Evolution of an Outrage
November 26, 2003 12:03 by ManagingTeamIn 1819, Francesco de Goya painted the grotesque “Saturn Devouring One of His Children” :
In January, 2003 editorial cartoonist Dave Brown of Britain’s Independent penned this horrible allusion to the Goya painting, with Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian child:
The Brown cartoon was then adopted by radical Islamic groups in India this summer as part of their vicious anti-America and anti-Israel campaign:
And now…the UK’s Political Cartoon Society has given the Brown cartoon first prize in its annual “Cartoon of the Year” competition, winning out over 34 other entries!
From the pages of a paper, to the global political realm, to professional approbation – has the “Demonize Israel” campaign gotten so out of hand?!
Contact the Political Cartoon Society here.
UPDATE: Here’s Israel’s real attitude toward Arab babies: “A week-old Iraqi infant has arrived in Israel to undergo an operation to correct a congenital heart defect,” the Associated Press reports. An Israeli organization called Save a Child’s Heart brought Bayan Jassem to the Wolfson Medical Center in Holon, south of Tel Aviv, whose director, Moshe Mashiah, came to Israel as a refugee from Iraq in 1951.
UPDATE: The founder of the Political Cartoon Society has written to us with this statement:
You have all taken this award completely out of perspective and context. Shame on you! We do so much good. If only you looked at our website properly you would have noticed that in fact we promote anti-facism and educate about the dangers of extremism.
Dr Tim Benson
Founder PCS
It’s hard to learn anything from the PCS site (it’s poorly done), but let’s assume Dr. Benson is right and the organization has done “so much good” to fight facism. If so, we have here a prime example of how the European left has warped its moral compass when it comes to Israel, falsely ascribing to Israeli democracy the most horrific characteristics of totalitarianism, while downplaying the greatest threat to all liberal societies today: radical Islam.
SVT
10:16 pm
Nov 29, 2003
Free speech… or hate literature???
Canada
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Anonymous
10:29 pm
Nov 29, 2003
This prize should be a sign of shame over all British people. Why are they not protesting?
To all Jews in Britain, the rest of Europe and America: The time has come to come back home. Come home to Israel. Save your lives, and don’t wait until it will be too late.
Israel is the best place in the world for a Jew to live in. It will soon be the only place for a Jew to be safe.
To all Jews in Britain: Leave the haters behind, come home to Israel.
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Frank
12:27 am
Nov 30, 2003
Please show your condemnation of this hate literature to
Dr Tim Benson,
The Political Cartoon Society,
Hille House,
132 St Albans Road,
Watford,
Herts WD24 4AE
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George E. Sweat
1:25 am
Nov 30, 2003
The PCS winning cartoon by Dave Brown, depicting Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian child, makes one think that there is little or no intelligence in the British news media. This incitement of hate toward the Jews and Israel is perverse and completely unwarrented! It is an out-right lie meant to defame and promote more Arab terror against Israel. Political sattire that is not meant to harm should have some evidence of truth in it’s message to the public. Dr. Tim Bensen is the one who has lost his perspective when he defends the PCS against criticizm for this atrocious award presentation.
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Linda Rivera
1:39 am
Nov 30, 2003
I am a Christian. I owe everything to God because I know Him. Second, I owe a debt to the Jews I can never repay. It is because of the precious Jewish people that I too, know this most wonderful God. I love you my precious Jewish brothers and sisters. May all of God’s blessings rest upon each one of you and upon Israel for ever, Linda Rivera.
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B. Rabinowitz
2:43 am
Nov 30, 2003
As I look at the first place cartoon I am amazed that an artistic society could award its first place award to something which is so obviously void of originality and creativity. It looks almost like a cartoon image of a painting of “Satan devouring one of the children” by de Goya. I am sure somebody on the commitee must be familiar with that painting. Is this what cartoons have descended to… a form of plagiarism? Tis a pity!! Barry
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Shoval
3:25 am
Nov 30, 2003
Dr. Benson,
I find it repulsive and grotesque that your society has put on a pedestal a cartoon that is virulently anti-semitic and anti-zionistic. I speak of the cartoon by Dave Brown that has been awarded the Cartoon of the Year award.
No one says you have to love Israel or that you must love Jews. However, morality and journalistic integrity states that you should at least not promote and encourage hate speech that is designed, as is the cartoon, to mock and villify Israel. If the country and its prime minister were indeed so terrible, would they have recently taken in an IRAQI baby in dire need of medical attention that other European countries refused to provide?
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david
4:06 am
Nov 30, 2003
I read Mr. Brown’s (the catoonist’s) justification for his vile depicition of Sharon and the Likud Party – and I am even more appalled by this very obvious hatred of Jews.
After all, why did he did not depict Tony Blair eating Iraqi children for the sake of Labor Party votes?
The Independent needs to get Mr. Brown some very basic education on love of fellow man. He is a menace to all that is decent in society today.
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Lynne Bennardo
6:11 am
Nov 30, 2003
No wonder the sun now sets on the British Empire, with the hate and evil you are spewing may the sun set on All of the British Empire, Maybe one of the Arab nations will take you in or take you over!
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Lynne Bennardo
6:11 am
Nov 30, 2003
No wonder the sun now sets on the British Empire, with the hate and evil you are spewing may the sun set on All of the British Empire, Maybe one of the Arab nations will take you in or take you over!
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Joseph Goebbels
7:29 am
Nov 30, 2003
My dearest British brothers,
I was thrilled to see your selection for the Cartoon of the Year! It was a pleasure to see you giving your wholehearted support to the cause of Jewish extermination that we unfortunately had to leave unfinished.
Yasser Arafat is a faithful disciple of my brother Haj Amin Al-Husseini, mein Fuhrer’s bosom friend. Arafat should be allowed to win his War of Terror and obliterate the Jewish state.
The Jews in Israel have no right to defend themselves against my Arab Nazi brothers. Any such self-defense on their part should be exposed and condemned by the likes of your Cartoon of the Year!
You are a great source of pride to my legacy and to our Great Fuhrer. Keep up the good work!
More power to you! Heil Hitler!
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Michael Green
8:54 am
Nov 30, 2003
To: The British Political Cartoon Society
Subject: Brown’s Sharon cartoon / PCS’s selection
/ PCC’s ruling
The fact that Britain’s media ethics watchdog,
the PCC, ruled the Sharon cartoon as not
antisemitic, is a greater disgrace for the
British press than the cartoon itself.
It is an even greater abomination than its just
being honored as the British Political Cartoon
Society’s “2003 Cartoon of the Year”…
The PCC’s opinion adds further insult to the
injury.
It tells more about the pathology of antisemitism
prevalent in some British and Eureapan circles
than volumes of research.
Let me be more specific:
One thing that both the Pan-Islamic (i.e.,
Wahhabi theocracy) and the Pan-Arabist (i.e.,
Ba’ath Fascism) strains of Arab governments agree
– and this includes Arafat’s Palestinian
Authority (P.A.) — is the goal of cleansing
“their” Middle East of a Jewish State.
This aim of exterminating the Jewish State is not
a secret, since it is expressed by the above at
every occasion. For endless quotes on the subject
you are welcome to visit the site
http://www.memri.org .
Or you can use the link below, to visit the
offical site of Al-Fateh, Arafat’s ruling party
in the P.A. Inthe Al-Fateh charter posted on this
site you will read their objective as follows:
———————————————
http://www.fateh.net/e_public/constitution.htm
FROM THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FATAH MOVEMENT:
THE GOALS: Article (12): COMPLETE LIBERATION of
Palestine, and ERADICATION of Zionist economic,
political, military and cultural EXISTENCE.
———————————————
As you can see, in the eyes of Israel’s Arab
enemies, the conflict is not about some occupied
land in the West Bank and Gaza. It is about the
very existence of the Jewish State, ALL of which
is considered occupied territory that needs to be
liberated.
Clearly, the P.A. is a genocidal organization
whose goal is a second holocaust on the Jewish
people and its sovereign state.
It is also a fact that at the Camp David summit
under President Clinton, Israel’s Barak made
Arafat a magnanimous offer of 98% of the West
Bank and Gaza in return for peace and mutual
recognition.
Arafat’s response was to demand that the Jewish
State transform itself into a third
Palestinian-Arab state (besides Jordan and
Arafat’s “Palestine”) and a 23rd Islamic-Arab
state, by agreeing to the “right of return” of
millions of 1948 refugees and their descendents,
not into Arafat’s new state of “Palestine”, but
into Israel proper!
The Palestinian-Arab leader then rushed back to
the West Bank and launched a pre-engineered War
of Terror against Israel. This still-ongoing war
is based on targeting innocent Jewish civilians
and children through a cadre of specially
indoctrinated, trained and equipped suicide
bombers.
This is when the Israeli voter realized that the
Labor Party’s policy of appeasement, instituted
by Shimon Peres with the 1993 Oslo Treaty, was a
suicidal blunder and a dismal failure. Israel
then overwhelmingly elected Ariel Sharon as its
leader, with a mission of defending the survival
of their nation against Arafat’s genocidal War of
Terror.
Antisemitism is not just about pretending that
all the Jews in Hampstead and Golders Green are
money-grabbing, blood-sucking, hook-nosed
Shylocks!
Antisemitism is also about singling out the
Jewish State as the only one among 191 sovereign
nations in the world that has no right to
exist… Or, as one that has no right of
self-defense against the war of extermination and
the relentless terrorist assault currently being
waged against its very existence.
Antisemitism is also about condoning, supporting
allying yourselves with the perpetrators of an
intended second Holocaust against the Jewish
nation and its sovereign state.
It is in this context that Dave Brown’s cartoon
in the Independent is clearly antisemitic… that
the British Political Cartoon Society’s selection
is flagrantly antisemitic… and that the ruling of the PCC’s kangoroo court stands out as EVEN MORE flagrantly antisemitic!
Sincerely,
Michael Green
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Dr Tim Benson
8:15 pm
Nov 30, 2003
It was voted for our members. That’s democracy for you. By the way, like me, many of my members are Jewish, except they don’t look at Israel through rose-tinted glasses. Those who do didn’t vote for it. If you only looked at our website properly you would see all the good we do in fighting extremism. If we are anti-Semitic why did we put on an Exhibition at the London Jewish Cultural Centre last February? or on the great anti- Nazi cartoonist David Low?
Political cartooning is by its very nature unfair. I agree the cartoon sailed to close to the blood libel issue. However I know Dave Brown and it was done in ignorance of this.
Dr Tim Benson
Founder Political Cartoon Society
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David Friedlander
3:37 am
Dec 01, 2003
With all due respect Mr. Benson, legitimate criticism of Israel is not the issue here. Your organization selected a cartoon image of the leader of the Jewish state eating an Arab baby. It’s irrelevant if your organization has Jewish members or not. There are many Jews who loath being Jewish and their heritage, i.e. Noam Chomski. The point being made is that it’s a false representation of the current events in Israel and farthest from the truth. It’s not that it’s one sided, it’s an outright lie and belongs on an Arab website next to their fallacious and derogatory comments about Jews, many of which are taken directly from 1930’s Nazi propaganda. The disturbing part is that it WAS selected by a majority. The same process was used by Europeans to vote Israel as the biggest threat to world peace. This says a lot about you and your European brethren. This coincides nicely with the current revelation that the European Union is being accused of burying a report that credits the largest wave of Anti-Semitism in Europe since the Nazis, to Moslems and pro-Palestinian groups because they are afraid of anti-Muslim backlash. Imagine that! Keeping the truth from surfacing to appease the violent and criminal groups that perpetrate it. Appeasement. Certainly not something new to the Britts. Neville Chamberlain has taught you nothing.
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Terence Banes
4:54 am
Dec 01, 2003
Mr. Benson,
I do not know what criteria were used to deem this work worthy of first place, but I do question your reasoning and motives for voting on such an item in the first place. Did you think that this was funny or that it represented the truth? What sort of reaction did you expect when choosing this cartoon over others? By your group allowing this piece to bear your highest approval rating, your group shall also bear the shame and the consequences of its dissemination.
Terence Banes
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Raymond
5:08 am
Dec 01, 2003
Ir is such a pity that anyone, whether it be a individual or association could praise such an un-Holy work.
The Jews have always been the worlds whipping post and this hideous depiction is right out of Nazi Germany as so many have already said. Anyone who could award such a cartoon in such a way is nothing more than a racist. The Jews have done so much for the world and yet they are considered barabarians. Well, the cartoon, and those who praise it show who the true barabarians are.
Mr. Benson, you say that your organization has done much against fascism and other issues. Well, the Bible says that even “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” Leaven in the Bible signifies corruption and death. All the “good” you say has been done by the “The Political Cartoon Society” has been nullified by one little cartoon!
I do not need to go to your site to have a look, What little I have seen is enough!
In another comment someone quoted from the Bible “I will bless those who bless you”. God is speaking to Abraham here. Well that person left out the second half of the verse so I will fill in the blank. The second half states: “and I will curse those who curse you.”
I would advise you get right with God sometime soon!
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Nancy
5:55 am
Dec 02, 2003
It’s not just baby Bayan that Israel has been instrumental in saving. For the last 5 years I have been receiving prayer updates about other babies from the man who organized Bayan’s surgery. Israeli doctors have graciously and skillfully done open heart surgery on at least a dozen (probably far more)Palestinian infants with life threatening heart defects with no cost to the families and significantly reduced cost to the charitable funding organization because they cherish life. I feel grieved that the Jewish people have been portrayed in such a debased manner.
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Ethan
11:54 pm
Dec 02, 2003
This picture should have Yasser Arafat on it eating Israelis.The world thinks that we are not allowed to defend our country let alone exist FUCK YOU. If I had my way I would march all the Israelis into ther West Bank blow it up than all the survivors I would shot them in th head and when all the Palestines are DEAD burn their flags and movie on with the rest of the muslims. Cause honesly people what have the muslims done to this world NOTHING. They want nothing so let them have nothing all they do is blow up out building our countrys and our hearts. They blew up the World Trade Centers they blow up innocent Israelis that want to live there lives but can’t because of ignorance over some stupid rock. they blow up embasseys in Turkey in Iraq and in the Philiipians. If you wonder that last 20 years everything bad that has happened is the muslims EVERYTHING!!!!!. I have nothing more to say just one more thing…… FUCK BRITAIN, FUCK FRANCE, FUCK MUSLIMS EVERYWHERE. I AM FOR THE STATE OF ISRAEL AND THE JEWISH PEOPLE.
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S. Lee
4:07 am
Dec 05, 2003
Ok. I read your “rationale” for creating the cartoon, Dr.Brown. You need to be aware of how this sort of thing can affect different societies. It is similar to using sex to sell a product. You may sell more of the product, but some of that is strained through childrens eyes via TV, etc. and a thirteen year old girl may think that they need to be succulent or sexually active to have people like them. Your cartoon hits the roots of Israelis and Extreme Islamic’s/anti-semitic’s oppositely. The Israelis & supporters are outraged because they know anti-Israeli’s will have another hate-filled lie to stand on….and they DONT know that it is just a joke. They think that Jew’s are decendants of pigs (and now monkeys) and that they use childrens blood in their pastries. Come on! Anyone that is not for Jews will see this as the truth.
As for you. I know the images you talk about are real. I also know that any country that would stand around and let people plot to strap explosives around their waist and blow up a bus or plan then next car bombing would REALLY be crazy. Latteral damage is unfortunately innevitable in trying to defend or take out these groups. However, latteral damage for a suicide bomber is hailed as a success, weather it be children or their own people. At least Israel helps innocent children and people injured in these actions by offering medical assistance. I realize you don’t support PM Sharon or his motives. I also don’t support ALL of Bush’s actions. Yet, these leaders are for trying to better their own peoples lives and the world at that. Don’t forget who started the Holocaust or the Intifada. Their nature is way too similar to not acknowledge!
I pray to the Lord Jesus, He has mercy on your anti-semitic souls. It is never too late to ask for forgiveness. We are all sinners. Come as you are and ask Jesus into your heart. Jesus said,
“I am THE way, THE truth & and THE light. No one comes to the Fahter but through me.”
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Anonymous
5:48 pm
Feb 19, 2004
I remember the day,.A boy who was 8 or 9 years old,A cute little boy full of questions and like so many other little boys his age,He was watching cartoons that day,And I was worried about,wether he watched to much tv to many cartoons,I was concerned about wether they were good for him or not,
And I had just decided I needed to finish what I was doing and get the boy to go out side and play get some fresh air.Because of course I was very much concerned for his well being,..Then I opened a link I was about to look at on the computor,,,,And when I opened it,I saw that it was a Palestinian site very pro Arafat,.Speaches by Arafat,About how he would send a thousand martyers To Israel,
then I clicked,A picture of a little boy in Palestine,About 8 or 9 years old,And the little boy,looked so like the little boy I babysat exsept,his eyes were so,,,desperate,And he was strabbed with exsplosives,the talk was about how great it was for this boy to be made a martyer,and I thought,,
This,,THIS Is what Arafat held as a hero for?.This is the great champion Arafat wants to send to battle?.
And not even really a battle,At least not where this boy would go,They would send him,to other boys and girls,his age and younger,They would send him to innocent children and peoples,to,blow him self up,Pieces of him,would be scattered among the Israelly victoms,Moments befor the act,He would be so geared to hate these innocent people
that he was about to destroy mutalate and kill,That he would have no remorse.Because he would have been so brainwashed into beleiveing,His life,his greatest value,Was in his bloody brutal death,.And brainwashed into beleiveing,Just being born,Israelly,meant you deserved the same brutal bloody death,He would be well trained to give himself,The same sentence he would be giveing those he saw as”the dreaded enemy”.My heart went out to that boy,And I cried and cried,And I wanted so much,so very much to just snatch that boy up out of there and,Undo all the hatred and the hurt in his precious little heart,I would have given so much just to take that boy up out of there and take him as my own son,And let him learn,What it is that ever child should have,,,,And that is,,At least one adult who loves them so much,They care even about what they watch on tv,Someone who loves them so much,that they will dare stand and say NO NOT MY CHILD,,yOU WILL NOT COME TO TAKE MY CHILD,YOU will not glorify his destruction,I wondered if the boy,Had anyone who loved him enough to protect him,Then I thought Aperantly not sence he is there in the picture,,,.But I wanted very much to protect him,…Ive seen a thousand or more images like that sence then,.And so many people hateing Israel,And claiming it was because of the children of Palestine,.Another Israelly tank,rolls threw Palestine,
A Palestinian child shot in a cross fire,,And the WOrld is outraged,,,,,Another child strapped with exsplosives and the world looks away the world doesnt care then,Where is the outrage at Arafat?.Then I though,
Maybe its the “perfect murder”.Create a weapon of destruction,,That destroys itself in its destruction,
,,,,,,,,One child bomb,Is one to many.
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