Mozzocco's list of graphic novels he's obtained is nothing to write home about either:
Not the Israel My Parents Promised Me, written by Pekar with Philadelphia-based artist JT Waldman (Megillat Esther), is seemingly on a subject far less associated with Pekar than Cleveland, one that can be incredibly controversial, as Israel’s history embodies a sort of perfect blend of serious life-and-death issues that almost everyone is extremely passionate about. It’s also, incidentally, not a a subject Pekar owns the way he owns, say, Cleveland; I don’t necessarily seek out graphic novels about Israel and its relations with its neighbors, but in the past few years the following have come across my desk: Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, Joe Sacco’s Palestine and Footnotes in Gaza, Marv Wolfman and company’s Homeland, Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds and Jamilti and Other Stories and Guy Delisle’s Jerusalem: Chronicles From the Holy City.I don't know about Wolfman's book, but the rest is pretty much by anti-Israel advocates, most of whom I've already spoken about.
Then, Mozzocco goes on to say 2 things that give anybody with common sense reason enough to be dismayed at both him and Pekar:
Pekar never went to Israel, despite an attempt as a young man to emigrate there (they wouldn’t have him). His feelings and opinions about the nation actually predate its founding, however, as his Jewish parents, who lived in a Jewish neighborhood (in the 1930s and ’40s, Cleveland had a population of about 85,000 Jews, and Yiddish was spoken on the streets of their neighborhoods rather than English), followed closely the events of the diaspora in Europe and the Middle East.So let me see, Pekar never actually traveled to Israel, making his arguments far less credible. I don't know if he really had trouble with immigration officials for Israel (I wouldn't be surprised if he weren't being very truthful there either), but that wouldn't prevent him so easily from coming here (unless maybe authorities suspected he was planning on participating with anti-Israel activists and balked at providing him with immediate citizenship?), and he could've come here on a tour vacation if he'd wanted to. But I guess he wouldn't fork out the air fare needed, showing just how cheap he must've been.
As a gentile American in the 21st century, it’s not all that difficult to find things to be disappointed in when it comes to the conduct of the state of Israel, but Pekar’s disappointments predate, say, the Second Intifada of 2000-2005, but go all the way back to the aftermath of the 1967 war and the beginnings of the controversial settlements programs … which still continue.
Mozzocco's claim that as a non-Jew he's disappointed in Israel's conduct also reeks of offensiveness and is actually insulting to much of the gentile population, making it sound like he's painting non-Jewish citizens of the US with the same brush. Guess he's someone who doesn't take pride in being American! It doesn't take much to figure out that he's clearly opposed to Jews living in Judea/Samaria, and probably doesn't want to visit Israel either. He says towards the end:
It would have been nice if Israel and its neighbors could have solved some of their most pressing problems before the end of Pekar’s life, if he could have seen at least a glimmer of the Israel his parents dreamed of when he was a kid. But then, there are a lot of things one wishes might have happened before Pekar passed away.I'm not sure it's clear what kind of Israel Pekar himself thought his parents wanted; after all, he basically rejected their visions circa the late 70s. And the problems Mozzocco clearly has no comprehension of center around the Koran's vision of the Jews: that they're "sons of monkeys and pigs" and that it's acceptable to commit murder of a Jew in the name of the Koran/Hadith. These beliefs also apply to other infidels/kuffars.
Mozzocco's also shown his true colors at other times too, like when he wrote a disgraceful pan of Frank Miller's Holy Terror where he trivialized the seriousness of subjects like Islam, and like quite a few other leftists of his sort, never mentioned that the book features a dedication to the memory of Theo VanGogh, and probably didn't like that the story features an Israeli official as the hero's trainer either. Hey, it's not like I'm a rabid fan of Miller; of course there were some dumb things he'd done in past years. But speaking out against a belief system you feel is dangerous and abhorrent is not a crime, and by attacking Miller just for that, Mozzocco has only beclowned himself. He's also a disgrace for attacking Miller because Miller had the clever sense to condemn the Occupy movement. Does this mean that Mozzocco is opposed to Stan Lee and Julius Schwartz making money from all the comics they'd published? What's also galling about Mozzocco is that he's allegedly lamented how DC published their misogynist screed called Identity Crisis, yet he seems quite unconcerned when similar crimes took place at the Occupy movement's messes, nor does he seem particularly troubled by their connections with anti-semitism either. He also oblivious to how Will Eisner more or less slammed the Islamic world's embrace of anti-semitism, and Eisner and Miller were good friends in their time, so I don't see what Mozzocco's problem is.
And this is why I don't consider Mozzocco worth reading anymore. But it explains why some of the most leftist sites on the web want to hire him.
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