Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media - Softcover

Joel Kotek

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0853037523 ISBN 13: 9780853037521

Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd, 2008

Synopsis

The outrage sparked by the Danish cartoon affair the publication of images of the Prophet Muhammad in the European press was a sharp reminder of the potency of the cartoon in the modern media. It is one of the most popular and effective means of communication. By exaggerating and exasperating, cartoons by their very nature lack neutrality, and the cartoon is an important weapon in the Middle Eastern crisis. In response to the Danish cartoon affair, an Iranian newspaper announced a competition for cartoons about the Holocaust, even though it had had nothing to do with Israel or the Jewish people. Antisemitic cartoons have long been rife in the Arab-Muslim media. The September 2001 Durban Conference against Racism, intended to denounce and combat racism in all its forms, also featured the distribution of antisemitic cartoons by an Arab organisation, yet this elicited no reaction from Western NGOs at the conference. This event set the author on a trail that revealed thousands of such drawings. In the name of anti-Zionism, Jews are depicted as sadistic and bloodthirsty monsters, solely interested in money and power. This return to anti-Jewish hatred is of a new order, in line with current trends an Arab-Muslim form unexpectedly metamorphosed from the antisemitism traditionally linked with the Christian West. By reproducing more than 400 of these cartoons, taken from both Arab and Western media, this book denounces the use of hatred in the media and hopes to raise the alarm.

About this title

About the Author

Jöel Kotek is professor at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium and the Ecole Superieure de Journalisme of Lille, since February 2003 he has been affiliated with the Centre d Etudes Juives Contemporaines de Paris (Holocaust Museum).

Edition details

• Publisher: Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0853037523
• ISBN 13: 9780853037521
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224