The folks at Little Green Footballs are in an uproar over a cartoon again. This recent cartoon, by American cartoonist Tony Auth…
Bears a disturbing resemblance to this one, a Nazi propoganda cartoon from the mid-1930s.
Some folks regard this as proof that the Tony Auth cartoon is “obvious, gut-churning antisemitism.” But I’m not convinced. The Nazi cartoon is unquestionably antisemitic, because it came out in a time when the star of David refered to Jews and to nothing else.
Since then, however, the State of Israel was born, and chose to put the star of David on its flag, as Israel’s official symbol. It is the Israelis – not antisemites – who in this case chose to transform the six-pointed star from a symbol representing Jews to a symbol representing a state and its policies. Once Israel had made that choice, the star of David became fair game for political cartoonists criticizing Israel.
Furthermore, it’s clear that Auth’s cartoon isn’t referring to Jews in general – it’s referring to the Security Fence, a particular policy of the Israeli goverment.
If Israel’s supporters find the politicization of the star of David antisemetic, then they should complain to Israel – not to Tony Auth.
UPDATE: Just ran across this post at Hatcher’s Hack, saying pretty much the same thing I said (but he posted it first). He concludes:
Ampersand, there has been a very similar cartoon by Brito in last week’s “Canard enchaîné”, France’s oldest satirical paper, which has an lefty-to-anarchistic political leaning. The difference was that it showed Sharon standing alone in the middle of the “fenced” star, as a symbol of his absurd auto-isolation.
I couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable when I saw it, because it reminded me all of a sudden of the well-known Seppla cartoon, which has been widely reproduced in every History classbook. Your interpretation is quite rational and convincing, though, as there IS an official Israeli plan to divide the Palestinian land, while the division of Europe allegedly operated by some “Jewish conspiracy” shown in the Nazi cartoon is nothing but a fantasmagorical claim right in the antisemitist tradition of forgeries like the “Protocols of the Wises of Zion” (sorry, I’m not sure about the English title).
It is interesting to see how the same idea came to the mind of at least two cartoonists. I would say they had some unconscious (and, in this case, unfortunate) reminiscence of the “original” cartoon, but I am not sure of how to explain it. I can scan and e-mail you the Brito cartoon, if you want to compare.
P.S.: may I ask if it is on purpose that you did not link to the original LGF post?
Daryl Cagle blogged about these two cartoons not too long ago.
For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Cagle’s cartoon index, he collects political cartoons from various cartoonists around the world and often sorts them into various categories (Michael Jackson, the Fall of Saddam’s Statue, etc.) In these categories, he occaisionally points out what he calls yahtzee’s, that is, five or more cartoonists who use the same idea.
As Mr. Cagle rightly points out, the use of the Star of David as a fence of some kind is hardly an uncommon image. I’ve seen it numerous times myself and I didn’t really read political cartoons until recently. In my own experience, such images aren’t always even used as a critique of Israel’s policies (the image that immediately springs to mind is a cartoon I saw a few years ago with Arafat in the middle of the Star).
For those curious, Mr. Cagle links to two cartoons (here and here) that use the Star-of-David-as-a-fence imagery. Also, Mr. Cagle’s blog can be found here (scroll down to August 5th for the entry concerning the two cartoons Amp discussed).
So … if Israel is responsible for politicizing the Star of David, because they put it on their flag, then are all the countries with Christian crosses on their flags responsible for politicizing that?
Agree with Ampersand.
LFG
Camera
Simon, I’d say a lot of people are responsible for politicizing the cross – not just those countries, but folks like the Vatican and Jerry Fawell. But sure, a country that puts a cross on their flag has politicized the cross, in my view.
Jimmy, leaving out the link was an accident, which I’ve now corrected.
I don’t find it remarkable that multiple cartoonists produce similar images – it happens all the time, frankly. (The week after 9/11 happened, I counted at least 20 different cartoonists who drew cartoons of the statue of liberty flinching.)
PGP and Jimmy, thanks for the additional info.
Simon asked, “if Israel is responsible for politicizing the Star of David, because they put it on their flag, then are all the countries with Christian crosses on their flags responsible for politicizing that?”
While I suspect that the question was meant to be rhetorical, the answer is actually “yes.” However, I think that your question misses the point.
Prior to the creation of the state of Israel, there was little else to associate the Star of David with than the Hebrew religion and its practitioners. When Israel was created and that nation chose to have the Star of David on its flag, the Star of David thereafter became a symbol for the nation as well as the religion. Because of Israel’s controversial activities since its creation, the nation of Israel has, in many ways, supplanted the Hebrew religion as the dominant image associated with the Star of David. In other words, because the Star is a recognizable symbol and was voluntarily associated with the nation of Israel, it automatically becomes a political symbol in a way it wasn’t previously; Israel’s actions since then have simply strengthen this Star/nation association.
As to how the question concerning the Christian cross misses the point: among other things, there isn’t a nation, particularly a controversial nation, that is the only nation in the world to have the Christian cross on its flag. Thus, the cross is not something that can be associated with just a single country (although outside of Europe and North America the cross is often used to symbolize the Western world as a whole). Without that linking of the Christian cross to a single nation, the cross cannot be used as a short-hand symbol for just that nation. Cartoonists, as you know, work with such short-hand symbols in order to satirize a situation in as small a space as possible.
On a somewhat more literal note: as soon as a nation places a symbol on its flag, that symbol becomes political in nature automatically regardless of any previous religious or cultural associations. I mean, it’s on their flag.
yeah, right.
Agree with everything you say here, Barry. The Mogen David is to Israel what the maple leaf is to Canada. It’s on their flag, it’s fair game as representative of the state. But I do like that it references (whether intentionally or not) the Seppla drawing (first time I remember ever seeing that one) because it deliberately invokes the “how can you to do others what was done to you?” question.
Thanks for this. It’s a rare surprise to see reason and moderation of tone applied to issues that pertain to Israel. The accusation of anti-Semitism is a truncheon much used for silencing legitimate political criticism of Israel, and I appreciate your taking time to refute an instance of it. My general take on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict can be summed as “a plague on both their houses,” but when Israeli-partisans get to the point of congratulating Israel for its “restraint” in not decimating Palestinian villages in reprisal (as in the comment section to LGF) I do wonder if it isn’t time to concede defeat in the War on Parody.
No, it wasn’t meant as a rhetorical question. If the answer had been “no,” or “that’s different” without an attempt to explain why, a whiff of anti-Semitism might have been in the air. I’m pleased not to detect one.
Granted, the Christian cross can refer to many countries and the Jewish star to just one. But that would be just as true even if no country had ever put either on any flag. It’s not the responsibility of the flag that there’s only one Jewish country where there are many Christian countries. I was postulating the point mutatis mutandis.
Oh, and it’s generally referred to as the Jewish religion, not the Hebrew religion. “Hebrew” is purely a cultural (and linguistic) term, not a religious term, at least in modern usage, whereas “Jewish” can be both.
“Jimmy, leaving out the link was an accident, which I’ve now corrected.”
Thank you. Just to avoid any misunderstanding, my question was not meant to be ironic, but, knowing your meticulous way of presenting things, I thought it was an upset reaction to LGF’s biases (I’ve been there once or twice, and felt almost as bad as on the Free Republic forum).
“I don’t find it remarkable that multiple cartoonists produce similar images – it happens all the time, frankly.”
You are totally right, and Cagle’s site, mentionned by PinkDreamPoppies, is the best demonstration of this phenomenon (by the way, Mikhaela B. Reid often uses Cagle’s index to provide insightful compared analyses of various cartoons on a same issue). Actually, what strikes me is more the -probably unconscious- reminiscence of Seppla’s cartoon by two or more lefty (or at least “non Nazi”) cartoonists than the general fact that they had contemporaneously the same inspiration (but I formulated it way confusely, indeed). This is what leads me to disagree with Elayne Riggs: for me, the reference to Nazi propaganda (instead of Nazi policies, which would justify “the ‘how can you to do others what was done to you?’ question”), is so obvious that it ruins every possible impact of those anti-Sharon cartoons.
Unfortunately, the controversey over this points to the deep maliese amognst most post-Holocaust Jews—the fact that Israel and Zionism have become the be-all and end-all of Jewish idenity politics. The only parellel I can think of was the obsession with AIDS in the gay community during the time it was considered the “gay plauge.”
Take for example, the controversey over the latest film by actor Mel Gibson. Frankly, from what I hear, the film (and Gibson himself) are very much guilty of stone-cold anti-Semitism. However, I cannot help but to think that the VERY pro-Zionist Anti-Defamition Leauge would not be raising a fuss about all this if Gibson were clever enough to proclaim his undying support of Israel. In fact, methinks Mel blew it, PR-wise, by also apparently also being anti-Zionist! Hence, he’s a target of the ADL—-unlike the Christian right, which now supports Israel-right-or-wrong…..
Simon,
Thanks for the correction about Jewish/Hebrew. I’m constantly forgetting which is the correct term for what but ususally end up erring toward Hebrew far too often. I suspect it comes from having done too many historical Bible studies, in which case everything is Hebrew.
Reminds me of a certain children’s story about a boy who cried “Wolf!”…
Amp, you and I have disagreed in the past as to what is potentially anti-Semitic and what is not, but I’m on your side this time. The Star of David is just such an easily-available, universally-applicable symbol for the state of Israel that it’s not surprising that it shows up in a lot of cartoons and that there is a lot of overlap in how those cartoons use that symbol. I have to think that, if one were to examine all of the cartoons depicting the US with an eagle, the Statue of Liberty, or Uncle Sam, one could find overlap between an American cartoonist’s composition and some cartoon somewhere by by one of America’s adversaries, but that would not, in my view, make the American cartoonist’s work treasonous.
Certainly, if Auth did intend a deliberate allusion to the Nazi cartoon, then I would probably feel differently, but I have not heard any suggestion that he had any such intention.
well-known Seppla cartoon, which has been widely reproduced in every History classbook
I beg to differ. I’ve never seen this cartoon before in my life, and it’s not because I wasn’t reading my history books.
The potential problem with this Auth cartoon is not so much the question of whether it’s inherently anti-Semitic to depict the Star of David in this way, as it is the question of a reference to the earlier cartoon which was anti-Semitic.
Pink, in studies of the Biblical period, and the more so the earlier the period, “Hebrew” is often the correct term for all aspects, more so than “Jewish” which tends to refer to the religion as it existed after the destruction of the Second Temple. The problem with using “Hebrew” for the modern religion is that it tends to conflate them, and carries an overtone of identifying Jews racially.
Yeah, I know. I just keep forgetting that.
Also, I’m with bean on this one; I’d never seen the Seppla cartoon before in my life. I also have a small collection of history textbooks here in my room (all of which cover the twentieth century at least up to 1980) and not a single one of them has this cartoon in it.
Simon said, “The potential problem with this Auth cartoon is not so much the question of whether it’s inherently anti-Semitic to depict the Star of David in this way, as it is the question of a reference to the earlier cartoon which was anti-Semitic.”
That’s what I was trying to get at with my previous post about Daryl Cagle’s weblog and yahtzee’s (found here, scroll down to August 5th.) I think that in this particular instance, it’s safer to assume that Mr. Auth was not intentionally referencing the Nazi cartoon than that he was. The same images appear time and time again in cartoonists’ work and, frankly, the idea of the Star of David as a fence is pretty close to a non-brainer because it’s a design made with a few simple lines that has segments in it. (Another example of a “no-brainer” were the cartoons memorializing the September 11th attacks by showing the Statue of Liberty weeping with the smoking New York skyline.) (Still another example of a no-brainer image, and probably one closer to the topic at hand, is the image of an eagle attacking something to symbolize American wrath. If an American cartoonist depicts, say, an eagle labelled “ACLU” attacking John Ashcroft holding a copy of the VICTORY Act, and over in Africa there’s a cartoon printed that shows an eagle labelled “White Supremacy” attacking a black man, does this make the ACLU cartoon treasonous? Only if you’re Ann Coulter, I imagine.)
Slightly off-topic, but I’m interested to see if anyone kicks up a controversy over Ted Rall’s latest cartoon. I doubt it, though.
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Bean and PinkDreamPoppies,
I should have made clear that I was referring to French High school History books of the Eighties (I actually live in Paris). By that time, the final exam was divided in two parts, an essay and a commentary of a historical document which could be of any kind: text, statistical chart, propaganda poster or cartoon. The most “classical” (i. e. well-known) graphic documents were reproduced in full colors. This is where I first saw, e. g. John Heartfield’s photomontages and anti-Japanese American posters. This particular cartoon by Seppla was reproduced over and over, as I said. we learned comparing and criticizing images on those, with an elementary description-analysis-synthesis methodology (we had to show that we knew the background, etc.).
I suppose this was a result of the many debates then going on on how to apply Primo Levi’s “dovere di memoria” (memory duty?) in the secondary education, to connect with France’s collaborationist past (Vichy’s “French State”) and the trials of important Nazi criminals like Klaus Barbie (responsible, among many others, of the deportation of the Jews of Lyon).
Out of the classbooks, I have also seen this cartoon in many “regular” history books on this period, and of course in books about propaganda art and Nazism. For instance, I still have a translation of Anthony Rhodes’ “Propaganda – The Art of Persuasion, World War II” (1st ed. Chelsea House, 1976), which has a paragraph about Seppla illustrated by the same infamous cartoon. It is oftenly cited as a “classic”, and, be it negatively, a model. This is why I think it would be better to avoid any similitude with it, unless the cartoonist is willing to address directly the ideology behind Seppla’s drawing.
Simon,
Just as complementary information, the distinction between “Jew” and “Hebrew” is not identical in all European languages. In Greek and Italian, Jews are most commonly called, respectively, “Evréi” (transliteration: Evraioi) and “Ebrei” (l’Ebreo errante = the wandering Jew), i. e. “Hebrews”, the corresponding adjectives for both Jewish and Hebraic being “Evraïkos” and “Ebreo”.
Jimmy Ho,
At the same time, Mr. Auth is an American cartoonist. bean and I are both, to my knowledge, Americans so it is possible that Mr. Auth may have been in the same situation as bean and I of having not previously encountered Mr. Seppla’s cartoon. Perhaps Mr. Auth had only encountered cartoons like the one I previously posted about (from Daryl Cagle), or no cartoons like it before, and so might not have known that he would have to “address directly the ideology behind Seppla’s drawing.”
Just a thought. Still, I would have expected that Mr. Auth, as a cartoonist, would have run across Mr. Seppla’s cartoon previously. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if he, like others who have posted here, wouldn’t quite see his own cartoon as being anti-Semetic. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought that people would get worked up about it had I been drawing the same cartoon.
Ampersand,
For what it is worth, I just sent you an email (“Fence Cartoon”) with the scanned Brito cartoon I was talking about attached to it. Sorry if the file takes too much space in your mailbox. I don’t have a compression program and am not very good at those things in general.
Hello,
can somebody tell me, wich cartoon of seppla is meant and where I can watch it?
Sorry,because of my bad english
asdasd
who in this case chose to transform the six-pointed star from a symbol representing Jews to a symbol representing a state and its policies
Amp, don’t be disingenuous. The fact that the star represents Israel didn’t stop it from representing Jews.
I didn’t mean to claim that the star of David no longer represents Judaism. I was saying that it also is the symbol of a state, and as such it’s fair grounds for cartoonists to use when criticising the state.
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