Inquirer apologizes, but doesn’t explain

About a week ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer published an editorial cartoon that I found highly distasteful, but I said nothing because I know what editorial cartoons are.

They are the opinion of the cartoonist, and it might be an opinion I disagree with. I write things that others disagree with, and I expect they will tolerate them, even when I know many of them will complain. And that’s OK, too.

My opinion is protected by free speech, and so are complaints. It ain’t a one-way street. 

The cartoon in question, which you see here, has a giant Israel jackboot crushing “Hamas.” There are many things wrong with it.

Aside from the murky politics of it, the reasoning underpinning the cartoon is flawed.

First, the type says, “Distance yourselves,” which is what Israel told to Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza, urging them to move south before the Israel Defense Force attacked the terrorist Hamas group.

But the people underneath the boot are labeled “Hamas,” not “Palestinians.” Israel did not warn Hamas to leave.

So the cartoonist commingled Hamas and Palestinians, which we are always told not to do, because they are not one and the same.

Second, the Palestinians/Hamas are portrayed as insects, are they not? They are a mass, and tiny. When you see a cockroach you step on it, no?

Doesn’t that depiction dehumanize them? 

I’d be willing to bet that is not the message cartoonist Monte Wolverton intended to send.

Third, the jackboot symbolically represents a brutal military authority, and it is not a stretch to associate that with Nazism. Or am I stretching too much?

The cartoon put me in mind of an infamous 2003 Tony Auth cartoon using a similar theme.

Commenting on Israel’s security fence, which was designed to protect Israeli citizens from terrorists, the Pulitzer prize-winning Auth drew Arabs cordoned into jail-like sections of a Star of David, which is the symbol of the Jewish state, but is also the symbol of Jewish faith.

Auth made the security fence look like a concentration camp, and any equation between Jews and Nazis is outrageously offensive to the people who were victims of the soulless Nazis.

I was pissed off, but said nothing because the same right that protects my columns, protects his cartoons. But there was an uproar from the Jewish community, and others.

In the current case, there must have been many and loud complaints about the cartoon to get the Inquirer to publish an apology.

“Regardless of the interpretation, the illustration reinforces pernicious anti-Semitic tropes about Israel aggression,” the paper wrote.

After the atrocious Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, the editorial board said it opined that Israel had a right to defend itself.

“It is clear that this cartoon was highly offensive, particularly at the current moment when anti-Semitism is on the rise. We hear the outcry and apologize for the pain it caused.”

The paper said it is reviewing its selection process.

This is all to the good, but it did not explain what that process is.

Are editorial cartoons selected by one person (as a former staffer — me — believes) or by a committee? 

How experienced are these people and how could they have risen to a level of such importance at the Inquirer?

Those questions probably won’t be answered, but if the editorial board learned a lesson, that’s all to the good.

Update: Cartoonist Wolverton issued an apology, saying, “I had intended to show Israel was soon to stomp out Hamas terrorists, but my insensitive choice of imagery effectively cast Israel as a villain.” In other words, his cartoon was exactly opposite of what he wanted to say. That’s what he said.