with United Stated President Barak Obama, Fairfax newspapers ran cartoons by Mike Moreu (The Press and The Nelson Mail) and Tom Scott (The Dominion Post) on Thursday 21 May, 2009. The cartoons also appeared on Fairfax's website, www.stuff.co.nz. Both cartoons portrayed Israel in a negative light, but Moreu's cartoon presented a distorted misrepresentation of Israeli policy on settlements, and Scott's cartoon, depicting Israel as an aggressive dog wearing a kippah or yarmulke, was considered culturally offensive by some of KBRM's members. Although it is acceptable for individual opinion pieces published in newspapers to be unbalanced, it is important that newspapers take seriously their responsibility to ensure that a balanced range of opinions are presented. In the case of these cartoons, some papers were less willing to provide that balance than others.
Mike Moreu's cartoon showed President Obama saying to Prime Minister Netanyahu ‘There won't be peace as long as Israel builds in occupied land, Mr Netanyahu’, then in the next frame Mr Netanyahu is seen telling an aide, ‘He said to evict all Palestinians so the land can't be considered occupied."’
Tom Scott's cartoon showed America as a large hound dog with Israel, portrayed as a small savage dog, biting and hanging on to its tail. America was saying ‘It'll be nice when Israel grows out of this phase.’
KBRM members sent a number of letters to The Press, The Dominion Post and The Nelson Mail in response to the cartoons.
The Press
The following letters were rejected by The Press because The Press was ‘not debating Israel at the moment'’ despite the fact that Moreu's cartoon had effectively reopened the debate.
As usual, Mike Moreu's cartoon, (May 21) doesn't understand the Middle East conflict; in fact, he has it upside-down. It is not Israel that wants a land free of Palestinians — there are 1.4 million Palestinians living peacefully within Israel. It is the Palestinians who want a land free of Jews and who have conniptions every time a house is built in a Jewish village (which they also don't want). Regardless of whether this house-building is a good or bad idea, houses don't kill people; rocket attacks kill people. Houses can be torn down, but people cannot be brought back to life. The Middle East conflict will end only when the Palestinian terrorist groups give up their attacks and their goal of destroying Israel.
Mike Moreu's cartoon (21 May) about the meeting between Barak Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu is a blatant distortion of the truth and an inversion of history.
‘Ethnically cleansing’ the West Bank of Palestinian Arabs has never been Israeli government policy and Mr Netanyahu has never made any statement as Israeli Prime Minister promoting such an idea. For Mr Moreu to suggest that this is Mr Netanyahu's or the Israeli government's position is libellous.
When Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967, they ‘ethnically cleansed’ the area of Jewish communities, many of which had existed for centuries. Arab forces killed or expelled Jewish residents, desecrated synagogues and cemeteries, and destroyed Jewish homes and businesses. Jordan denied Jews access to their holy sites, including the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. Despite this, when Israel regained control of East Jerusalem in 1967 they allowed Arabs to maintain their control of the Jewish Temple Mount.
It is Israel's Arab neighbours, not the Jewish state, who have a long history of ‘ethnic cleansing’. It is the leaders of these same Arab states and authorities, not Benjamin Netanyahu, who have publicly declared their intention to repeat that history.
I congratulate your cartoonist Mike Moreau on his excellent likenesses of Obama and Netanyahu — identified with a Star of David to remove any doubts — and the latter's ‘creative answer’ to his own assistant's questioning about what Obama had said. Can you trust any of these Jews? Notice how the lackey had managed to steal Obama's tie? Appreciate the subtlety Mike. Thieves as well as liars eh? I played back the BBC HardTalk interview of Natanyahu (aka Bibi) in August 2006 during the Israeli incursion into Lebanon. What struck me about Bibi was that, in spite of the querulous interviewer, he was calm and dignified, answered the questions directly and with humour, put up graciously with the constant interruptions and pointed out that Israel's response to Hezbollah's 2,000 rocket barrage was entirely justified. He reminded the interviewer that the RAF response to Hitler's vengeance weapons was to locate the launch sites and target them — pretty difficult when Hezbollah and Hamas operate out of civilian areas with mobile launchers. But that is not a reason to do nothing and putting up with years of rockets intended to kill indiscriminately.
I know what it is like to be attacked randomly from the air. As a child in London I survived bombs, doodlebugs and silent V2 rockets. Two of my school friends did not.
Mr Moreau wants you to think that Netanyahu is a cynical liar. My impression is that of a strong, articulate leader who states his intentions straightforwardly and doesn't shrink from labelling Islamic extremists as the enemies of Israel — which is regarded as an outpost of the ‘Decadent West’. Bin Laden demands that The West converts to Islam and Ahmadinejad calls for the State of Israel to be ‘wiped off the map’.
It would appear that many western journalists (and cartoonists) enthusiastically agree, judging by their consistent demonising of Israel — branding it (of ALL things/) a ‘Nazi’ and ‘apartheid’ state and reserving their special odium for all its attempts at defending its inhabitants or at making peace with its dog-in-the-manger Arab neighbours.
I warmed to Bibi Netanyahu. I feel I could trust him to follow an honourable path in the coming peace talks with Obama. Arabs respect strength. This man has it in spadefulls.
____, Ancient Anglo-Saxon.
The Dominion Post
The following letter was published by The Dominion Post in the "In Brief" section of the letters page on 27 May:
Tom Scott thinks that portraying the Jewish state as a mad dog, complete with a religious head covering (May 25), is funny. I wonder if he will be doing a similar cartoon showing hate-filled Islamic terrorists in the guise of an animal wearing a traditional Arab head covering. Hardly likely of course, given previous violent reactions by Muslim states to such representations. However, it seems Jews are fair game.
Other letters were submitted to The Dominion Post, but not published:
In his cartoon (May 21), Tom Scott missed the point of the meeting between US President Obama and Israeli PM Netanyahu by projecting his own antipathy toward Israel onto President Obama. Israel and the US share a common desire to find a peaceful solution while preserving Israel's existence as a Jewish state - a goal that New Zealanders should also share. Neither is biting the other's tail.
If Mr Scott was referring to Jewish settlements, he should remember that houses don't kill people; terrorist attacks kill people. Houses can be torn down, as happened Thursday when Israel demolished an illegal outpost in the West Bank, saying ‘evacuating unauthorized settlements, particularly on private Palestinian land, is the obligation of Israeli society to itself’.
If there is a mad dog in the peace process, it is the Palestinians who can't stop ‘biting’, as in yet another terrorist attack from Gaza on Friday.
I wish to comment on the Tom Scott cartoon showing Israel as a little bulldog biting the tail of a large dog labelled USA which is saying ‘It'll be nice when Israel grows out of this phase.’
I confess I don't get the subtlety of Scott's message here except that it seems to be a criticism of Israel for some obscure molestation of USA's foreign policy, or perhaps it relates to President Obama's cooling attitude towards Israeli needs for the protection of its citizens from Palestinian aggression.
Whatever the message was supposed to be, any criticism of Israel is seized upon by the many who wish the destruction of the state of Israel and fuels the violent anti-Semitic acts which are on the rise again throughout the world. Cartoonists like Scott should dwell on their part on contributing to this rise and have a responsibility, as the press does not to publish material of an offensive and racist nature.
It would be interesting to see what the reaction would be if the captions for the larger dog was the 'UN' and smaller aggressive dog ‘Arab States’. But there again that would never get past the censor for fear of offending sensibilities of those who would not fail to react in a aggressive manner and we couldn't have that could we?
Tom Scott is entitled to hold an opinion about the relationship between American foreign policy and Israel. However, his recent cartoon (21 May), portraying the Jewish state as an aggressive dog wearing a kippah, or yarmulke, is deeply offensive.
The kippah is an article of clothing, with both religious and cultural significance, that is worn by Jewish men. By placing an emblem of Jewish faith and culture on a mad dog, Tom Scott is not being satirical, he is being insulting.
Israel's regional enemies make no secret of the fact that they want to destroy Israel and eradicate Jews from the Middle East. Sections of the Arab and Palestinian media frequently depict Israel and Jews in the most inflammatory and offensive ways imaginable.
Responsible cartoonists and commentators are able to express opinion without resorting to racial and religious slurs. Tom Scott should realise that although racist and denigrative cartoons are popular in some sections of the Arab world, they have no place in New Zealand