Oh, and one more thing
Happy New Year everyone!
I've been a bad blogger this week, admittedly slow getting back into my normal routine. I was planning to return to the drawing table on the first of January, but decided to take a few extra days off and enjoy the sun. With all of the moving house and setting up a new studio it hadn't really felt like much of a holiday until that point. So I went to the beach, hung out with my family and friends, and didn't even look at a newspaper for several days. The advantage to that was that I had a lot of material to choose from upon my return! And wouldn't you know it, even during the silly season when nobody is at work and all we see are "end of the year" roundups, the world still decided to oblige by continuing to go to nuts while I was gone.
I saw a great cartoon today by one of my all-time heroes, Mike Luckovich of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, depicting Obama being sworn in as Godzilla attacks the capitol and the head of the Supreme Court says something like "As if you didn't have enough on your plate." That's kinda what I thought when things started to blow up in the Middle East again. It's just one more thing the poor President-elect is going to have to tackle, after the economy, the unemployment, the bailouts, climate change and global warming, Russia flexing its muscles, Iran developing nuclear weapons, Iraq, Guantanamo ... the list goes on forever. Imagine his "In" basket!
You can't help but feel the deck is heavily stacked against Obama before he even starts, but I think he's a smart guy who will surround himself with competent people instead of his father's cronies, so hopefully he'll have a fighting chance. Let's just hope people don't judge him too harshly too soon. The ship that is America has been heading into the sea of icebergs for a long time, and it's going to take a while to steer it clear of danger.
I did three cartoons that somehow related to Gaza in almost as many days, but it's a subject that has dominated the news and my thoughts for most of the week. When I read about the children who have fallen through the cracks with Child, Youth and Family services here in New Zealand, the obvious question was how? And with a little extrapolation it didn't take much of an imaginative leap to find a comparison with how the world has been reacting to Israel's attacks.
It pays to read all of the newspaper and I often find material in the letters to the editor, not just the news stories. As I've said before, the hardest part of my job isn't coming up with ideas, but rather with deciding what issues to tackle. In this case, a correspondent with the Nelson Mail asked why dairy prices weren't coming down as commodity prices dropped overseas, and he wondered if Gerry Brownlee would lean on Fonterra the same way he's criticised petrol companies. I thought that was a good point and worthy of a cartoon. My task then became finding a clever way to depict it, and this seemed like a good idea.
The cartoon on my first day back. I went out for a long bicycle ride on Sunday morning, knowing that I wanted to do something on Israel and Hamas. At some point while my active brain was disengaged and my subconscious had free range I started to see all kinds of images summing the situation up, but this was the most simple and elegant, depicting a Palestinian enslaved by Israel as his country burns.
This is a topic I've drawn cartoons about before, and it always provokes heated responses from both sides. With such a complicated, conflicting and emotionally charged subject, that's what you might expect; but I can't stay away from such things just because I'm fearful of a negative reaction. I'm supposed to provoke and hopefully make people think, and I what I express is an opinion – like everyone else's – based upon the facts as I see them.
Anyway, I'm certainly no apologist for Hamas, nor do I think the Palestinians in Gaza are blameless for their present horrible situation. But make no mistake, Gaza has been turned into the world's largest concentration camp and these people have had their backs against the wall, or the sea, for too long. They're suffering; they're desperate; they feel as if they have no options, and they're being manipulated by a group of Iran-sponsored fanatics who are hell-bent on creating a larger conflict to bolster their cause. Yes, they've been lobbing rockets at towns in Israel, but they only resumed because Israel refused to ease travel restrictions and economic sanctions during the ceasefire. Israel is asking the Palestinians to guarantee it's security, even as it strangles the life out of the hopes and dreams of millions of disenfranchised individuals. I believe that treating the Palestinians as equals worthy of respect – which Israel has never done – would be a better first step towards peace than the Palestinians abandoning all dignity so they can go on living like animals in a giant pen.
I've read a lot of analogies in the past few days, comparing Gaza to the Warsaw ghetto, etc. But the one most often quoted is of two feuding neighbours and the right of one (Israel) to respond with extreme force to the other (Hamas) if the second is constantly taking potshots into the first's living room. That seems fair enough. But let's extend the analogy and say that the first neighbour (Israel) has also been camping out on the second's lawn, preventing their neighbours from leaving to get food, stopping outsiders from visiting, attacking their neighbours when they stray from their besieged home, and generally acting like a bully for years and years. It doesn't excuse the second neighbour (Hamas) from being hostile and acting unlawfully, but maybe it explains their motivation a bit.
When people feel as if they have no choice, they'll do anything to ensure their own survival, and right now the Palestinians in Gaza are facing an existential crisis more acute than Israel's. Bombing their children with Old Testament "eye for and eye" retribution at a ration of a hundred to one isn't going to solve anything, nor prevent further attacks. It's only going to breed more hatred and raise a new generation of fanatics who believe they can solve all their problems with violence.
I wanted to do a cartoon on this subject for a couple of days, but couldn't come up with a witty angle until I thought of the pun on "Jurassic Park." After that it all fell in place!
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@Mark - thats the big question. What IS a proportionate or indeed appropriate response?
I don't think there is one. Invading another territory and escalating what had been a skirmish like tension into a full blown war is clearly not the right reaction.
The answer lies in Israel though. They have the power to say "Yes we can withdraw from disputed territory and give up this land and leave it to the Palestinians."
But will that be enough? After the Gaza strip there would be those who will claim that as Palestinians they have a right to Israel too... and on it goes.
@Mark
One that doesnt kill at a rate of 100 to 1.
@nick:
I hope this doesn't come across as too harsh, but what does the <i>ratio</i> of killing have to do with it?
Death is death, murder is murder, war is war: people are dying on both sides. That in itself is appalling, that in itself is the issue.
We can criticize the IDF and Hamas all we want; we can defend Israel and Palestine all we want. The question we should be asking is: <i>what can we do to stop this?</i>
Note on Geography: Gaza is not completely surrounded by Israel and the sea - Gaza's southern border is with Egypt, but I haven't heard anyone heaping abuse on that country for not allowing Gazans to exit the war-torn Gaza Strip into Egypt.
Egypt could allow Gazan civilians to leave and seek temporary refuge, but they do not. They do not like extremist Hamas any more than Israel does, but Israel, not Egypt gets the flak for the Gazan's desperate living conditions. The Arab League is wealthy and powerful - much more so than Israel and a bankrupt, over stretched US. If they were as passionately fond of the Palestinian Arab people as they profess to be, they should be helping them.
The moderate Arab nations must love the current situation - they get to sit back and let their enemy Israel attempt to destroy another of their enemies, Hamas, which they consider to be an extremist threat to the stability of the moderate Muslim world, all at not cost to themselves, AND they get to see Israel hammered and isolated in the Western media and parliaments.
The West has a long and ignoble tradition of blaming the Jews for all that is wrong in the world, and so does the Arab world - finally, and tragically, something East and West agree upon.
Note on first Gaza Cartoon: I was horrified by your first "elegant" Gaza cartoon Mike. Your ab-use of the Magen David reminded me of plethora of anti-Semitic drawings and cartoons from Europe and the Middle East that taken this ancient religious symbol and used it against the Jewish people as a whole. I understand that you meant for it to be interpreted as simply representing the political state of Israel, but the Magen David is not merely a symbol of a political state – it signifies a faith, a culture and a people. Though your cartoon is powerful I also find it horrific, not because of what you are trying to say, but because of what the image itself says. This cartoon would not look out of place in an exhibition of historical European and current extremist Islamic anti-Jewish cartoons. Images like the one you have created take on a life of their own, depending on the context in which they are viewed. I do not think that you ever intended to create an anti-Semitic cartoon, but sadly, I think you have.
The Palestinians could stop this war by signing a peace treaty with Israel as Egypt and Jordan have done. They might even get back all the lands lost in the 1967 disaster. Egypt did. This will not happen nor will any third party intervention work. This is a war to the end and will be won by the the side that kills the most civilians. Wars are won by killing civilians. If you don't win it's because you did not kill enough. Hiroshima,Nagasaki,Hamburg and Dresden changed national psyches. Hamas is off to a poor start by deliberatly putting civilians in harms way.
Why not nick? They provoked them. If you believe in their cause enough why not go and join them.
The conflict in its historical and political and religous context.
Islamofascists Hamas + Iran demand the annihlation of all Jews and the complete ethic cleansing of the state of Israel, nothing less.
Israel wants to provide its citizens Jews and Arabs with a secular democratically free and safe existence.
Unfortunately neither side will ever acheive is goals especially in this current crisis.
Mike I found your cartoon of opression both offensive and inanely niave. If there was any merit in the idea you were trying to get at you would have linked the shackles of oppresion with the Hamas flag and ideology. They are the true enemies of the poor souls in Gaza. To single out an opressor especially with the anti semetic symbolizm portrayed is a dangerous line to take. PS have a read of Micheal Laws opinion piece yesterdays Star Times - suprisingly balanced and accurate assessment of this issue.
regards, Roger
Roger - get real In '67 (not a disaster John, a military strike on all Israel's neighbours preemptive or otherwise, that's what it was) the Gaza strip was occupied by Israel. All the Palestinians that were already dislocated from their homes by the creation of Israel in '48 were then occupied for the next 38 years. You don't think they'd be a little annoyed? Israel has also never retreated to it's pre-'67 borders either, breeding a lot of resentment. Palestinians have no way of having their voices heard, every time it's been tried they've been squashed by either the US or Israeli standover tactics. So they fight back in the only method they can. And then it's called terrorism. But is a rocket attack any more terrifying than an airstrike by Israeli F-16s? Or having tanks or trigger happy soldiers in your front garden? Terrorism is the catch-cry of the person making the loudest noise in the media.
And as for all Israel wants is peace, and a safe place to live, then they should start by giving back the territory they've occupied since '67, removing the illegal sanctions that they place on their neighbours, and stop bombing their neighbours just 'cause they think they should be allowed to in the interests of 'safety' ('67, '81' current). You don't make your home safe by first punching all your neighbours on the nose to show how tough you are. Even if you do have the unquestioning backing of the States.
This oddball bit of news has come out:
Madoff Branded Hot Sauce http://texasketchup.blogspot.com/
Sadly, NZ and AU supermarkets lack plain hot sauce -- unless you want to pay 7.00+ AUD or NZD for Tobasco (the most expensive of its kind, even in Canada).
All the other hot sauces in Australasian supermarkets are Thai!
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Those Jews, people just love to hate them. I'd do the same in their shoes. Doesn’t this whole media scramble to get the bloodiest pictures possible just turn you off watching?
I don't get what the Hamas supporters (who always add a flimsy qualifier such as "Hamas is not completely innocent either") would have Israel do. The blockades were a response to devastating suicide attacks, the war a response to constant rocket attacks. What is a proportionate response?