In April it wasannouncedthat an Egyptian woman named Mona Seif was a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders – a prize established in 1993 to honour those “who demonstrate exceptional courage in defending and promoting human rights”. A jury, composed of officials from several NGOs, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, selects the winner.
UN Watch today called on the juryof the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders, comprised of Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and eight other NGOs, and chaired by Hans Thoolen, to cancel its nominationof Mona Seif, an Egyptian activist who openly advocates terrorism and war crimes, as a top contender for the 2013 prize.
Further, the United Nations watchdog organization wasn’t alone in their condemnation of Seif, as the nomination was also fiercely criticized by such notable Egyptian human rights activists as Maikel Nabil and Amr Bakly.
On May 3, the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald – parroting the predictable narrative of Electronic Intifada – tweeted the following:
First, neither report which Greenwald linked to in his Tweet (which included a post by the virulently anti-Israel NY Times commentator Robert Mackey) demonstrated that Seif’s positions were unfairly characterized by UN Watch.
Moreover, as we’ve noted previously, Greenwald’s expansive definition of the word “smear” seems to include factually based claims about those whose political orientation he happens to be in alignment with, and this particular Tweet would suggest that he simply didn’t conduct serious research into Seif’s background before expressing his outrage at her opponents.
UN Watch’s evidence consists of the several quite unambiguous Tweets by Seif demonstrating that she did in fact defend Palestinian terrorism, including rocket attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas.
Here are a few examplesof Seif’s decidedly selective regard for human rights:
Support for Islamist terrorists involved with blowing up Egyptian gas pipelines to Israel:
We the Egyptian ppl DO NOT WANT OUR GAS TO BE EXPORTED TO ISRAEL.Sinai ppl are our heroes everytime they blow up the pipelines#FuckISrael
The following was Tweeted by Seif after Amnesty International called on both Hamas and Israel to stop attacks on civilians during the recent war in Gaza.
@amnesty you don’t ask an occupied nation to stop their “Resistance” to end violence!!!SHAME ON YOU!
And, Glenn Greenwald’s patently dishonest Tweets accusing UN Watch of of engaging in a “smear” campaign won’t change the fact that Mona Seif is an open and evidently proud supporter of terrorism against Israelis.
In my 2010 report published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs about antisemitic cartoons, I noted that political cartoons often have more of an immediate impact in reinforcing negative stereotypes than a lengthy essay. They express ideas which are easy to understand, and thus represent an efficient way to transmit hate and prejudices, including antisemitism.
While the largest output of antisemitic cartoons nowadays comes from the Arab and Muslim world, some “respectable” European papers have published graphic depictions of Jews evoking classic Judeophobic stereotypes.
Some of the core motifs of antisemitic cartoons are Jews as absolute evil; imagery equating Israel with Nazi Germany; Jewish conspiracies; Zionists controlling the world; and variations of the blood libel.
While mainstream Western papers avoid explicitly promoting the blood libel, variations of this theme – suggesting in cartoon and in prose that bloodthirsty Israeli Jews intentionally kill innocently Palestinians (often children) – have been published at popular sites. For instance, one of the most popular news sites in the Anglo world, The Huffington Post, posted a cartoon in 2012 by notorious antisemitic cartoonist, Carlos Latuff, which clearly conveyed the idea that the Israeli Prime Minister was murdering Palestinian babies to gain votes in the upcoming election, suggesting that baby killing was supported by the Israeli public.
A similar motif of infanticide appeared in a 2003 cartoon by Dave Brown in the progressive British daily The Independent. Thecartoon shows Sharon eating the head of a Palestinian baby and saying, “What’s wrong? Have you never seen a politician kissing a baby? It won Britain’s 2003 Political Cartoon of the Year Award.
The following cartoon was published at The Sunday Times (the largest-selling ‘serious’ British national Sunday newspaper) today, Jan. 27, International Holocaust Memorial Day.
In case you didn’t notice, the text reads ‘Will Cementing Peace Continue?’, an apparent allusion to Israeli construction across the green line.
However, the Sunday Times cartoonist decided to depict such building as not only injurious to peace, but (as the bloody, mangled bodies being buried over with cement, laid by the bloody trowel of a sinister Israeli Prime Minister) as a sadistic act of violence against innocents in order to gain votes in the Israeli election.
In light of the Sunday Times’ decision to publish a cartoon on Holocaust Memorial Day depicting a blood-lusting Jewish leader, as well as recent comments by British MP David Ward suggesting that, on Holocaust Memorial Day, Jews should learn to stop “inflicting atrocities on Palestinians”, as well as other routine debasements of Holocaust memory, here’s a simple, if counter-intuitive request to those who believe that the Holocaust means anything at all:
Spare us your Holocaust pieties, your monuments, your memorials, museums and days of remembrance, and consider that, instead of honoring Jews murdered over 65 years ago, you may want to begin, instead, to honor Jews who are still among us.
There are many ways to show reverence for a tiny minority which has somehow survived despite the best efforts, past and present, of practitioners of homicidal antisemitism. However, the especially morally righteous among you may wish to gain a basic understanding of the precise manner in which Jews have been caricatured, vilified, demonized and dehumanized prior to pogroms, massacres and genocides, studiously avoid advancing narratives or creating graphic depictions which evoke such antisemitic imagery, and righteously condemn those who do so.
You can not undo the horrors inflicted upon six million souls, but you can live your life with a steely determination to never again allow lethal, racist narratives about living Jews to go unchallenged, and to assiduously fight efforts to reintroduce such toxic calumnies into the “respectable” public discourse.
Cross-posted by Petra Marquardt-Bigman, who blogs at ‘The Warped Mirror‘.
Among “pro-Palestinian” activists, the cartoonist Carlos Latuff is a widely admired artist. Like most of his fans, Latuff expresses his support for the Palestinian cause with an intense hatred for Israel, which is reflected in his large output of images comparing Israelto Nazi Germany. Unsurprisingly, Latuff’s achievements also include a winning entry for the 2006 Iranian “International Holocaust Cartoon Contest.”
The fact that comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are generally regarded as antisemitic doesn’t seem to bother Latuff and his fans – quite the contrary: for them, it’s apparently just another reason for ridicule and amusement.
As you can see in the screenshot of Latuff’s cartoon above, there is an unmistakable SS-symbol next to Rabbi Hier’s head. When I noted this in a tweet, Latuff quickly responded, claiming that I was wrong and that the “bolts are cartoon representation of headache.” To support his claim, he linked to the following picture:
Since Latuff immediately blocked me, he didn’t have to face up and respond to the evidence showing just how flimsy his “headache”-explanation looked.
After all, for somebody like Latuff who works with images, it is hardly credible to claim that he was unaware of the obvious SS-reference in this cartoon. How about this very similar “headache” in an undeniably antisemitic cartoon from 2006?
Screenshot showing part of a Russian cartoon from a report by Tom Gross on anti-Israeli and antisemitic cartoons published in the international media in the summer of 2006
It is also noteworthy that Latuff didn’t link to any of his own images to illustrate his claim that an SS-symbol look-alike was a common cartoon representation of a headache. But his claim is most severely undermined by the fact – illustrated here– that he has made it something of a specialty to work Nazi-symbolism into his cartoons relating to Israel. He now has only himself to blame if it seems that this has become second nature to him.
The Huffington Post, allegedly a mainstream, balanced news media outlet, has covered and promoted the work of anti-Semitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff. The Huffington Post, its editors, and its owner, Arianna Huffington, have created a safe, welcoming space for all manner of Jew haters to spread their rhetoric and ideas.
In case you can’t see the cartoon clearly enough, here’s a link to it. It’s a cartoon of Israeli PM Netanyahu wringing votes for himself out of a (presumably Palestinian) baby, a modern twist on the classic blood libel against Jews.
The Huffington Post and its reporter that published this story, Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, seem to have no problem with this anti-Semitic cartoon, publishing it with no condemnation and in fact support, with Shihab-Eldin claiming Ha’aretz reported Netanyahu’s approval ratings have increased.
There is no other explanation for the decision to publish this news story other than the Huffington Post considers Latuff’s hateful cartoons to be legitimate political opinions that not only belong in mainstream discourse, but worthy of the Huffington Post’s readerships’ attention.
Why is the Huffington Post publishing the hate filled rants of anti-Semites as if it is respectable, news worthy opinions?
[Editor's note: Please see additional background on Latuff here, here, here, here and here. See additional Latuff cartoons about Israel here. Below is a larger version of the Latuff cartoon seen above. - A.L.]
Rob Marchant, a former British Labour Party manager,wrote a very important piece, at The Centre Left Blog, on Aug. 29, about racism at ‘Comment is Free’, and, more broadly, the institution’s regression and increasing rejection of the genuinely liberal ideals it once ardently defended.
Writes Marchant (with emphases added):
Once upon a time, there was a left-wing newspaper. Its founder, C.P. Scott, clearly saw it as less of a paper and more of a social mission. My grandfather, a true Socialist all his life, religiously took the Guardian every day, and I would leaf through it as a teenager, mulling over its worthy appraisals of Neil Kinnock’s latest speech or Billy Bragg’s new album. Compared with other papers, it always seemed a bit more in tune with “yoof”, which I then was, and the good guys, which were Labour.
Marchant then turned to the Josh Trevino row.
Last week a controversial new columnist, Josh Treviño, joined that newspaper. As a former advisor to the Bush administration, he was not necessarily a natural choice for the paper, but outside observers might have been pleasantly surprised to see, for once, a little compensating political balance at the newspaper.
Within days, he and the newspaper had agreed to part, officially on the pretext that he had slipped a reference into an article which had broken editorial guidelines – eighteen months previously.
While this sounds like it might be a fair explanation, it becomes a little odder when you put it in context. For the record, Treviño had also been involved in a controversy over his rather insensitive tweets regarding the Palestine flotilla; but that, too, had been over a year ago, he apologisedand the Guardian had defended him.
Then, a few days ago, a group of what can only be described as far-left activists wrote to the Guardianto complain about Treviño’s hiring. Five days later, he was gone. The group included Baroness Jenny Tonge, who was earlier this year ejected by the Liberal Democrats for her unacceptable views, Stop The War Coalition’s Lindsey German, and various members of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, iEngage and Middle East Monitor. Or rather, when the only MP you can get to defend your cause is Jeremy Corbyn, you know you’re operating at the margins.
The whole argument is given in detail here forand against the Guardian (in the interests of fairness I include both, but I have to say that I find that against a great deal more convincing). Whatever your view on the Treviño controversy, though, there is a rather more disturbing, and difficult-to-avoid, conclusion: that this oddball collection from the fringes of politics, who wrote the letter, clearly have some sway on the editorial and managerial decisions of a national newspaper.
Marchant then contextualized the decision to fire Trevino:
There is a great deal more: some points of interest may already be known to readers of my blog, such as the printing of a puff-piece by unpleasant Holocaust cartoonist Carlos Latuff, or CiF’s running, on Holocaust Memorial Day, of an op-ed by Sheik Raed Salah, hate-preacher and convicted fundraiser for terrorism; or finally, its later op-ed in June, by someone who does not even pretend not to be a terrorist: Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of suicide-bombers Hamas in Gaza. Nice.
Marchant adds:
Where the Guardian may think it is being edgy and controversial, it is often being, at the very least, offensive to the sensibilities of ordinary people not known for their over-sensitivity. At worst it is laid open to not unreasonable charges of racism.
While Chris McGreal may be the Guardian’s Washington correspondent, he is certainly not a “reporter”.
His shrill, tendentious activist journalism – which arguably makes Harriet Sherwood seem sober, fair and professional in contrast – rarely tries too hard to disguise the desired polemical target. McGreal is more similar in style to Richard Silverstein than a journalist for a ‘serious’ broadsheet.
His past efforts at objective reporting on Israel have included a retweet from an anti-Zionist blogger accusing Israel of being in the grips of “psychosis”, a Tweet (and accompanying article) clearly suggesting that the Israel lobby exerts a dangerous degree of control over the U.S. Congress and a Guardian report characterizing President George W. Bush’s presumed deference to the Jewish state as slave-like.
The first two paragraphs of McGreal’s latest anti-Zionist screed (Rachel Corrie verdict exposes Israeli military mindset“, August 28th) lays bare the extremist ideological tick consistently on display at the Guardian: imputing a moral equivalence between Islamist terrorists who intentionally murder innocent civilians and the Jewish object of their malign obsession.
In the context of the Israeli court’s rejection of a lawsuit filed by the family of Rachel Corrie, McGreal writes:
“Reporters covering Israel are routinely confronted with the question: why not call Hamas a terrorist organisation? It’s a fair point. How else to describe blowing up families on buses but terrorism?
But the difficulty lies in what then to call the Israeli army when it, too, at particular times and places, has used indiscriminate killing and terror as a means of breaking Palestinian civilians. One of those places was Rafah, in the southern tip of the Gaza strip, where Rachel Corrie was crushed by a military bulldozer nine years ago as she tried to stop the Israeli army going about its routine destruction of Palestinian homes.”
Even if you were to ignore the details ofthe judge’s decision - as McGreal likely did - which concluded that Corrie’s death was accidental, and rely instead on the most unhinged anti-Zionist accounts, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone other than the McGreal characterize the 2003 incident as an “indiscriminate killing and terror” in a broader IDF strategy meant to break “Palestinian civilians”.
Indeed, such supreme moral inversions – which advance the caricature of a hideously malevolent Jewish state intentionally murdering young innocents – can typically only be found, albeit often in much cruder form, in the Arabic media, and on the fringes of extreme left commentary; such as in the grotesque depictions of Israel found in the cartoons of Carlos Latuff.
In suggesting a moral equivalence between an IDF anti-terror operation aimed at clearing ground to expose hiding places used by terrorists (along the border where, between 2000 and 2003, thousands of terrorist grenade attacks and hundreds of anti-tank missile attacks had already occurred) and Hamas suicide bombings in crowded public places with the sole intention of murdering Jews, McGreal is parroting the most obscene and intellectually unserious leftist anti-Zionist agitprop.
Of course, “intellectually unserious leftist anti-Zionist agitprop” – once exclusively within the domain of unapologetic antisemites – has become a banality, and something more akin to a political brand identity, at the Guardian.
Once again, the aim is to have large numbers of international “activists“ flying in to Ben Gurion airport on one day –in the words of the organisers – as part of the “challenge to Israel’s illegal siege of Palestine”.
“There is no way into Palestine other than through Israeli control points. Israel has turned Palestine into a giant prison, but prisoners have a right to receive visitors.
Welcome to Palestine 2012 will again challenge Israel’s policy of isolating the West Bank while the settler paramilitaries and army commit brutal crimes against a virtually defenceless Palestinian civilian population.”
The similarity of the methodology and rhetoric of this project to that of the Global March to Jerusalem is no coincidence; several of the organisers and endorsers are mutual to both campaigns. In fact, Mazin Qumsiyeh recently put out calls for volunteers for both projects on his blog, claiming that over 1,500 Europeanshave already purchased tickets for April 15th whilst the overall target number appears to be 2,500.
Also on board areRonnie Kasrils (a GMJ endorser),Nurit Peled, John Pilger,Jean Ziegler, Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb ( a GMJ endorser), Susan Abulhawa (a GMJ endorser), Ali Abunimah (whose ‘electronic Intifada’ is promoting the Air Flotilla), Mustafa Barghouti (a GMJ organizer), Abdelfattah Abu Srour of the Al Rowwad Culltural Centre (which supported the 2011 flytilla and the GMJ) and Desmond Tutu(also a GMJ endorser).
Mustafa Barghouti’s ‘Palestinian National Initiative‘ was also an endorser of the Global March to Jerusalem, as was The Siraj Centre (where Mazin Qumsiyeh is a member of the board) and the Palestine Justice Network which is currently involved in the organization of the Air Flotilla. The Palestine Justice Network solicits donations through the International Solidarity Campaign-linked ‘Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between People’, of which Qumsiyeh is head.
In April 2011 the Palestine Justice Network launched its‘One State Initiative’ and as can be seen from the endorsements, many of the names also appear on the list of those supporting or organising the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign, as well as on the list of signatories of the Stuttgart Declaration.
In short, as was the case with the organisers of the Global March to Jerusalem, the Air Flotilla initiators are united by their rejection of the internationally-accepted route of negotiations aimed at leading to a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Their aim is an imposed ‘one-state solution’ which would result in the end of self-determination for the Jewish people.
A list of foreign organisations endorsing the Air Flotilla – predominantly from the United Kingdom – can be seen here. Among the individual endorsers is Maha Rahwanji of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign executive committee. The PSC was of courseheavily involved in the organization of the Global March to Jerusalem. Something of Rahwanji‘s mindset can beunderstood from her Twitter timeline.
Unsurprisingly, the Iranian regime-linked ‘Islamic Human Rights Commission’ based in the UK is also promotingthe ‘Welcome to Palestine’ project, as is Iran’s ‘Press TV’ – according to which “[t]his year, the Welcome to Palestine movement aims to overwhelm Israeli officials by its sheer number of members”.
The ‘Welcome to Palestine’ campaign has no qualms about using the false – and highly charged – canard of ‘apartheid’ on its official website in order to curry support.
“Plans are underway to challenge Israeli apartheid during 2012 by having a large number of international activists land in Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.”
The campaign’s supporting Twitter account – described as an ‘awareness campaign’ – goes even further, propagating lies and descending into anti-Semitic Nazi analogies.
The end-game of the ‘Welcome to Palestine’ Air Flotilla is, however, revealed in this Tweet:
One of the people operating the ‘Airflotilla2′ Twitter account and its online campaign in general is Gaza Strip-born Ayman Qwaider who is currently resident in Spain.
Before leaving Gaza to study abroad, Qwaider worked for the ‘European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza’ – a Hamas/Muslim Brotherhood project which is headed by UK-based Hamas operative Mohammed Sawalha. Sawalha was instrumental in the organization of both the 2010 and 2011 flotillas and was also one of the organisers of the Global March to Jerusalem.
Part of the online support campaign for the ‘Airflotilla2′ initiative includes an e-mail campaign aimed at members of Parliament.
“Palestinians resist. The British Government, however, joins with Israel to isolate the Palestinians while they are being dispossessed. The UK Government, for example, refused to support the recent successful Palestinian bid to join UNESCO in the teeth of bitter US and Israeli opposition. The UK Government has also signalled it will oppose the Palestinian bid for full membership of the UN.
When our governments endorse illegal Israeli occupation, concerned citizens need to take action.”
The main difference between the Airflotilla2 and the Global March to Jerusalem is that the former is designed to appeal primarily – thoughnot exclusively - to European audiences, as reflected in its campaigning andpublicity which includes websites and advertising in various European languages.
Events were held in Paris , Brussels and other European cities earlier this year to promote the campaign.
The final speaker in the video – Jaques Neno of the EJE (Les Enfants, le Jeu et l’Education) is also one of the project’s organisers, along with George N Rishmawi – co-founder of International Solidarity Movement (ISM), head of the International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC), coordinator of the Siraj Centreand a former board member of the Palestinian Centre for Rapprochement between Peoples. As stated above, Airflotilla2 and GMJ organizer Mazin Qumsiyeh is connected to both the latter organisations.
Neno tells potential participants that they should expect three possible scenarios. The first is that they will get arrested. In that case, according, to him “you have won because when Israel puts you in prison it shows how it becomes more and more fascist”.
The second scenario involves the activists being prevented from boarding their flights at the point of departure, as happened in many cases in 2011, but which Neno appears to consider unlikely this year. The third scenario is that they will reach their destination.
Obviously, provocation and bad public relations for Israel are yet again the real name of the game and several factors suggest that this latest publicity stunt aimed at undermining Israel’s legitimacy should not be taken lightly.
One of these factors is the date which, although originally planned to coincide with the anniversary of the death of ISM activist Vittorio Arrigoni, is also the day after the end of the Pessach holiday when Ben Gurion airport will be particularly busy with a large volume of travelers. For example, the UK airline Jet2 has added an additional flight to its usual schedule on that day which is probably aimed at returning Pessach visitors to Manchester, but is likely to be used by ‘Airflotilla2′ activists from Scotland and the north of England.
Another factor is the unverified claim by ‘Welcome to Palestine’ organisers (Palestine Justice Network) that following the 2011 flytilla during which the majority of activists were not permitted to board their flights, “[a]s a result of legal challenges, many European airlines not only fully refunded the tickets, but also agreed not to repeat the incident.” In the event that airlines will refuse to transport the activists, demonstrations are already being planned.
TheBritish governmenthas similarly advised against participation in the project, but such recommendations are unlikely to make much of an impression on these activists, as can be seen by the reaction of the French organisers.
“We have no illusions about our leaders and the fact they eat in the hand of the Israeli occupation. We know how they behaved in July, and more generally how they refuse to apply international law and the principle of reciprocity, then they leave to enter France all Israelis who wish, including criminals war. They do not even defend French diplomats when they are humiliated, beaten or injured by the police or the IDF.”
“The method of intimidation will not work. Participants in the mission “Welcome to Palestine” have the right, justice and morality on their side. And they are aware of the seriousness of the situation for the Palestinians, every day more persecuted and dispossessed. They are not ashamed to go visit them. And to do head high, without lying, without going into the game of the occupant, which would wipe out Palestine and the Palestinians.
Gentlemen of the Quai d’Orsay, gentlemen of the government, history will record that you do not have much dignity.”
On the publicity front, the involvement of Ali Abunimah in this campaign means that we are likely to see a far more intense level of activity, particularly on social networks, than was the case with the Global March to Jerusalem which Abunimah and others shunned.
UPDATE, April 11th:
The full ‘Welcome to Palestine’ programme of events can be seen here. The stated aims of the project – building a school and a museum and refurbishing a kindergarten – appear to be confined to one day of activity, with the rest of the week’s visit dedicated to trips to various destinations and a seminar on the subject of “How to End the Occupation?”.
The organisation hoping to build a museum on the history of Palestinian refugees is the Al Rowwad Centre which was alsoinvolved in the organisation of the 2011 flytilla, is party to the BDS movement and was an endorser of the Global March to Jerusalem. Pictured below is one of its vehicles, bearing a logo which clearly rejects a negotiated two-state solution.
The official Twitter account of the UK Foreign Office, deciding to weigh in on hip hop, linked to a video by an anti-Zionist British political rapper named Shadia Mansour.
The video consists of hateful anti-Zionist propaganda, through both lyrics and images, and includes still frames of cartoons from the notorious Carlos Latuff suggesting that Israel is a Nazi like states which intentionally targets Palestinian children.
As Harry’s Place has commented, the video further asserts that the profits from various non-Israeli global companies (who were founded or believed to be currently run by Jews) goes directly to Israel, evoking conspiracy theories about international Jewish domination:
‘Every coin is a bullet, if you’re Marks and Spencer, And when you’re sipping Coca-Cola, That’s another pistol in the holster of them soulless soldiers, You say you know about the Zionist lobby, But you put money in their pocket when you’re buying their coffee, Talking about revolution, sitting in Starbucks’
It claims that Israel is a genocidal state:
‘How many more children have to be annihilated Israel is a terror state, they’re terrorists that terrorise, I testify, my television televised them telling lies, This is not a war, it is systematic genocide’
One day I was running from the truth, To speed me up they gave me these shoes, So tie my feet with Nike’s, Tell me lies about the 11th of September, … It was the planes. Not controlled demolition, The BBC didn’t report the explosion of Building 7, 20 minutes before hand, on my television, They found passport’s and plane flying manuals belonging to terrorists in the rubble. That all makes perfect sense
Naturally, a Guardian Music review of rap artists, in Nov. 2010, included this commentary by Kieran Yates:
For current UK sounds, I’d go for the political punch of Lowkey’s Long Live Palestine.
Associate a political activist with the bucolic imagery evoked by the term “Arab Spring” – a movement whose often decidedly illiberal aspects are routinely ignored by the Guardian and most of the MSM - and, no matter how compromised the person is by a quite reactionary ideological orientation, the halo effect is secured.
The Guardian’s Jack Shenker, writing in the Art and Culture section, “Carlos Latuff: The voice of Tripoli – Live from Rio“, Aug. 22, bestows upon Latuff the honor of “progressive” political cartoonist in service of the “democratic” ideals of the Arab revolution.
Shenker benignly characterizes Latuff, thusly:
“a Brazilian cartoonist who has become an unlikely star of the Arab spring – and, more recently, cartoonist to protests and conflicts around the world. A smiling, shaven-haired 42-year-old who still lives with his parents in Rio.”
Shenker, later in the piece, says:
“Latuff has become known for his support of the Palestinian cause; some campaigners claim his work is antisemitic. “Part of the supposed ‘evidence’ for my antisemitism is the fact that I’ve used the Star of David, which is a symbol of Judaism,” he says wearily.
Of course, Shenker, conventiently fails to note the extreme left activist’s well-documented record of not merely “using the Star of David”, but publishing cartoons which demonstrate an obsessive, visceral, and vicious hatred of Israel which, quite often, employ the Star of David to characterize the Jewish state as morally equivalent to Nazi Germany - imagery which often devolves into other expressions of outright anti-Semitism.
When he’s not using his “art” to promote the Arab Spring he can be seen advancing racist depicitions of Jews and, on at least one occasion, African Americans.
His body of work pertaining to Israel and the Palestinians evokes an immutably villainous Jewish state similar to what can be found in the most anti-Semitic Arab media – and include clear assertions that Israelis take pleaseure in murdering innocent Palestinian children.
Israel as Nazi Germany: Here’s one out of dozens of Latuff cartoons which portary Israel as the new Nazi Germany and Israeli Jews the new Nazis.
He’s also not beyond illustrations containing even more explicit anti-Semitism.
Dual Loyalty and conspiratorial notions of Jewish control: The Jewish lobby (and/or Israel) controls the U.S. government
Jewish supremacism: Mockery and distortion of Jews as the chosen people
As this blog continually documents, the greatest and most dangerous ideolgocial vice of Guardian commentators, reporters, and correspondents is not, per se, explicit expressions of anti-Semitism but, rather, anti-Semitic sins of omission: Their capacity to ignore those who advance clear and unambiguous Judeophobic narratives.
In this case, the Guardian’s Jack Shenker could have easily, with a few Google hits, uncovered Latuff’s record of using his political cartoons in the service of evoking hateful narratives of Jews and Israel.
Editors of a paper which truly championed liberal values would never have white washed such rank bigotry.
Our post called out Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson on a depiction of President Obama which included a chain tied around his neck, being pulled by white Republicans, which suggested either that the black President is acting like a slave by making political concessions to his political opponents or that Republican activists are treating America’s first black President as a slave.
We then noted that even more explicit slave imagery in depictions of Obama have been employed by extreme anti-Semitic political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff.
“According to one of Britain’s zionist watch dogs, yes. A site called CIF Watch (monitoring and exposing antisemitism on the Guardian newspaper’s ‘Comment is Free Blog) has determined that myself and Carlos Latuff are not only antisemites, we are racists as well.”
They then quote from my post, where I noted, ”the…narrative [that Obama is acting like a slave in concessions he's made to his opponents] has been advanced quite explicitly by the extreme left political cartoonist, Carlos Latuff.Either way, the viciousness and gross racial insensitivity of such imagery is simply undeniable.”
The blogger at Desert Peace then notes:
Pretty amusing when a zionist (who is a racist by definition) calls full-time anti racists ‘vicious and grossly racially insensitive’ [emphasis mine]
So, just to be clear, here’s the cartoon that Carlos – the full-time anti racist – Latuff published:
Then, below the line, Latuff himself chimed in:
Yup. That’s anti-racism for you.
If a right-wing troll wanted to invent a blog to discredit the extreme left, it would likely look a lot like Desert Peace.
(Final note: Included in Desert Peace’s recommended links is the Guardian.)
No, it’s not surprising that the openly pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic UK group, MEMO (Middle East Monitor) interviewed political cartoonist Carlos Latuff.
Latuff is one of the most prolific anti-Israel activists, who, in his work, frequently and explicitly compares Israel to Nazi Germany, portrays Israelis as taking pleasure in the death of Palestinian babies, and draws without inhibition on anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Latuff is also, evidently, deemed perfectly respectable by the Guardian, as they posted a cartoon of his during the Palestine Papers series (in the context of Guardian editorials suggesting that Abbas sold-out on the “rights” of Palestinian Refugees) depicting PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a gun wielding, sinister looking Orthodox Jew - thus legitimizing the odious notion that Jews and/or Israelis represent the nadir of moral betrayal.
However, the following exchange between the MEMO interviewer, Dr. Hanan Chehata, and Latuff is worth noting, as its well beyond caricature.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
So, for Latuff, what he’s engaging in when publishing his cartoons is mere respectful criticism, which is acceptable, and which is far different than “attacks”, which are off-limits.
So, by virtue of this no doubt well-developed moral calculus, which ethically distinguishes between respectful political critiques and hateful attacks, Latuff’s following depiction, entitled “Baby Killer Zombies“, would naturally fall in the former category.
Even Harriet Sherwood could not find much to say about the non-event which was the apprehension of the one remaining ‘Freedom Flotilla 2′ boat this afternoon off Israel’s coast. The fifteen foot ‘Dignite al Karama’, sailing under the French flag and having set sail originally from Corsica, departed Crete on Saturday with only three journalists, ten activists and a crew of four aboard. It was, of course, not even pretending to carry any aid.
Among the passengers were Dror Feiler of ‘European Jews for a Just Peace’ and the Swedish Boat to Gaza campaign, fellow passenger also on the 2010 flotillaVangelis Pissias, no fewer than two spokesmen for the ‘French Ship to Gaza’ campaign, a couple of French politicians – one communist, one Green – and Omeyya (Oumaya) Seddik of the Tunisian FTCR.
The captain of the yacht had reportedly declared to the Greek authorities prior to departure that his destination was an Egyptian port of, but predictably, upon being challenged by the Israeli navy, his destination suddenly changed to Gaza.
Apparently, it is an offence under Greek law for a vessel to proceed to a port different to the one for which it has received authorization to sail and on that basis the Israeli NGO ‘Shurat HaDin’ has already registered a complaint with the Greek coastguard.
As the Israeli navy boarded the boat, the Twittersphere was of course humming with weird and wonderful interpretations of ‘international law’ and ‘piracy’. Notably, ‘journavist’ Joseph Dana – whose intentions to sail aboard the American boat had come to nothing – was whipping up fervor among his followers early on in the day with one of his signature snide insinuations.
Given the use of a drawing by Carlos Latuff and other offensive antisemitic imagery on that website, it is significant thatthe poster being advertised in the Tweet urges its readers to join the Palestine Solidarity Campaign or Jews for Justice for Palestinians – no strangers to maritime escapades of their own. Equally interesting (and by now, unsurprising) is the fact that the sender of the UKFPI Tweet, Adam Flude, would appear to have connections to Amnesty International.
As the Dignite al Karama was directed to Ashdod port, having come peacefully under Israeli control without the slightest resistance by the activists,calls were issued by flotilla organizers and sympathizers for supporters to hit the streets with demonstrations throughout Europe and North America.
Adding to the surrealism of the desperate attempts by flotilla organizers and supporters to milk some kind of media exposure from the whole non-event of the flotilla flop, Hamas issued a statement condemning the seizure of the boat and calling the action “piracy, a war crime and a violation of the principles of human rights”. Not to be outdone, the Arab League took time off from doing nothing about the killing of Syrian, Yemeni and Bahraini citizens to issue its own condemnation of what it termed “an act of piracy” and to demand action from the international community and the UN Security Council.
Whether or not today’s events mark the end of this year’s flotilla season remains to be seen, but certainly we can already come to the conclusion that much has been learned and internalized on the Israeli side since the 2010 flotilla. The diplomatic efforts, the legal actions by ‘Shurat HaDin’ and others, the intensive training on the part of the IDF and its vastly increased efficiency in getting information out almost in real-time have all contributed to make this summer’s flotilla provocation a resounding failure.
When even the Guardian barely gives the flotilla the time of day, something is working well.
There are many absurd charges leveled against Israel and her supporters but, of these, perhaps the most comical are suggestions, in one form or another, that “you’re not allowed” to criticize Israel, Israel isn’t criticized enough, Israel is spared its share of critical scrutiny, and the Jewish state behaves with something approaching moral impunity.
Yet, Peter Beaumont, the World Affairs Editor for The Observer, The Guardian’s sister publication, recently published a CiF essay, Israel’s right to exist doesn’t mean it can act with impunity, which not only suggests that Israel’s behavior could reasonably be seen as eroding its legitimacy but also complains that “[Israel's supporters] make an essentially undemocratic argument utilising Israel’s right to exist as an argument for impunity.”
Of course, this is classic straw man, as those who passionately defend Israel never make anything even approaching such an argument but, rather, have demanded that Israel not be held to a higher standard than other nations.
How do we quantify such egregious double standards which are consistently employed against Israel?
United Nations
Since the UN Human Rights Council’s founding in 2006 (the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights), more than 80%of all the UNHRC’s condemnatory resolutions (27 out of 33) have been against Israel – the only nation in the Middle East listed as free year after year by Freedom House.
From 2009-2010, the U.N. General Assembly passed 22 resolutions that were “one-sided or blatantly anti-Israel,”while a mere handful of the UN’s other 191 countries have been cited only once. And, of their 10 emergency sessions, six were about Israel. No emergency sessions were held on the Rwandan genocide, ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia or the two decades of atrocities in Sudan.
The UK Media
Closer to Beaumont’s home,a report by Just Journalism on the UK media’s coverage of the Middle East demonstrated the following about the Guardian:
Guardian coverage of Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined and doubled in 2010, but still fell far short of the total coverage of Israel.
News reporting about Israel by the Guardian in 2010 was nearly six times the volume of the next most reported Arab country, Egypt.
Comment is Free pieces in 2010 on Egypt, Libya and Tunisia combined to less than half those published about Israel.
Sixteen Guardian editorials were published on Israel, whereas none were published on Egypt, Libya or Tunisia.
Just Journalism’s report also found similar biased coverage by the BBC and Daily Telegraph.
NGOs
In the NGO world – as NGO Monitor is continually demonstrating – groups which claim a humanitarian non-political agenda often spend a disproportionate amount of energy and resources singling our democratic Israel for condemnation.
This graph byNGOM on country specific reports by Amnesty International, in 2010, is quite instructive.
Indeed, the Guardian’s own data for 2010 (stories by country tags) demonstrated Israel not only fails to escape critical scrutiny but, indeed, such criticism – at the Guardian, as in much of the MSM – often rises to the level of obsession.
No serious observer of the Middle East can honestly believe that Israel acts with impunity – which I guess speaks volumes of The Observer’s World Affairs Editor.
At a recent session of the UN Human Rights Council a UN-accredited NGO with terrorist affiliations (IHH) distributed a publication containing the following picture:
This image (published during the flotilla incident in June) – of a demonic Israel, with the swastika substituted for the star of David on the Israeli flag, as an octopus strangling freedom-loving innocents – was created by the notorious anti-Semitic cartoonist Carlos Latuff.
Latuff is an extreme left-wing political activist who won second place in the notorious Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Competition, and is one of the more prolific anti-Israel cartoonists on the web, with a staggering amount of work dedicated to advancing explicitly anti-Semitic political imagery - and frequently illustrates comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany.
(Also, of note, a regular blogger at the site, Mondoweiss, posted, in early June, the very same “Octopus” cartoon shown above.)
As we noted previously, Latuff’s work has been posted on various radical left websites and blogs, as well as several terrorist affiliated websites such as ‘The Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance’ (JAMI) magazine.
So Latuff’s hateful depictions have been employed by quite a wide range of extremists: the anti-Zionist Jewish left, radical Islamist NGOs, and even publications of Islamist terrorist movements.
Latuff is also the same “artist” published by the Guardian during their “Palestine Papers” series to depict Mahmoud Abbas as a gun-toting sinister-looking Orthodox Jewish “settler”, to advance the view that Abbas was a traitor for allegedly showing a willingness to make concessions with Israel – a cartoon which reinforced the abhorrent pejorative depictions of Orthodox Jews used frequently in anti-Semitic caricatures throughout the Middle East.
Today’s Guardian “Palestine Papers” update included the following illustration by one of the most prolific anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic cartoonists, Carlos Latuff – depicting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as a sinister looking (gun wielding) Orthodox Jew. (The Guardian casually referred to Latuff as “a Brazilian based cartoonist.”)
As I noted previously (in a piece for the JCPA, as well as a guest post for Elder of Ziyon), Latuff is a Brazilian political “activist” and cartoonist with an impressively large portfolio of work – much of which openly express anti-Semitic themes. Some of his caricatures seem to suggest that Israel is a unique and immutable evil in the world. His work includes imagery frequently suggesting a moral equivalence between Israel and Nazi Germany – and he has explicitly acknowledged that this is indeed his political view.
Latuff’s work has been posted on various radical left websites and blogs, as well as several terrorist affiliated websites such as ‘The Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance’ (JAMI) magazine. Norman Finkelstein’s official website has alsofeatured Latuff cartoons. As I noted in my Elder of Ziyon post, a blogger at the site, Mondoweiss, made use of one of Latuff’s cartoons during the flotilla incident. (Scroll down to bottom to see link to Latuff‘s cartoon)
Latuff’s notoriety includes his participation in the 2006 Iranian International Holocaust Cartoon Competition – for his cartoon comparing the Israeli West Bank security barrier with the Nazi concentration camps. Latuff placed second in the contest.
In their 2003 Annual Report, the Stephen Roth Institute compared Latuff’s cartoons of Ariel Sharon to the antisemitic caricatures of Philipp Rupprecht in Julius Streicher’s Der Stürmer.
Even the Guardian’s Ian Black noted that Latuff was among those cartoonists “drawing, without inhibition, on judeophobic stereotypes in the service of the anti-globalisation movement.”
Latuff also has employed racist themes in service of his critiques of President Barack Obama.
Here is some of Latuff’s work:
The Latuff cartoon above, showing Sharon kissing Hitler, appeared on the (Washington) DC Indymedia site.
