THE PROPAGANDA OF GUY DELISLE

We seem to have yet another cartoonist following in Joe Sacco's footsteps, concocting a graphic novel that's intended to take the Islamic/palestinian side during Operation Cast Lead. His name is Guy Delisle, and he's put together a GN called "Jerusalem: Chronicles From The Holy City":

Drawn and Quarterly's Editor-In-Chief and Publisher Chris Oliveros announced today that his company has acquired world English rights to Jerusalem: Chronicles From The Holy City, a graphic novel memoir from Guy Delisle. The book details the day to day life in Israel within the context of the conflicts that rock the area, based on the year the acclaimed cartoonist spent with his family in East Jerusalem.

And in what company? And what accompanying religion? Here's the part signaling where his bias comes in:

Says Oliveros: "Jerusalem: Chronicles From The Holy City powerfully captures the conflict of the Gaza War, a three-week long military strike that resulted in over 1000 Palestinian deaths, while also showcasing olive gardens, check points and the architecture of the region. There has never been a book like it and it will surely become a handbook on the region much like Guy's Pyongyang is for North Korea."

And which olive gardens would those be too? More importantly though, we see that there's no mention of Israeli side, whether it be people who suffered traumas from the rocket attacks the Hamas fired then (note that Operation Cast Lead isn't mentioned clearly as the name from the time either), or even any Jewish casualties. And according to Jewish Virtual Library:

On Saturday, December 27, 2008, the Israel Defense Forces launched an airstrike against Hamas terrorist cells in the Gaza Strip. Since the beginning of the operation, Palestinian sources claim, approximately nine-hundred Gazans were killed - most of whom were Hamas militant forces. Israel military officials state that over 500 Hamas gunmen have been killed in Operation Cast Lead's ground incursion.

Background

Israel's Operation Cast Lead comes after three years of suffering thousands of daily Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel's southern cities.

Since the start of the operation, Hamas has increased their number of attacks and has fired hundreds of rockets into Israel. Hamas is firing an average of 80 rockets into Israel each day. Rockets were fired into Ashdod and Ashkelon and, for the first time, Grad rockets have been hitting Beersheba. It is clear that Hamas widened their rocket range in response to the incursion in Gaza.

Due to Hamas's endless and widespread barrage of rockets on Israeli towns, the IDF Home Front Command has expanded their security precautions to all towns within a 19- mile radius of Gaza.

Schools in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Beersheba and other southern cities are closed as Hamas continues purposely firing rockets into civilian centers including multiple kindergartens in all major cities. Since the Israeli airstrike began, four Israelis have been killed and over 176 were wounded while hundreds are being treated for shock. Israel's southern citizens have been forced to move into bomb shelters as their community's schools, buildings and roads are destroyed in front of their eyes.

In two weeks, Hamas has fired 500 rockets into Israel's southern cities. Many of these have been the more deadly Grad katyusha rockets. On January 6 a three-month old girl was wounded from a Grad rocket that was fired into Gedara. On January 8 four people were wounded as a mortar shells were fired at the Eshkol region.

Will any of this info turn up in Delisle's graphic novel? I've got a sad feeling it won't. See also this Haaretz article from 2009 telling how Hamas admitted around 700 of its own terrorists were killed, and deservedly. And as Israel Matzav notes, the vast majority were terrorists, NOT civilians.

This was found through CBR's Robot 6 blog, via a contributor named Sean T. Collins, whom I discovered has done some rather odd things. In this old post on his own site from 2003, he supposedly understood Islamic terror:

Before 9/11, this cowboy president of ours had made it absolutely clear that he was planning on keeping his hands off of not just Iraq, but really every other country on the planet. Remember the whole “no nation building” thing? Back then, he was criticized as being too isolationist by the same people now convinced he’s out to conquer the world. What, then, prompted Islamist terrorists from atomizing 3,000 people that day? Bush’s interventist approach toward Texas?

But then:

And as Christopher Hitchens points out, one of the synagogues devastated last Saturday had already been the site of a terrorist attack, back when Reagan and Thatcher were in charge of the US and UK and Saddam was our friend. Unless those terrorists were time travellers, it’s difficult to understand how their actions were caused by the regime change policy.

Say what? Since when was that awful monster who's thankfully gone now our "friend"? Not only does that veer towards moral equations, it also reeks of "smear by association".

He also supports Joe Sacco's propaganda, Footnotes in Gaza, and says:

The fourth thing Sacco does well is portraiture. This book is just as much a Beard Parade (and Mustache Parade, and Grumpy Little Kid Parade, and Wrinkled Old Lady Parade) as R. Crumb’s Book of Genesis Illustrated, and there’s just as much care and attention put into differentiating each from the other. (The exception are the Israeli soldiers in the flashback sequences; they have a uniform build, the shadow of their pith helmets rendering them eyeless and inscrutable. Only the notably monstrous or humane gain individualization.) But even still there are standouts. Take Sacco’s frequent interview subject and companion Khaled: A Palestinian guerrilla marked for death by the IDF and constantly moving from place to place, he nonetheless has a Cheshire Cat serenity in his heavy-lidded face. We frequently see him in repose, including one sequence where he lies immobile in bed, staring directly at the reader as he speaks of his utter exhaustion with his life on the run.

So on the one hand, the Israeli soldiers are depicted as villains via shadowy illustration, and on the other, either Sacco or Collins or both are referencing the "palestinian" as a guerrilla instead of terrorist or even enemy soldier, and using a tactic to get the audience's sympathy. What a very bad aftertaste.

And back on the current track, it's despicable that D&Q is giving a platform to potential anti-Israel propaganda while at the same time don't seem to be publishing anything pro-Israel. Some European-born cartoonists really can be despicable.