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Dec 23 2008
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Translation

Cartoons and Anti Semitism
By Carlos Latuff

Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff
Image ‘Copyleft’ by Carlos Latuff

A conversation between me and Eddy Portnoy, writer and scholar of Yiddish and Jewish popular culture at Rutgers University, for the Jewish Daily Forward:

Eddy Portnoy: You frequently use the Holocaust as a metaphor to criticize Israeli policies. This is seen as an inaccurate comparison and deliberately hurtful to Jews. Can you further explain your use of this metaphor?

Carlos Latuff: As a cartoonist, I feel comfortable enough to make any comparison I think necessary that expresses my point. Metaphors are the key point to political cartooning. Of course Israel isn’t building gas chambers in the West Bank, but surely we can find some similarities between the treatment given to Palestinians by the [Israel Defense Forces] and the Jews under Nazi rule. Inaccurate or not, it’s important to highlight that such comparisons have been made worldwide not only by cartoonists, but by people such as Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, Ariel Sharon’s former justice minister and a Holocaust survivor (deceased in June of 2008). He said in 2004, during an interview, that a photo of an elderly Palestinian woman searching through rubble reminded him of his grandmother who died in Auschwitz. For me, this is more painful than comparisons of how Palestinians live under Israeli occupation.

E.P.: “Cartoons and Extremism” (read the book’s review here) argues that you use a “medieval and modern antisemitic grammar and vocabulary,” meaning you apply traditional antisemitic motifs to modern political situations. What is your response to this?

C.L.: Israel apologists have frequently compared my cartoons with those published in the Nazi paper Der Stürmer. Let’s have a close look at the Der Stürmer’s cartoonist’s role and mine. Philipp Rupprecht, pen name Fips, dedicated almost 20 years of his life to making only Jew-hating ‘toons for a paper for which the motto was “Jews are our disgrace.” My cartoons have no focus on the Jews or on Judaism. My focus is Israel as a political entity, as a government, their armed forces being a satellite of U.S. interests in the Middle East, and especially Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors of Palestinians. If they were Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, I would criticize them the same way. I made cartoons about George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair, Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico’s former president), Pinochet, and none of them was Jewish.

I produce political cartoons on different issues, both local (Brazilian) and international, for trade union papers in Brazil and many alternative, progressive, leftist-oriented publications around the world. My detractors say that the use of the Magen David in my Israel-related cartoons is irrefutable proof of antisemitism; however, it’s not my fault if Israel chose sacred religious motifs as national symbols, such as the Knesset Menorah or the Star of David in killing-machines like F-16 jets. I can’t be blamed for making an Israeli bomb-dropping warbird adorned with a religious symbol, because that’s the way Israeli air force planes are. To say my cartoons are a remake of the past antisemitic imagery is just another well-known strategy for discrediting criticisms regarding Israel.

E.P.: Is the history of antisemitic caricature completely irrelevant when it comes to criticizing Israel?

C.L.: No doubt about real antisemitism. Of course you’ll have people hijacking the Palestinian struggle as a chance for bashing the Jews, like European neo-Nazis who demonstrate against the occupation of Palestinian territories or the Iraq War. It’s important for the left to keep them apart from the legitimate struggle for the rights of the Palestinians; however, saying that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is a well-known tactic of intellectual dishonesty.

E.P.: You participated in the Iran Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which also included many genuinely antisemitic cartoons. Do you feel that being associated with these images and such a deliberate provocation in any way compromises your work?

C.L.: The artwork with which I won second place was a depiction of an elderly Palestinian man wearing a Nazi concentration camp uniform, and some people said that I was “denying the Holocaust”! That was completely stupid, since I’m affirming the Holocaust with that illustration. Believe me, no matter what I draw and where I publish, there will be always someone who will point a finger and say it’s antisemitic.

I saw this contest as both a good chance for denouncing the suffering of the Palestinian people before the eyes of world public opinion and for raising questions about the West’s double standards. I mean, you insult the Muslims with a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bomber and then claim the right to “freedom of speech,” but if you make drawings about the Holocaust, then it’s “hatred against the Jews.”

Published by: http://desertpeace.wordpress.com/

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1. 23-12-2008 21:13
Racist Zionist (RZs) are worst anti-Semi
Anti-semitism is abuse in word or deed of people who are ethnically or culturally Semitic and comes in 2 equally repugnant varieties, anti-Jewish anti-Semitism and anti-Arab anti-Semitism (including Islamophobia).  
 
Zionism involves racist, race- and religion-based colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the corresponding conquest, dispossession, deprivation and ethnic cleansing of the Indigenous Arab Semitic inhabitants. Zionism is clearly racist in word and deed and specifically anti-Arab anti-Semitic and Islamophobic (Islam having arisen in Arabia). 
 
The Zionists are also anti-Jewish anti-Semitic in the sense that they falsely conflate the violent, human rights-violating evil of racist Zionism with Jews (yet all decent Jews are anti-racist) and with Judaism (yet orthodox Judaism holds that the return to Zion or Jerusalem should only occur after the Moschiach or Messiah reveals the glory of Adonai, the Lord, to all the World and regards Zionism as heresy and blasphemy).  
 
Thus the following Orthodox Jewish opinion of the evil of Zionism (see Orthodox Jews Demand End to Zionist Atrocities in the Middle East ), QUOTE: \"The crux of the matter is that beyond the immorality of the Zionist treatment of the Palestinians is the ultimate fact -- the ideology of Zionism and ensuing establishment of the Zionist state conflicts with the basic teachings of Judaism. 
 
Zionism is the transformation from Judaism, a G-dliness and spirituality, into a G-dlessness, materialism with nationalistic aspirations. Theodor Herzl and his cohorts, the fathers of this relatively new ideology of Zionism (approximately 100 years), have taken the Almighty out of the equation. 
 
The ultimate establishment of the Zionist State, the fulfilment of the Zionist ideology, takes this blasphemy a step further. The Jewish people were sent into exile by Divine decree. They where then expressly commanded by the Almighty, not to attempt to leave their exilic existence through any human intervention. They were expressly forbidden to create their own state, such as the Zionist state of \"Israel\". (Talmud, Tractate Kesuboth, p.111). 
 
The Jewish people are forbidden to oppress another people. The creation of the State of \"Israel\" came about through, the theft from, subjugation and oppression of, the Palestinian people. 
 
Torah Jewry, therefore, condemns the horrifying suffering inflicted upon both the Palestinian and Lebanese people. Because of all of the above, all attempts to achieve peace and stability for \"Israel\" are destined to fail. The Creator cannot be defied with impunity. \" END QUOTE 
 
The racist Zionists (RZs) are anti-Arab anti-Semitic (supporting the anti-Arab anti-Semitic and Islamophobic Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide associated, so far, with post-invasion excess deaths totalling 0.3 million, 2 million and 4-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths totalling 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.1 million; and refugees totalling 7 million, 6 million and 4 million) (see: 9-11 Excuse for US Global Genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity: Millions Dead (9-11 million)in Bush Wars )AND dangerously anti-Jewish anti-Semitic through gross defamation of outstanding Jewish critics of these awful crimes (e.g. Professors Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk, Steven Rose, Peter Singer, Tanya Reinhart, Ilan Pappe, Bertell Ollman, Schlomo Sand) and by falsely and DANGEROUSLY identifying all Jews with these awful crimes.  
 
The racist Zionists (RZs) are the worst anti-Semites in the world today and can readily be seen to be BOTH anti-Jewish anti-Semitic and anti-Arab anti-Semitic.  
 
Only the TRUTH about the awful racist evil of racist Zionism - assisted didactically by the brilliant cartoons of humanitarian artists such as Carlos Latuff and Ben Heine - can help protect ethnically or culturally Semitic people everywhere (Arabs, Jews, Muslims) from the egregiously anti-Semitic racist Zionists (RZs). 
 
This is what outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Bertell Ollman (NYU) said about racist Zionist (RZ) anti-Semitism (see: Professor Bertell Ollman on racist Zionist (RZ) anti-Semtism), QUOTE: \"Furthermore, if Zionism is indeed a particularly virulent form of nationalism and, increasingly, of racism and if Israel is acting toward its captive minority in ways that resemble more and more how the Nazis treated their Jews, then we must also say so. For obvious reasons, the Zionists are very sensitive about being compared to the Nazis (not so sensitive that it has restrained them in their actions but enough to bellow \"unfair\" and to charge \"anti-Semitism\" when it happens). Yet, the facts on the ground, when not obscured by one or another Zionist rationalization, show that the Zionists are the worst anti-Semites in the world today, oppressing a Semitic people as no nation has done since the Nazis. No, the Zionists are not yet quite as bad as the Nazis, not yet, but isn\'t the world witnessing a creeping ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians at this very moment? If Zionists (and their supporters) find this comparison unduly insulting and unjust, they have only to stop what they are doing (and supporting), but I fear that the logic of their position will only drive them to committing (and supporting) even greater atrocities in the future, including genocide—another Nazi specialty, than they have up to now. What, if anything, has such Zionism got to do with traditional Jewish values? \". END QUOTE.
Guest
gpolya@bigpond.comNOSPAM! ">Dr Gideon Polya
2. 25-12-2008 21:07
Well stated
Often people get stuck with what their governments do in their name and it's beyond their control because of the elite that garners government powers to do their bidding. I am certain there are a good many Israeli Jews as there are a good many U.S. Americans. The evil that their governments do may reflect on them; yet does not relate to the people that live within their country. There are enough resistance against their government but not enough to overpower their government. Till then we pray that enough of their citizens will grow to overturn their government's policy and actions. I can despise the actions of these governments but not the people who strive for justice and freedom that live within these countries.
Guest
3. 26-12-2008 17:20
Intellectual Rigor
Gideon Polya brings a dose of intellectual rigor to the discussion and what happens? The ghosts all vanish, the empty facades of the movie set all fall down and the light shines into every dark corner exposing all the monsters as mere shadows. 
 
An excellent expose of the real state of affairs. Yet another power elite exploiting to the fullest every human foible - fear, patriotism, spiritual frailty, self-righteous egotism, racist narcism - to manipulate the masses is exposed for it\'s distortion of the truth in the furtherment of their own power and elite status. 
 
The great fraud of zionism, a scam and fraud on it\'s supporters no less than it is on the wider world. 
 
Thank you Gideon Polya.
Guest
4. 26-12-2008 18:11
Lies, Comfortable Lies
It\'s a falsehood to absolve the masses as being \"stuck with what their governments do in their name\" and it\'s a bare-faced lie to say that \"it\'s beyond their control\". 
 
There are varying degrees of complicity in what governments do and with varying degrees of ignorance of what is going on. But every single lie relating to Bush\'s wars has been exposed. Every unattractive truth is out there for people to find; people don\'t find or acknowledge or respond to them because the lies are more attractive, more flattering, more promising and more colourful.  
 
And Of course there is a body of \"people who strive for justice and freedom that live within these countries\"; I have been one of them and I know from experience that you don\'t have to spend much time talking to people before you realise that they really don\'t want to have to accept that what their government is doing is not very nice. They don\'t want to know. They are wilfully decieved. 
 
The bottom line is that most people have a vested interest in the status quo and however humble that interest they will cling to the lies in order to preserve it. The bottom line is complicity. Noone can claim that governments do not act in their name. They are all complicit because they know what is happening but they don\'t work to overthrow these governments and the reason they don\'t is that they are complicit. The stick is too hard and the carrot too sweet, the sleepy dream too cosy to wake. The fact of complicity is beyond question, it\'s only a matter of degree. 
 
This article and Gideon\'s comment are enough to dump Zionism and the state of Israel into the trash can but in fact the impact will be insignificant. This is not because the points made are inadequate, too narrow or refutable - not at all, they are comprehensive and logically indisputable, they fail because people will resist them. Perhaps you and I will print them off and send them to colleagues, acquaintances, family and friends. Many will not read them at all, few will pass them on for others. These diamonds will sink back into the sand and tomorrow the apologists for Zionism will be still condemning opposition with accusations of anti-semitism and the stupid masses will be nodding in their sleep.
Guest

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