Email this page by Emails or Bookmarks or Address
Book, to friend/s Enjoy!
| ;
Click here to
send this page securely safely and freely to a
friend or friends.
Enjoy!
New Zealand cartoonist and censorship. The Herald was traditionally seen as a staid centre-right newspaper, and given the nickname "Granny Herald" into the 1990s. This changed with the acquisition of the paper by Independent News & Media in 1996, and today the Herald is generally editorially centre-left on international geopolitics, diplomacy, and military matters, often printing material from British newspapers such as The Independent and The Observer, while remaining free enterprise oriented on economic matters such as trade and foreign investment. Some ascribe the Herald's stance on the Middle East as supportive of Israel, seen most clearly in its 2003 censorship and dismissal of cartoonist Malcolm Evans following his submission of cartoons critical of Israel. [5] On the other hand, Robert Fisk and Gwynne Dyer, commentators critical of Israel, are also regular commentators in the paper. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzherald.co.nz#cite_note-4 8 Responses to “Malcolm Evans, Kiwi cartoonist, fired for anti-zionist cartoons”
.................................................................................................
By Barbara
Sofer Say the words "New Zealand" in a crowd of young adult Israelis and you'll see the yearning in their eyes. They might live in Jerusalem or Petah Tikva, but they can describe New Zealand's spectacular scenery, raw beauty and amazing wildlife. They know places with names like Wanganui and Tongariro, and the Kaikoura coast. Not only is New Zealand exotic and beautiful, but - best of all - it is far, far away. A place to unwind. As the sabras say: "It cleans the head." A song by the popular group Ethnics says it all: "To be in New Zealand, and to hear cannons only on the queen's birthday." A place to forget the conflict. Sophie doesn't see it quite like that. You see, she was born in New Zealand. And yes, being young and fit, she certainly appreciates the surf and sand and vistas. But together with her fondness for New Zealand, she heard an ancient melody drawing her in another direction, even while she was in high school, one among a handful of Jews in a school with 1,600 girls. At 23, she heard about the free trips to Israel offered by birthright israel. Coming all the way from New Zealand for 10 days seemed a little silly. Would it be all right if she came with birthright, but then stayed on? Instead of 10 days, she spent 10 months. Then she went back to New Zealand and returned to Jerusalem as a new immigrant. As she went through the immigration process - learning Hebrew, making friends, finding housing and work - she kept up on New Zealand by checking the website of her local paper, the New Zealand Herald. She bonded with Israel in the years of terror. The Hadassah office where she works as a senior secretary is right on the corner of Jaffa and Rav Kook streets - Israel's equivalent of Ground Zero. Her reading taste has changed some. She's been swapping Primo Levi with friends. Somewhere along the line, her "tolerance level for anti-Semitism dropped precipitously." Living in Jerusalem, she now realized how much space was lavished on what was happening around the corner from her. The so-called Kiwi slant on the Middle East. One political cartoonist, Malcolm Evans, caught her eye for the anti-Israel venom of his pen. A recent cartoon showed a disaster area with the second "A" in "apartheid" rendered as a Star of David. Another recent cartoon on the Internet showed Uncle Sam on a psychiatrist's couch. "I keep having this nightmare in which Arabs and Israel realize they have more in common with each other than with us, and want to renegotiate our access to oil. The balding psychiatrist with a large nose in the chair, thinks, "What do you mean "us," you goy!" Sophie was offended. "I am a New Zealander living in Israel," she wrote the Herald. "I frequently check the NZ Herald website for news from home, and to see how news from abroad is reported. When I saw Tuesday's cartoon in which a Jewish 'shrink' refers in a thought bubble to Uncle Sam as a 'goy,' something struck me as slightly disturbing: As if it is not enough that Americans seem to consider that, following September 11, suspicion of Arab Americans is now justified, this cartoon suggests that Jews are new enemies inside. "This kind of depiction only feeds the belief that Jews cannot be loyal members of another society; that Semitic ties will always prevent them from being fully worthy of a nation's trust. I like to think that New Zealanders are above race-based suspicions, pigeon-holing and name-calling; I feel like yesterday's cartoon proved me wrong." To her surprise, a rapid reply came from Evans himself, to whom the letters editor must have forwarded her epistle. "Thanks for writing regarding my cartoon in Tuesday's Herald. I'm sorry you took a throwaway line (a common theme of Jewish comedians) as the cartoon's message, especially when its purpose was in fact quite the opposite," wrote Evans. "Although I have done many anti-Israel cartoons, on this occasion I sought to plant another idea: Far from fomenting racial distrust, my cartoon hypothesized that Israeli Jews and Arabs might someday recognize that, as common descendants of Abraham, they have more in common with each other than with Uncle Sam, and wondered what the ramifications might be. "Still, if you think people will take an anti-Jewish message from my cartoon, I shudder to think what effect the news of barbaric Israeli occupation and confiscation of land, the uprooting of ancient olive groves, the destruction of villages, the ghettoizing of communities behind a monstrous wall, and the new law barring the marriage of Israeli Arabs do non-Israeli Arabs, might have." Sophie passed along Evans's reply to rabbis and Jewish community leaders and friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, in New Zealand and elsewhere. The "goy" line had been cut from the print edition, she was told. "I'm relieved/impressed" said Sophie, "but it's on the Internet, where it will have a much longer shelf-life." She felt a gap with some of the people she'd left behind. "I've so far received a few replies from people I initially wrote to about this, most saying they don't bother to do anything about it, or they don't think it's that bad, or that it's anti-Israel but not anti-Semitic, and I've found this extremely disappointing. "The cartoon is subtle and amusing, and therein lies its power: No one except a Jew would even look twice at it, and even a Jew looking twice obviously doesn't always think it's objectionable. So the message is absorbed into acceptable discourse and vocabulary, and there it stays." Sophie's words seem to have struck home. The Auckland Jewish Council used Evans's answer to her to lodge a complaint with the Race Relations Office against Evans for inciting racial issues. (Sophie "burns the books".) And what do you know? Shortly after her letter of complaint, Evans parted ways from the New Zealand Herald, the newspaper confirmed. For legal reasons, it is prevented from saying why. We don't need a cartoon to spell it out. Sophie doesn't want to take credit. "Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel's back," she says. Sophie: "We are known as the chosen people, but a better name might be the choosing people. You can choose to be an insider in this people, or to assimilate into the pack. How you choose always has ramifications." End of Sophie's triumph over art and literature. And cute Babs Sofer also! Love ya girls. xxx ............................................................................................. Brian John Evans reply: "Chosen people"? I say think again! You have just proved Malcolm Evans' claim , Sophie, that zionists are racist and do apartheid, big walls and all on poor people, like the unchosen jews were once , under the nazi heel, say in the Warsaw ghetto? When it was the nazis who were "the chosen" and were killing you? , after of course "choosing people". Shalom sugar. xxx And guess what - I am jewish! Brian John Evans ........................................................................................... zionists witch-hunt Australia’s leading cartoonistBy Richard Phillips
|
Email this page by Emails or Bookmarks or Address
Book, to friend/s Enjoy!
Very poignant and right on in many cases although a bit OTT. I knew many of these and did not know that it was he who drew them. I tip my hat off to the guy as he is quite gutsy in drawing such cartoons.
Must send him a message and wish many Palestinians would do so. We have very few true friends on the world who are not anti-Semitic or use the Palestine problem to advance their own agendas. I would even say that our number of friends from within the Palestinian community itself is diminishing.
“Wherever there is conflict in the world, even in Afghanistan and Iraq, it all comes back to Israel” he says. That is infuriating and wrong . And even if the person saying it doesn’t think he is anti-Semitic, it is anti-Semitic, because it suggests, again, and as always, that the Jews are THE problem, THE cause for ALL conflict. It’s just absurd that anyone would make this weepy video about a man who calmly and seriously attributes all the conflict in the world to one source, whatever it is.
How many cartoons showing Israel controlling the US (and hence, I guess, everything) do you need to see before bells go off in your head reminding you of past anti-Semitic propaganda? Didn’t you know? The Jews controlled Poland. They controlled Russia. They control the entire economic system today and, psssst, did you here, Lehman Brothers send 400 BILLION to Israel banks before its collapse. Pssst, didn’t you know? Mossad agents caused 9-11. No Jews showed up to work that day. Psssst, didn’t you know, if only Israel were “solved”, there would be NO CONFLICT IN THE WORLD!
For f*ck’s sake.
Israel is not the root of all conflict in the world. It is just what western leftists like this cartoonist like to blame everything on.
Just because he’s clever and is a talented illustrator doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve to be fired. Unfortunately, his firing and soft, contemplative tone allows him to be made into a martyr for free speech and blah blah blah.
Cry me a river Dan.
If there was something terribly off the mark in what I said (aside from my typos), I’d be interested. This cartoonist and a lot of people who think like him attribute all the world’s ill to Israel. They pretend it’s ok, that it’s somehow different from old conspiracies, because it’s “anti-zionist” not “anti-Jewish”. It may be different in tone or in approach but it is not different in effect and would not be different in outcome.
Dan,
Is the settler colonialism practiced by Israel a problem?
Could Israeli actions turning Palestinians into less than citizens on their own land Apartheid-esque? That’s what this cartoonist is suggesting. Seems like what this illustrator was arguing doesn’t hinge on Israel “being the root of all evil”.
Suggesting that Israel and their allies in the Jewish-American community exercise a tremendous amount of control over US foreign policy in the Middle East (especially as it relates to the Israel-Palestine conflict) is far from an anti-Semitic canard. One need only review the events of the past 25 years to find innumerable examples that support that claim. Start with the Regan administration and work your way forward.
Dan, your comments show you engaging in a subtle form of debate that effectively narrows the discussion to the point where anyone who criticizes or seeks to review the power of Israel is automatically engaging in anti-Semitic rhetoric. Frankly, i believe this is becoming as worn an argument as the anti-Semitic ones that you suggest are at the root of these cartoons. With such power and strength, it is very hard for Israel, or any of its apologists, to argue its simply a victim defending its right to exist.
Very Gutsy political cartoonist. Drawings are well to their point.
http://www.yourarabconnection.com/
Dan,
You are missing the point of course there are major conflicts in the world unconnected to Israel. But as far as the Arab and Muslim world is concerned the double standard that is clear to see has enabled a serious conflicts spawned by the occupation of Palestine to dominate the world’s stage. To such a point of blanking out even bigger catastrophies such as in the Congo.
Howard Simon Marks
http://www.howardsimonmarks.com
Suggesting that Israel and their allies in the Jewish-American community exercise a tremendous amount of control over US foreign policy in the Middle East
I just want to add Israel gets more material support from evangelical christian zionists in the US than from jewish organizations, who for some reason are often left out of the discussion.
The Herald's position in relation to the actions of the Israeli government was clearly set out in an editorial published on 19th June 2003. Mr Evans' cartoons have always been judged on the basis enunciated in that editorial (a copy of which follows).
Gavin Ellis
Editor-in-Chief
Editorial: A necessary distinction
19.06.2003
The correspondence columns of the Herald have over the past few days lambasted this newspaper for publishing a cartoon by Malcolm Evans on the Israeli Palestinian conflict. The cartoon suggested that the situation on the West Bank amounted to apartheid. It was a cartoon that sought to criticise the policy of the Israeli Government and in so doing it included the Star of David. While the Israeli national flag embodies the same symbol, and national emblems are often used to symbolise governments, the Star of David is also representative of the Jewish religion.
The Herald is at pains to separate the policies and actions of an elected government from one of the world's great religions. For this reason the cartoon was not our preferred choice and another was submitted by the cartoonist. Unfortunately, in our production processes the original cartoon found its way into the newspaper. That is something that we regret.
The incident has, however, highlighted a fundamental issue faced by news media, and the public in relation to this conflict in the Middle East.
Criticism of Israel is, in the minds of some, criticism of all of Judaism. Yes, there are some for whom that may be the case; people whose views are driven by prejudice. That is not to say, however, that all criticism of the Israeli government's policy in relation to Palestinians is based on such prejudice, Far from it. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of those policies, just as Palestinians can be called to account for their unacceptable retribution on innocent Israeli citizens.
This newspaper is not anti-Semitic and stands against such prejudice. No right-thinking person could condone what has for ages been a blight on Western civilisation. However, it will continue to allow in its columns the legitimate scrutiny and censure of policies and actions on both sides of that most regrettable of conflicts between Israel and the would-be state of Palestine. We will expect critics of those policies and actions to be as mindful of the need to protect the sanctity of the Jewish faith as recent events have made us.