Gunning for the IDF (4)

Depicting the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) as a bunch of blood-thirsty madmen seems to be an important issue especially one day after the Israeli legislative election of Feb 10th 2009. Here is what appeared today (Feb 11th) in Al-Watan:

The different Palestinian groups are arm-wrestling with each other, while in the meantime a loony looking Israeli soldier uses their hands as a tripod for his assault rifle. Take a guess who he supposedly is firing at …

How Gaza was won (an illustrated fairy tale)

It has been well over two weeks since the war in Gaza ended. Since then not only did Hamas simply continue firing grenades at Israel, but also various caricaturists handed in their latest political cartoons that came too late for war time.

It starts quite neat with this one here (Al-Ahram, Jan 20th), in which the average Arab spectator is shown as torn apart between the two giant Arab TV news channels, Al-Jazeera (right) and Al-Arabiya (left).

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While this cartoon (Al-Ahram, Jan 24th) is already of a different kind.

You might consider the snake either a venomous reptile or a terrorizing lindworm, in all cases it carries a huge Star of David on its body. The beast tries to swallow its prey but is unaware that in fact it’s a bomb which will blow up the snake. Since Israel (if not all Jews) is depicted as a poisonous reptile, it’s probably not wrong to call it antisemitic. But at least the drawer turned his own racist cartoon into a farce since he entitled the bomb as “Gaza resistance”. Well, if he depicts hiding behind children – what Hamas fighters did – as a bomb, who knows what he he had drawn, had Hamas really fought.

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One day later (Jan 25th) Al-Ahram presents this political cartoon:

The title reads: “The European concept of a blossoming and civilized democracy”. The murderous Israelis (according to Al-Ahram) are considered by the Europeans as victims, whereas women and children are called “killers”. Well, they are not. In Europe we have – besides a lot of antisemites – also many intelligent people who do not call innocent people killers. But we do call Hamas fighters murderers. And so the question remains: Why are they never depicted in any cartoons?

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Neither funny is this one here from Al-Quds al-Arabi (Jan 23rd):

The helpless Palestinian torn apart between his Arab brothers with their different opinions – while being tortured by the Israelis.

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If you ask for the reason why so many people in the Middle East – to say the least – dislike Israel, they will probably respond something that is similar to this cartoon (Al-Quds al-Arabi, Feb 2nd):

The Palestinians have no other option yada yada yada. Well, what about living a peaceful, productive life instead of joining militant groups such as Fatah, Hamas or Hizbollah and figuring out how to murder as many Israeli civilians as possible? It cannot be repeated often enough that most Palestians do not agree with these terror groups. Most Palestinians would love to find a compromise with Israel and then finally start a new life with a job, a family and some personal luxuries.

Instead it is not only terror groups or political demagogues who fuel the hatred against Israel but caricaturists as well.

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Al-Ahram, Jan 25th:

and the same newspaper on Jan 28th:

Beneath both, er, “caricatures”, it reads “No comment”. How true is that!

“Use ‘funny’ caricatures for the effective bad-mouthing of Israel”

At the end of the Gaza war, Israel used phosphor bombs for fighting against Hamas, which led to death and injuries among many civilians as well. Probably none of us is a military expert, and one can only guess why the Israel armed forces decided to use such a dangerous and lethal weapon. The reason that the IDF had to attack Gaza, a densly populated region, was, however, not to murder civilians but to finish off this nasty terrorist gang called Hamas. Once the Israelis attacked Hamas, there was turmoil in the streets world wide. You wouldn’t hear of any demonstrations if there is a civil war going on in Angola or Ruanda attacking Congo. But let Israel defend its civil population against a terrorist group, and immidiately streets are packed with Nazis, antisemites of leftist background and Muslim activists who would never outspeak against the gang bang of a girl in Pakistan, but who are immidiately “provoked” by the IDF defending the only democracy in the Middle East.

It is thus no wonder to stumble across the following cartoon, which displays Israelis as so heartless and wicked that they, according to the caricaturist, kill Palestinians like flies or cockroaches. It seems, the only wicked guy in this case is the one who drew this picture (Al-Ahram, Jan 17th):

The title says: “Israel attacks the population of Gaza with phosphor bombs that are outlawed internationally.” Besides the picture a kind of instructions reads: “Use ‘Phosphosol’ for the effective extermination of human beings”.

The question remains: Why did the Hamas fighters – if they are so brave and self-sacrificing – hide behind Palestinian civilians? Anybody answer that?

Gunning for the IDF (2)

It would be ridiculous to claim that during the war in Gaza, Arab caricaturists had been well-balanced. They would usually draw two kinds of cartoons – displaying victims among the Gaza civilians and the wickedness of the IDF soldiers. You might ask how they depicted the Hamas terrorists. Well, this was quite interesting, they wouldn’t draw Hamas fighters at all. Neither as the terrorists they are (of course not) nor as freedom fighters.

Among the many caricatures depicting the IDF soldiers as evil murderers, this one here, entitled “The Gaza massacre”, is a class of itself:

(Akhbar al-Yaum, Jan 16th 2009)

Reading from right to left, these dudes utter:

1. “We make a pledge for ourselves: The Arabs were bombing us day and night with missiles. The U.S. have prohibited morally comdemning and repugnancy.”

2. “This is the worst day of my life. It seems, I haven’t killed more than 14 children.”

3. “And don’t forget: We have written down all crimes, just one part on the dustbin of history we’ve made unrecognizable.”

4. “Listening to you guys … I’m going to kill 60 of them by walking by … and then I’m going to return immidiately.”

Gunning for the IDF

Of course criticism of Israel has nothing to do with antisemite prejudices. They were thinking that – we are convinced of that – also in the office of Egypt’s largest newspaper, Al-Ahram on Jan 14th. And then they publish this cartoon here:

Above the picture it reads: “The Israeli ground attack against Gaza”.

Caricatures about the Gaza war

Also popular among Arab caricaturists: putting Israel on the same level as Nazi-Germany as well as putting the Palestinians on the same level as the Jews under Hitler. However, they won’t tell you who stands for Hamas during the Third Reich…

This piece was taken from Al-Watan (Jan 13th):

The bubble reads: “Why do you come to a comparison between what’s going on in Gaza and the Holocaust? Do you recognize here any kind of similiarity?”

And this one’s from Al-Hayat (Jan 13th):

This following cartoon (Asharq al-Awsat, Jan 1st), however, is much more appropiate:

On the persecuted guy’s back there is written: “The Middle East”. So it would be necessary to debate what the train stands for. Some probably consider it as the global Zionist, Imperialist, American, capitalist conspiracy that was, as is well known, created in order to subjugate the glorious Islamic civilization.

How much more sense does it make to identify the train as the truck load of self-made problems that holds back almost every progress in the Middle East! Politicians such as Sadat and nowadays Mubarak, who pragmatically and willing to compromise do their utmost for peace and more personal freedom, get badmouthed by the very same group of people that usually considers themselves as the elite – the intellectuals. Except braggarts such as Ahmedinedjad, especially Middle Eastern politicians are happy about each blow radical groups such as Hamas or the Muslim brothers receive. It is gross that of all people Arabic intellectuals declare solidarity with killers and terrorists. On the other hand, it isn’t. The same thing happens in the West, doesn’t it?