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Blog Syndicate

Saudi Resignation

It seems that we get news of editorial cartoonists being laid off from newspaper jobs every couple of weeks, but it is unusual to hear of a cartoonist resigning from a rare newspaper job.

This week, our own Stephane Peray resigned from his job as the editorial cartoonist for the “Arab News” newspaper – a major daily newspaper in Saudi Arabia. Here is his letter of resignation, along with some of his cartoons that could not or would not run in Saudi Arabia. Some samples of Stephff’s cartoons about Saudi Arabia are below  

–Daryl

 

To the management of the Arab News and to my readers, from Stephane “Stephff” Peray,

I’ve been very happy to work for the past 10 years with the Arab News, the leading daily English language newspaper in Saudi Arabia. Today I made a decision to resign with the newspaper because, since the Khashoggi scandal, I have a problem with the moral issues involved with the cartoons that are allowed to reprinted in Saudi Arabia.

Of course, my editors at the Arab News are not responsible for the war in Yemen, or for the assassination of a Saudi dissident journalist, still I face a difficult dilemma in deciding if I should continue to work with any media in Saudi Arabia.

For the past months, for obvious reasons, the Arab News couldn’t use any of my cartoons that were relevant to the Khashoggi affair and couldn’t publish any of my cartoons that relate to the war in Yemen – a war that killed thousands of innocent Yemeni children. In recent days, the Arab News cannot use any of my cartoons about the Saudi teenage girl, Rahaf, who escaped from Saudi Arabia and asked for asylum in Australia.

Sometimes I draw cartoons about my French government that has no problem with selling weapons to the Saudi government, exposing the double standard of western countries when it comes to choosing between human rights and lucrative defense contracts. If I keep publishing cartoons in a Saudi newspaper that will never publish any controversial cartoons, am I not guilty of hypocrisy myself?

I am just a cartoonist. I do not earn much money and taking the decision to resign from the Arab News was painful because I need the income, but I firmly believe that I must resign.

So I tender my immediate resignation from my collaboration with Arab News and ask my editors to please accept my apologies for any inconvenience I am causing to them by my abrupt departure. Please understand this has nothing to do with editors at the Arab News.

Best,
Stephff



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Blog Syndicate

Trump and Refugees

The media is energized by the “ban” on seven Muslim countries: Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Libya, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Those are seven nasty places. I’d like to see a ban on refugees from all nasty places without regard to a religious test. There are lots more nasty places to add to this list.

Today’s cartoon is an upgrade to an oldie that I drew a couple of years ago.

Here’s the original, drawn when the GOP was opposing President Obama’s plans to welcome thousands of Syrian refugees.

My starting point for this one is this great cartoon from our Greek Cagle Cartoonist, Michael Kountouris, about the European Union.

 

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Blog Syndicate

Obama Kisses Saudi King’s Butt

President Obama has threatened to veto a bill that would allow 9-11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for their support of the 9-11 terrorists and would make public 28 redacted pages from the 9-11 Commission report that likely implicates Saudi Arabia. This week Obama traveled to meet with Saudi King Salman, so I drew this.

obama-kiss-saudi-butt

I’d like to see the bill pass and I’d like to see what is on those 28, top secret pages in the 9-11 Commission Report. The Saudis have threatened to sell all of their hundreds of billions of dollars of assets in America if the bill passes. That’s fine with me.

Here’s the first of two videos of my live stream drawing this one.

In the second video, below, I finish up the drawing and color it in Photoshop as I chat with my live viewers. Come to Twitch.tv/darylcagle to follow me and be notified when I come online to draw the next streaming cartoon.

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Cartoons

Spineless Obama and the Middle East

Spineless Obama and the Middle East © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Barack Obama, ISIS, ISIL, IS.I.S., military, Daesh, Daish, Iran, Al Quada, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Militias, Libya, Middle East, President, dogs, doggies, Islam, Islamic Religion, war

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Cartoons

Spineless Obama and the Middle East

Spineless Obama and the Middle East © Daryl Cagle,CagleCartoons.com,Barack Obama,ISIS,ISIL,IS.I.S.,military,Daesh,Daish,Iran,Al Quada,Syria,Yemen,Iraq,Militias,Libya,Middle East,President,dogs,doggies,Islam,Islamic Religion,war

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Blog

Eeeeww! So nasty!

The French weekly newsmagazine, Courrier International, is a great customer and, if I draw a cartoon only in black and white, I’ve been OK with their coloring my cartoons – if they want. This has never been a problem before. Today I saw this cartoon I drew back in 2006, in black and white, showed up in Courrier with very nasty coloring.

Eeeeww! Yuck! I think I need to rethink being so generous about my coloring policy. Both BW and color versions are below.

CourrierColoringhezbollah-we-win-dead-cagle

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Cartoons

Fruity Loomy Terrorists

Fruity Loomy Terrorists © Daryl Cagle,MSNBC.com,Fruit of the Loom, underwear, bomb,airport security, Yemen

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Blog

Arab Spring

Popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa, known as the “Arab Spring,” have already knocked out dictatorships in Tunisia and Egypt, triggered a civil war in Libya and prompted widespread and deadly demonstrations in Syria and Yemen. How this sudden change will play out, and what effect it will have on Israel, remains to be seen.

Come see how cartoonists have responded to these events with our new Arab Spring cartoon co0llection.

Arab Spring cartoons Israel
John Cole / Scranton Times-Tribune (click to view cartoon collection)