Although Kotek (whose book “Cartoons and Extremism” is reviewed above) thanks the cartoonists whose work he has published for their “friendly collaboration,” he never contacted Latuff. With such a heavy presence in “Cartoons and Extremism,” and without a response from any of the cartoonists exhibited, it seemed of value to try and make contact with one of the cartoonists and have him speak for himself. Easy to find, Latuff responded quickly to queries about his controversial cartoon work.
Eddy Portnoy: You frequently use the Holocaust as a metaphor to criticize Israeli policies. This is seen as an inaccurate comparison and deliberately hurtful to Jews. Can you further explain your use of this metaphor?
Carlos Latuff: As a cartoonist, I feel comfortable enough to make any comparison I think necessary that expresses my point. Metaphors are the key point to political cartooning. Of course Israel isn’t building gas chambers in the West Bank, but surely we can find some similarities between the treatment given to Palestinians by the [Israel Defense Forces] and the Jews under Nazi rule. Inaccurate or not, it’s important to highlight that such comparisons have been made worldwide not only by cartoonists, but by people such as Yosef “Tommy” Lapid, Ariel Sharon’s former justice minister and a Holocaust survivor (deceased in June of 2008). He said in 2004, during an interview, that a photo of an elderly Palestinian woman searching through rubble reminded him of his grandmother who died in Auschwitz. For me, this is more painful than comparisons of how Palestinians live under Israeli occupation.
E.P.: “Cartoons and Extremism” argues that you use a “medieval and modern antisemitic grammar and vocabulary,” meaning you apply traditional antisemitic motifs to modern political situations. What is your response to this?
C.L.: Israel apologists have frequently compared my cartoons with those published in the Nazi paper Der Stürmer. Let’s have a close look at the Der Stürmer’s cartoonist’s role and mine. Philipp Rupprecht, pen name Fips, dedicated almost 20 years of his life to making only Jew-hating ‘toons for a paper for which the motto was “Jews are our disgrace.” My cartoons have no focus on the Jews or on Judaism. My focus is Israel as a political entity, as a government, their armed forces being a satellite of U.S. interests in the Middle East, and especially Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors of Palestinians. If they were Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, I would criticize them the same way. I made cartoons about George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair, Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico’s former president), Pinochet, and none of them was Jewish.
I produce political cartoons on different issues, both local (Brazilian) and international, for trade union papers in Brazil and many alternative, progressive, leftist-oriented publications around the world. My detractors say that the use of the Magen David in my Israel-related cartoons is irrefutable proof of antisemitism; however, it’s not my fault if Israel chose sacred religious motifs as national symbols, such as the Knesset Menorah or the Star of David = in killing-machines like F-16 jets. I can’t be blamed for making an Israeli bomb-dropping warbird adorned with a religious symbol, because that’s the way Israeli air force planes are. To say my cartoons are a remake of the past antisemitic imagery is just another well-known strategy for discrediting criticisms regarding Israel.
E.P.: Is the history of antisemitic caricature completely irrelevant when it comes to criticizing Israel?
C.L.: No doubt about real antisemitism. Of course you’ll have people hijacking the Palestinian struggle as a chance for bashing the Jews, like European neo-Nazis who demonstrate against the occupation of Palestinian territories or the Iraq War. It’s important for the left to keep them apart from the legitimate struggle for the rights of the Palestinians; however, saying that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is a well-known tactic of intellectual dishonesty.
E.P.: You participated in the Iran Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which also included many genuinely antisemitic cartoons. Do you feel that being associated with these images and such a deliberate provocation in any way compromises your work?
C.L.: The artwork with which I won second place was a depiction of an elderly Palestinian man wearing a Nazi concentration camp uniform, and some people said that I was “denying the Holocaust”! That was completely stupid, since I’m affirming the Holocaust with that illustration. Believe me, no matter what I draw and where I publish, there will be always someone who will point a finger and say it’s antisemitic.
I saw this contest as both a good chance for denouncing the suffering of the Palestinian people before the eyes of world public opinion and for raising questions about the West’s double standards. I mean, you insult the Muslims with a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a bomber and then claim the right to “freedom of speech,” but if you make drawings about the Holocaust, then it’s “hatred against the Jews.”
Click below for a larger version:
Implicit Critique: The Forward has superimposed Portnoy’s comments about the use of Nazi imagery in cartoons onto an example by Carlos Latuff. Latuff’s political cartoons can be found online at http://latuff2.deviantart.com/gallery.
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A couple of comments. 1. Attacks on Israel become anti-Semitic in two ways: either they unfairly single out the Jewish state for criticism on human rights by those who refuse to condemn the much more severe violations by stridently anti-democratic regimes such as Sudan, Syria, Iran, Saudi,China, Burma, Hamas, Hizballah, etc. (or even worse, unfairly reject the right of the Jewish state to exist, but support the right to existence of other similar states, such as Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Russia, each of which seized the assets of fleeing or exiled minorities during the last 60 years) Or, they attempt to portray "the Jews" as an international conspiracy, or otherwise use anti-JEWISH stereotypes to convince readers/viewers to distrust and hate Jews in general. This is no different from using racist stereotypes against Blacks to encourage hatred of Blacks in general, or stereotypes against Muslims to encourage hatred of Muslims in general, rather than picking on a particular leader or policy. 2. When Israelis make stupid comparisons between IDF soldiers and Nazis, you MUST understand that they do this within a cultural context in which everybody involved has education about the Holocaust, and everyone understands VERY clearly that the IDF, who have bent over backward to avoid mass civilian casualties, though a small percentage of the few thousand Palestinians killed in firefights or air strikes have been civilians, are in fact totally unlike the Nazis, who deliberately murdered 6 million Jews (nearly all unarmed civilians, most helpless prisoners), and a total that is greater than the total number of Palestinians in the world toda). In contrast, when hypocrites like Latuff compare the IDF to the Nazis, they do this in a cultural context outside of Israel, in which the level of ignorance of the Shoah and of the Israel-Palestinian conflict is appallingly high. They do this in a context in which many people, particularly in the Muslim World, ACTUALLY BELIEVE that there is no difference between what the Nazis did and what the IDF does. Latuff knows this, but nevertheless chooses to continue to spread hatred of Jews and Israel. Latuff's self-defense is designed to prey on the ignorant. I cherish some hope that Forward readers understand the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies on the one hand, and anti-Semitic manipulation on the other. Thank you.
When any state engages in the limiting of the rights of human beings, that state leaves itself open to any criticism. Israel is no excepton. Latuff is a genius. Thank you for posting this.
Zvi Simon claims that the IDF "have bent over backward to avoid mass civilian casualties". This is a claim not borne out in reality. To cite but one example, the over 1000 Lebanese civilians killed in the 2006 war. To cite another, the Beit Hanoun massacre. Those of us who rightly criticize Israeli policy do not take your articles of faith about the IDF at face value. If its not deliberate targeting, it would be suspiciously and unusually negligent and militarily incompetent. I know which explanation I am inclined towards.
I'd be very curious to hear from Ann Priestley which army has conducted a war that meets her standards. In other words, which army has managed to wage an armed confrontation, and only soldiers were hurt? She has the right to criticize, of course, but her statement that "those of us who rightly criticize Israeli policy..." is a bit too much. She is criticizing and then she is judging herself as being "right". Here, she could leave the judgement of "right or wrong" to others. I can't imagine anyone else handling this conflict more reasonably than Israel has handled it. Viewing even the record of the USA - not just the 19th century Indian wars, but the 20th century use of atomic weapons on civilians in Japan or the 21st century civilian casualty rates in Iraq - it would seem that the Arab-Israeli confrontation is quite mild. Indeed, it is a very low-intensity conflict by any standard. If the one side of conflict had a different identity (I'll let you guess which side), it wouldn't have merited so much attention.
Latuff is a piece of anti-semitic trash! The Forward needs to apologize for interviewing this nazi piece of sh**!! His third-grade drawings comparing the Jews to the nazis is despicable! He's an Arab Islamofacist who never criticizes the Arab Fakestinians who blow up Jewish women and children on purpose. These Arabs are the modern day nazis! Ann is another anti-semitic monster who lies about Israel. Most of the Lebanese casualties were TERRORISTS! The civilians that were killed were used as human shields by the terrorist group Hizzbollah who started the war! The Israelis casualties were civilians which included a high percentage of Arabs. Ann doesn't care because she hates Jews and loves the terrorists who murder them. Make the world a better place and go jump off a bridge and take the scumbag "cartoonist" with you!
Goebbels had more talent. Why is the Forward promoting this huckster when he has everyone from the Iranian Holocaust deniers to the mainstream Arab and EU press on his side?