Categories
Blog Columns Newsletter Syndicate Videos

Cartoonists are Casualties of War Too

People who like to draw serious political cartoons for a living – people like me – have to be extra careful in these divisive times.

In just the last month three major newspapers – the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Guardian in Britain – have pulled down or decided not to publish cartoons drawn by the best editorial cartoonists in the world.

Michael Ramirez, Monte Wolverton and Steve Bell each bravely applied their talents and opinions to the brutal war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas that started Oct. 7.

For their troubles, they were charged with being Islamophobic, anti-Semitic or racist by readers, their fellow journalists and editorial boards. Bell was even fired.

The most recent example was at the Washington Post, where my good friend Michael Ramirez ran his caricature of a Hamas spokesman, Ghazi Hamadi, in a suit with five women and children roped to his body.

“How dare Israel attack civilians…” the Hamas spokesman was saying.

You’d think it’d be easy for anyone to get the point Ramirez was making. Many cartoonists have used the same idea of Hamas or Hezbollah wearing children as human shields, including me.

But many readers immediately expressed outrage on social media and bombarded the paper’s comment section from their silos.

Ramirez was charged with excusing Israel’s war crimes and pushing Israeli military talking points and accused of being a racist for his malicious, offensive and “grotesque caricature” of a Palestinian.

The reader outrage was so intense that the boss of the Post’s opinion section, David Shipley, “re-evaluated” his decision.

He didn’t just pull it down from the paper’s web site. He issued an apology for having “missed something profound, and divisive” and published a selection of critical comments by readers.

Ramirez ably defended himself on Michael Smerconish’s Nov. 11 show on CNN.

Calling the charges against him “ridiculous,” he said, “The cartoon was very specific. It pointed out the hypocrisy of an organization that uses civilians as shields” and said his critics “used the race card as a way to eliminate a contrary political opinion they don’t agree with.”

I agree with Ramirez. It was outrageous how quickly – and abjectly — the Post caved to the complaints of its noisiest, most partisan and most sensitive readers.

What happened last month at the Philadelphia Inquirer to my good friend Monte Wolverton was another example of how careful editorial cartoonists have to be today.

My small business represents Wolverton and syndicates his work. His Oct. 18 cartoon showed an oversized Israeli army boot crushing Hamas terrorists.

It ran in many other newspapers without any complaints, but the Inquirer reconsidered and decided to take it down and apologize because its editors thought the cartoon reinforced “pernicious anti-Semitic tropes about Israeli aggression.”

I suggested to Monte that he withdraw the cartoon and apologize for it because I think any big military boot in an editorial cartoon could be seen as a Nazi boot and portraying Jews as Nazis is an anti-Semitic trope.

The most outlandish – and unjustified — case of cartoon cancelling happened to the highly respected Steve Bell of the Guardian newspaper in Britain. He was fired after 40 years at the paper, over a cartoon that was never even published.

His fatal cartoon depicted Benjamin Netanyahu carving the map of Gaza on his bare belly with a scalpel and saying “Residents of Gaza get out now.” The cartoon drew upon a famous photo of Lyndon Johnson, lifting his shirt to show a scar from a recent surgery, which formed the basis for a famous cartoon by David Levine, with LBJ showing a scar shaped like Vietnam on his belly – an image familiar to all cartoonists and a good analogy.  Gaza is Netanyahu’s Vietnam.

Bell quoted his bosses as saying the cartoon could be seen as anti-Semitic because somehow they believed it was playing on the “pound of flesh” line spoken by Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s 1596 play The Merchant of Venice.

On my “Caglecast” podcast I asked the top three editorial cartoonists in Israel if Bell’s cartoon qualified as anti-Semitic and they agreed it wasn’t even close. Declaring Bell’s cartoon anti-Semitic was a ridiculous stretch.

But it shows how political cartoonists of today really have to know where to draw their lines.

Remember, watch the video and subscribe on YouTube!

You can also see all the Caglecasts at Caglecast.com!

Please support our Cagle.com site!

Become a Cagle.com HERO!

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Videos

Top Israeli Cartoonists Discuss the War in Cartoons

In our newest Caglecast I discuss the war with Hamas with three of the top Israeli cartoonists, Michel Kichka, Uri Fink and Moshik Gulst. Watch the video to see what they say about the cartoons below.

This one is by Tom Janssen from the Netherlands

Remember, watch the video and subscribe on YouTube!

 

Michel Kichka

 

Marian Kamensky

 

Chris Weyant

 

Emad Hajjaj

You can also see all the Caglecasts at Caglecast.com!

Please support our Cagle.com site!

Become a Cagle.com HERO!

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate Top 10 Videos

WAR AND CHAOS – TOP TEN CARTOONS OF THE WEEK

A week ago, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 Israelis and igniting a new conflict in a region long torn by war and bloodshed. Meanwhile, back here in the U.S., Republicans remain unable to elect a Speaker of the House, which could impact our country’s ability to aid Israel, among other things.

All that to say it was a busy week for cartoonists, who also targeted their pens on the over-inflated price of housing and President Joe Biden’s sudden change of heart on Trump’s border wall.

Here are our top ten most reprinted cartoons of the week:

#1. John Darkow

 

See our new video podcast!

Our new Caglecast - the TRUMPinator!
Our new Caglecast – the TRUMPinator!

#2. John Darkow

 

#3. Chris Weyant

 

#4. Dave Whamond

 

#5. Adam Zyglis

 

#6. Jeff Koterba

 

#7. Pat Bagley

 

#8. Rick McKee

 

#9. Dave Granlund

 

#10. Dave Whamond

 

Please support our Cagle.com site!

Become a Cagle.com HERO!

Categories
News

More Doggie Presidents

This is my new one about all the foreign policy landmines that President Trump is laying for the Biden administration.

I drew a Trump Doggie cartoon yesterday and I was thinking about doggie presidents. Today’s cartoon is based on one I drew about President George W. Bush about 14 years ago.

I’ve drawn lots of presidential doggies. Here’s an oldies with doggie Obama.

 

When Hillary Clinton was running for president against Obama, she had her husband Bill as her attack dog.

 

Early in the George W. Bush administration, doggie Jimmy Carter opposed and undermined Bush’s Cuba policy, visiting Castro in Cuba.

I draw foreign doggie presidents too. Here’s Cuba’s doggie Fidel Castro from about 14 years ago.

 

Here’s an oldie with Israel’s doggie Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu peeing on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas while being “condemned” by President Obama.

I can’t get enough of doggie presidents, but that’s not true of newspaper editors. A sure way to make sure your cartoon won’t get reprinted in newspapers very much is to draw a doggie president –also, drawing urine is something newspaper editors don’t like.

Drawing doggie Presidents and urine isn’t a smart business decision for editorial cartoonists; we do it for love.


Want to get EVERY new CagleCartoon from our 62 syndicated newspaper editorial cartoonists, in your email box every day? Just become a Cagle.com HERO and you get the exclusive daily emails of ALL THE CARTOONS!  See all the cartoons before the newspapers print them and never miss a cartoon!

Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Emad is FREE

Updated 12:00pm 8/30/20: Cagle Cartoonist Emad Hajjaj was freed last night. His case was downgraded from terrorism and the military court to the Amman prosecutor, but he still faces trial and up to two years in prison for “slander and libel” according to an article in the Times of Israel

Emad’s home newspaper Al-Araby has an article about Emad’s release and Human Rights Watch director, Joe Stork, “Calling a satirical cartoon a terrorism offence only confirms that Jordan intends to muzzle citizens who speak freely,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at the New York-based watchdog. “This arrest sends the message that Jordanian authorities would rather abuse the rights of their own citizens than risk offending a gulf leader’s feelings,” he added.

Emad’s cartoonist brother, Osama Hajjaj, who we also syndicate, sent me these photos of Emad just after his release.

Quoting from the Times of Israel article: “The decision to release Hajjaj came after the state security court prosecutor decided to change the accusation against him to slander and libel, and his case has been sent back to the Amman state prosecutor,” the judicial source said.

Rakan Saaydeh, the head of the country’s journalists’ union, confirmed the release and the new charges as (they) took custody of Hajjaj from the Balqa jail just northwest of Amman on Sunday.

“He will now appear before the Amman prosecution,” not the state security court, a military tribunal that deals with terrorism-related cases, Saaydeh told reporters.

It was not clear when his trial would begin.”

I’ll post more when I get more. Read more about Emad’s cartoon that got him thrown into prison on my blog.

 


Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you!  Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!


Categories
Blog Newsletter Syndicate

Cagle Cartoonist Emad Hajjaj Arrested, Faces 5 Years in Prison

Update 8/30/20: Emad is freed. He still faces trial and a possible two years in prison for his cartoon. Read more here.

My friend and longtime CagleCartoonist Emad Hajjaj was arrested Wednesday in his home country of Jordan. He is charged with the “cybercrime” of “insulting an Arab country” and faces up to five years in prison for drawing an “offensive” cartoon criticizing Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed of the United Arab Emirates. Emad was arrested five hours after posting the cartoon to his newspaper site.

CagleCartoons.com has syndicated Emad’s work to newspapers in America and around the world for the past fifteen years. He is a dear friend of mine and of many of the CagleCartoonists who have partied with Emad on our annual trips to the cartoon festival in St Just le Martel, France.  Emad is the president of the Jordanian Cartoonists Association and cartoonists in Jordan have been protesting Emad’s arrest.

Emad was arrested just five hours after posting the cartoon to his newspaper’s Web site. Emad draws for the Al- Araby newspaper in London which has posted an article about his arrest. (Al-Araby is a longtime subscriber to CagleCartoons.com.)

Emad’s brother Osama Hajjaj, who is also an editorial cartoonist that CagleCartoons.com syndicates, sent me a photo of Emad’s arrest.

Emad’s cartoon depicts UAE leader, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan, commonly called “MBZ”, holding an Israeli dove that has spit on his face, with the spittle in the shape of a US F-35 fighter jet and labeled “spit 35” in Arabic. The US recently brokered a treaty between Israel and the UAE, and in a separate but possibly related deal the US agreed to sell advanced F-35 jets to the UAE. Israel is opposing the sale, arguing that Israel’s defense advantage in the region would be compromised if UAE gets the jets. Emad’s drawing shows that Israel has embarrassed MBZ by blocking the sale after UAE agreed to the peace deal

Al-Araby writes that Emad was referred to the “notorious State Security Court” by Amman’s Attorney General. “The SSC – whose judges are appointed by the prime minister – has jurisdiction over crimes including drugs, explosives, weapons, espionage and high treason, however it has increasingly been used to try peaceful protesters and government critics.”

“The country’s infamous 2015 cybercrimes law was widely criticized by rights groups, who say it is a pretext to crack down on any individual who criticizes the government. Amendments added to the law in 2018 also made the distribution of articles considered slanderous punishable with a prison sentence.”

Emad is being held in jail for up to fourteen days, pending the conclusion of an investigation, after that Emad may face charges and a possible five year prison sentence.

UPDATED 8/27/20 1:00pm PDT:  According to a Committee to Protect Journalists article quoting the Center for Defending the Freedom of Journalists director, Nidal Mansour, Emad was brought to the prosecutor’s office today and charged with “disturbing relations with a sister country” under the country’s counter-terrorism law,” “If convicted, Hajjaj could face a minimum of 10 years hard labor, according to 2014 amendments to the counter-terrorism law.” “The public prosecutor’s office ordered Hajjaj to be detained for 14 days and transferred him to Salt Prison, northwest of Amman.”

Read CagleCartoonist David Fitzsimmons’ column about his friend Emad.

The Times of Israel has an excellent article about Emad’s arrest.

This Washington Post article outlines the history hypocrisy of Jordan’s claims to have a free press as they jailed Emad.

Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) has posted an alert on Emad’s arrest.

In the group photo below, Emad is at the right, I’m second from the right and Emad’s cartoonist brother Osama is second from the left. We’re pictured with Mexican cartoonists at CartónClub’s La Linea del Fuego exhibition at the El Universal newspaper in Mexico City a couple of years ago. Emad is friends with cartoonists around the globe and we’ve had a great time traveling together to exotic, cartooning destinations. Since Emad is everyone’s friend in our tight-knit, global community of editorial cartoonists, his arrest comes as a quite a shock in our small world.


Our reader supported site, Cagle.com, still needs you!  Journalism is threatened with the pandemic that has shuttered newspaper advertisers. Some pundits predict that a large percentage of newspapers won’t survive the pandemic economic slump, and as newspapers sink, so do editorial cartoonists who depend on newspapers, and along with them, our Cagle.com site, that our small, sinking syndicate largely supports, along with our fans.

The world needs political cartoonists more now than ever. Please consider supporting Cagle.com and visit Cagle.com/heroes.  We need you! Don’t let the cartoons die!


Please forward this to your friends – tell them our Cagle.com email newsletters are FREE and FUN! Join the newsletter list at Cagle.com/subscribe.


 

 

 

Categories
News Newsletter Syndicate

Another Anti-Semitic Trope Controversy

There is a new anti-semitic cartoon controversy, this time from The Guardian’s cartoonist Steve Bell. Buzzfeed’s media critic Mark Di Stefano first tweeted the cartoon and email that Bell sent to all of The Guardian’s staff journalists.

Bell’s cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu was killed, prompting Bell’s mass email. The cartoon depicts British Labour Party deputy secretary, Tom Watson as an “antisemite finder general” calling Netanyahu an “antisemitic trope.”

The Jewish Chronicle reports:

“Last June, (Bell) emailed all journalists to say he felt “unfairly traduced and censored” after the paper would not run his cartoon of Theresa May meeting Benjamin Netanyahu while Palestinian Razan al-Najjar, who had been shot and killed by an Israeli soldier, burned in the fireplace behind.”

‘He accused Guardian editor Kath Viner of not speaking to him because she “did not really have an argument” for spiking the cartoon.”

“In November 2012, his cartoon that depicted Mr Netanyahu as a puppeteer prompted many complaints to the press regulator.”

In his mass email, Bell Writes:

“I suspect the real cause is it contravenes some mysterious editorial line that has been drawn around the subject of antisemitism and the infernal subject of antisemitic tropes.”

“In some ways this is even more worrying than the specious charges of antisemitism. Does the Guardian no longer tolerate content that runs counter to its editorial line?”

“In November 2012, (Bell’s) cartoon that depicted Mr Netanyahu as a puppeteer prompted many complaints to the press regulator.”

Here is the complete text of the letter that Bell wrote to The Guardian’s “Head of Features” Kira Cochrane, and forwarded as a mass email to all of The Guardian’s staff journalists:

Dear Kira

After our bizarre telephone conversation yesterday, I feared you might not publish today’s strip, but still cannot understand why the attached should be more liable to legal challenge from Tom Watson than either of the previous two strips that you have already published. You said the ‘lawyers were concerned’, but what about? It’s not antisemitic, nor is it libellous, even though it includes a caricature of Binyamin Netanyahu. If Watson chose to object he would make himself look far sillier than he does in the cartoon.

I suspect that the real problem is that it contravenes some mysterious editorial line that has been drawn around the subject of antisemitism and the infernal subject of ‘antisemitic tropes’. In some ways this is even more worrying for me than specious charges of antisemitism. Does the Guardian no longer tolerate content that counters its editorial line?

Why in today’s paper has the Guardian published a highly partisan and personally insulting (to the leader of the Labour Party) advert on page 20 that uses the Labour Party logo, but is clearly not a Labour Party approved advert? I would have thought that there would be far more reason to expect a legal challenge on that than on my my cartoon. Or is it that you don’t want to offend poor Tom but are quite happy to offend poor Jeremy?

Why on earth did the Guardian publish, then unpublish, a letter in support of Chris Williamson signed by 100 persons identifying themselves as Jewish, including Noam Chomsky? Were they the wrong kind of Jews. The paper’s contortions on this subject do not do it any credit. If there is a reasoned position on this highly contentious issue, then I would dearly love to see it laid out clearly so we all know where we stand. Or are there some subjects that we just can’t touch?

Best wishes
Steve Bell

 

 

Categories
Blog Syndicate

Peace in Gaza

The “peaceful” protests in Gaza have been quite dramatic, with both sides blaming each other for the violence. I thought it would be interesting to draw the peaceful protesters as doves of peace. Those are olive branches in their mouths.

My personal view is that there is no solution to the Israel/Palestinian issue. Someday soon we may look back on these ugly times as the good old days. If I could play God and impose my own peace plan, it would be to force everyone to give up their religion.

When I started this I thought I would draw all of the doves with no pants, Donald Duck style, with bird legs and feet. The problem is that birds have knees that go backwards and it was difficult to put them into the action poses without suffering some strange compromises, so I went with a different compromise: human knees, feet, pants and shoes, and birdie hands on the ends of their wings.

Cartoons about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict often invite angry email. I’ve drawn militant doves before –here’s one that got me lots of angry email …


The angry mail for this one came from Israel supporters who thought the cartoon was anti-semitic because they thought the helmet on the Israeli soldier looked like a German Nazi helmet; they also objected to the Star of David on the helmet, arguing that it signified Jews rather than the complete Israeli flag with stripes, signifying Israel.

Cartoons about the conflict don’t please anybody and are among the least reprinted cartoons –but cartoonists don’t get to choose the news.

Categories
Blog Syndicate

The Inside Story on Obama’s Meeting with Netanyahu Today

It is no secret that Obama and Netanyahu don’t like each other, and it is amusing to watch them act like they are buddies – therefore today’s cartoon …

And here’s the rough sketch …

sketch700

I don’t draw Netanyahu very often, so I had to do Google Images to see what he looks like, and I erased his face two or three times before I thought I got close enough. Notice that the final Netanyahu face is much better than the sketch – that always happens with me. I stare at the Google Images Netanyahu faces as I’m tracing the final line art and it gets closer to the right caricature with another step. I went in a different direction with his big nose than I see other cartoonists do – I’m still not sure about that.

Notice that when I’m free-handing something like this, I don’t get it right. Obama is too high and Netanyahu too low for their eyes to meet, so I noted that Netanyahu needed to stretch up to make eye contact and I made the correction as I was tracing it. I never just trace, I’m always redrawing, which can be frustrating, because my natural inclination would be to continue redrawing forever. Rough sketch Obama was looking pretty lousy here too – that’s why artists don’t like to show their rough sketches – rough sketches are lousy!

There you have it, the inside story on the meeting of Obama and Netanyahu today!

 

Categories
Blog Syndicate

Palestinian Daggar Eyes

In old time comics there was a great thing where, when a character gives a dirty look the cartoonist would draw knives, or daggers, coming out of their eyes, pointing at where they are looking. Urbandictionary.com defines it this way:

When someone who tries to intimidate another person, they will flinch quickly towards that person, and exercise a quick widening of the eyes, in effort to scare away the supposed moron who tried to intimidate them in the first place. Usually, the kid who gives the dagger eyes is much more adapted to survive through mockery, and this action helps to scare off possible douche bags who try to scare the dagger eyed kid.
In Hawaii they call it “stink-eye”. With all the stabbings, “dagger eyes” worked for me.
Categories
Cartoons

Iran Deal

Iran Deal © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Iran, Barack Obama, Supreme Leader, nuclear weapons, bomb, uranium enrichment, handshake, hand shake, negotiations, israel, jews, kill the jews, Ali Khamenei,John Kerry

Categories
Blog Syndicate

Iran Deal

The latest deadline for the nuclear deal with Iran is fast approaching, with both side optimistic that a deal will be made, and both side describing the deal very differently.