Daryl Cagle: Hi, I'm Daryl Cagle, and this is the CagleCast,
where we're all about political cartoons.
. And today we have three great Israeli editorial cartoonists to discuss
their cartoons about the conflict with Hamas and the Palestinians.
Gentlemen, it is great to have you here.
Hey,
Uri Fink: great to be here, Daryl.
Great to be here.
a fan of the podcast.
Michel Kichka: Hi, Daryl.
Hi, Paul.
Daryl Cagle: Michel Kichka is an editorial cartoonist for various
Israeli television stations.
He draws graphic novels.
novels, including an impressive one about his father, who was a Holocaust survivor.
Michel won the Cow at Saint Just le Martel and a ton of other
awards, and he's a professor at Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem.
Welcome, Michel.
He was
Uri Fink: my professor, actually.
I think it was both of us, no?
Off the
Moshik Gulst: line.
Yeah.
He was our professor.
And
Michel Kichka: Moshik, too.
But when you were a student, I was not a professor.
I was just a teacher.
I was younger.
Daryl Cagle: And also, you invited me to go give a speech to the whole college
there, and that was really great fun and a very impressive college, I've got to say.
Yes.
Big and impressive.
Michel Kichka: And we have a new campus that you must visit next year.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, my goodness.
Well, uh, this is one of your cartoons the international, cartoonists,
draw a lot of, uh, doves of peace.
And, uh, it's, it's one of, uh, one of those standard, I, I guess the
French call it a cliché that we use.
and, uh, so you've got the dove of peace in the hourglass here
as I guess Gaza is, uh, getting destroyed and their time runs out.
Yep.
This is, uh, and of course the skeleton of the Dove of Peace, I think to fully
appreciate it, uh, readers just need to know how, ubiquitous that Dove of Peace is
in international cartoons, so, uh, that, that makes it all the more interesting.
So, beautiful drawing,.
Michel Kichka: Thanks a lot.
The truth about this cartoon is that on the first day of the war, on October
7th, I was so shocked that, uh, I could not imagine what I can draw.
And I used this cartoon that I published in 2021.
If you, if you look at the date, it's from 2021.
And, uh, and it was when the Hamas, uh, tried to attack Israel with tunnels.
Okay.
Which is different from today.
This, this cartoon actually does not describe the reality because
on the 7th was a massacre.
It was a pogrom.
Cruel and barbarian.
And so this cartoon is too soft.
But we did not know yet.
I did not know yet what was the situation.
And so I, I put it online and then I began to draw every day one or two cartoons
up to date according to the situation.
You see the date on the bottom right?
Yeah.
And you have Ashkelon, Ashdod, and Tel Aviv.
And, uh, and, you know, it seems like a normal war, but what happened
on the seventh is not a normal war.
That was something different, and there's a huge consensus in Israel
that, uh, that was a barbarian attack and a terrible shock, and
it will take years to overcome it.
And we, all of us, have so many friends in this part of the country,
including the south of the country.
And they are going to funerals every day, you know.
uh, thirteen hundred killed people in twenty four hours almost.
Never happened in our history.
And so for many people, you know, they give them back, you know, they
think back about the Holocaust.
And they think back of the situation of Israel during
the Independence War in 1948.
So we are in a terrible situation.
And we don't know where it's going.
So this cartoon is nice.
It's beautiful.
Thank you.
But it's not...
It does not describe exactly what is happening here now.
I must say.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, it is also a PR war.
And here in America, we got all the news about the horrors of the Hamas massacres.
for about four days, and then the news switched to, uh,
the people suffering in Gaza.
And I suspect that that's the way it's going to stay, for quite a while.
which, is interesting to me that, Hamas seems to be so successful in this PR war.
That may be...
, their goal achieved
Michel Kichka: Yeah, yeah.
Somehow
Uri Fink: they have plenty of useful idiots over there.
That's the, that's the, that's the tragedy.
That's the tragedy.
But, uh, I dunno, there, there are some, uh, I think even people in
the Arab world that, uh, are shocked by the massacres, some of them.
Hopefully, you know, maybe it'll take time and, uh, they will realize
their, the error of the ways.
I don't know that this is, this is not, uh, this is, you know, this is not Islam.
This is not, uh, fighting for freedom.
It's just the barbarism.
Daryl Cagle: So, uh, here's another one from you, Michel, that's, uh,
looking for symmetry is justifying barbarism, and, showing that There isn't
equality on both sides of the horror.
uh, on television they make, quite an effort to offer equal
time to spokesmen from each side.
Michel Kichka: There are two things in this situation that, uh,
that really, uh, make me angry.
The first one is people who are talking about symmetry.
It is symmetric, okay?
What we do and what they do is the same.
This is one thing.
And the other thing, that is, a lot of people talk about the
disproportion of the reaction of Israel.
and, uh, people forget, they are simply forgetting, that the Gaza
people are by themselves hostage of the Hamas, who is shooting
and, and launching their missiles.
from the population concentrations inside of Gaza.
And there's no way to make a war.
It's not an army.
It's a guerrilla of terrorists.
That's a very, such a complex situation.
And making the symmetry or making the, talking about this
proportion, is simply not just.
And so this is what I did in the previous cartoon and also in this one, just
to explain people that the reaction of Israel to terror and pogrom and
barbarian and massacre and slaughter and butchery must be understood.
And people don't have to forget that the Hamas, not the Gaza people, the
Hamas, is a terrorist organization.
And their ideology is erase Israel from the map.
And so, there's nothing we can talk about with them for the future, to
construct something in the next future.
Uri Fink: The thing that surprised me and, uh, I mean, even a bit offended me
is the, some of the Arab cartoonists.
That were very joyful the minute the massacre happened, you know,
and the celebratory cartoons and I said, Come on, really, I would never,
you know, I think I don't think any Israeli cartoonist ever celebrated.
Child, uh, killing, being killed in Gaza or anything.
It's always a necessity for us to go to war.
Nobody wants to go to war.
Nobody wants to bomb anything.
And, uh, some of, I mean, I, people I met in San Just and all that,
and I'm thinking these people.
Uh, you know, would celebrate when I'll be slaughtered.
And my, I don't know, my, my children and everything, and then they will
celebrate, you know, they will be happy.
So it's really, left me a bit, uh, you know, in a very bizarre positions all of
a sudden, but hopefully maybe they just, just don't realize, or I don't know,
I, I still have a hope that maybe they will come around someday and understand,
the difference between, uh, you know, the, Israel and Hamas, which is, you
know, it's, it's like, like Michel said, it's, it's totally different entities.
Like Hamas is, Hamas is actually responsible for
destroying the Oslo process.
He's the one who killed it.
I mean, with the suicide bombings and all of that, it's
an organization of pure evil.
And this time they exposed themselves as such and still people, you know, they
see the poor people in Gaza and that's, uh, that's the only thing they see.
Michel Kichka: And now by liberating one by one hostages, they want to
appear as a humanitarian organization.
Okay.
But you know, uh, Daryl, there's something very important that if you are
not Israeli, you can't understand it.
We are in Israel.
Also, not all of us, but a main part of the Israelis are absolutely
criticizing the politics of our government who is responsible for
the situation for the last 15 years.
And I mean Bibi Netanyahu, okay?
I have to name him.
And so we are in a situation that somehow we have to defend ourselves
by cartooning and to explain our position to the world by our cartoons.
But in the other hand, we, we, we try to, control our hard feelings that
we have towards this collapse of the intelligence service of Israel, of the
lack of preparation of the army, and everything is due to the way Netanyahu
rules this country for 15 years.
And this is an internal debate, and we try to avoid it because we are at
war, but you can't separate the things.
It's very, very complicated to us.
Daryl Cagle: You know, there has been a perception that, Israel is this
very big, very efficient, very, good intelligence service and military,
and that's kind of been shattered by this failure, and that's a, that's a
costly loss because, just having that, perception of, competence, uh, like
America lost when we went into Iraq.
Um, that's a, that's a big loss and that emboldens the enemies.
Michel Kichka: Yes, and you know, we are on a big chess game led by Iran.
And we also have high tension with the Hezbollah in the north, which
is also a terrorist organization.
And the Lebanon people are also hostage from Hezbollah.
This is a very complicated situation.
So if you are not really aware of what is happening here in the Middle East,
in this region, you can't understand the situation now between Israel and Hamas.
It's much bigger than that.
Much, much complex than that.
Your president came.
On the war to Israel, and this is the first American president ever who did it.
And so it means that the situation is very serious.
And it had international implications.
It's not just a conflict as the conflict that we had in the past with the Hamas.
This is something much bigger and much more dangerous for
the future of the region.
Daryl Cagle: So, Yuri Fink is a very popular comic book artist and writer
along with being an editorial cartoonist.
He's published 22 books of his popular Zbing comic strip and comic
book and is the editor of Zbing magazine which had Over 200 issues.
Uri is the president of the Association of Israeli Cartoonists and is an old
convention buddy of mine, and he went to Bezalel Art Academy in Jerusalem.
Welcome, Uri.
Uri Fink: Hey, great to be here.
Daryl Cagle: I'm going to show a couple of cartoons from each of you.
Uh, this is one of yours.
Uh, you know, there have been all those protests at, Harvard, that,
uh, look pretty anti Semitic.
So you've got Hitler in one pocket and the Harvard student in the other pocket.
Although, actually, uh, you have her as a Har ward, student.
I wonder why you changed Harvard.
Uri Fink: Maybe just, you know, the deadline, uh, you know,
uh, breathing down my neck.
Maybe I misspelled it, but the whole thing is, that, uh, That's the equipment of the,
uh, you know, of the Hamas terrorists, the way they, they're part of their
equipment is, is the, the Nazi ideology and the, and the Harvard idiots, you know,
that, uh, continue to protest against Israel, even though, you know, we are now
definitely the, the victims for a change.
Uh, so that's, that's the point of the
Daryl Cagle: cartoon, you know.
Well, I think you were the victims in the media for about four days, and then
they switched to the Palestinians being the victims, and, it looks like it's
gonna be that for about four months.
Uri Fink: Yeah, it looks like, it looks like that, but, uh, you know, it, uh,
you have to do what you can, you know, so I do a cartoons, I, I try to do
cartoons as much as I can that have not, not too much text in Hebrew, you know,
that, uh, but now you, you, you know, you're, uh, this is from today, this is
actually the cartoon that was published today, so I still have time to maybe, uh,
correct the mistake and post it again.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, here's another one of yours.
Uri Fink: This is for tomorrow.
This is the cartoon from
Daryl Cagle: tomorrow.
Oh, this is for tomorrow.
Gal Gadot versus Mark Ruffalo.
I have to explain these cartoons because, uh, this is also an audio podcast.
And so people that don't see it don't have any idea of what's going on.
So, I apologize for that.
Mark Ruffalo says, Yes, I am a bit anti Semitic.
As he holds his "Stand with Gaza" sign and he's roped by Wonder Woman.
Uri Fink: I take every opportunity because I'm a big American comic book fan, so
every opportunity I have to use American superheroes in my cartoons, I take it,
so now there's a big, you know, Gal Gadot is on our side because she's a, you know,
a full blooded Israeli, and Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, he's against us, he's always
posting against Israel and all that.
So, yeah, that's a good opportunity to, to draw the Hulk and then Wonder Woman
in, uh, in, uh, in the political cartoon.
Daryl Cagle: Yes, that's interesting.
I didn't know that that was his, um, uh, vocal point of
view.
Uri Fink: Oh, yeah, he's one of the most vocal, uh, anti Israeli, uh,
uh, actors, you know, he's, uh, he has occasionally has to apologize
because it turns out that he supports some horrible act or something.
Uh, but, uh, now there was two, like two big letters sent to Biden or whatever.
We are celebrities and we are protesting the support to Israel.
And then another list of Israelis, we are.
you know, support Israel.
So, and that's the, that's the conflict there between the two list of celebrities.
And I chose the representatives that I, you know, I like to draw.
I like to, that's part of my, my world.
That's the superheroes.
And, you know, I drew them.
Daryl Cagle: Now I will introduce Moshik Gulst, who is an editorial
cartoonist originally from Ashqelon, a city which has recently been
devastated by rockets from Gaza.
He currently lives in Tel Aviv area.
He's the head cartoonist for the largest newspaper in Israel, as
well as several other newspapers.
He's an author of several national award winning comic books and works
closely with the international human rights organizations.
And he, uh, too.
studied under, Michel at Bezalel, Art Academy in Jerusalem.
Nice to have you with us, Moshik.
Moshik Gulst: Hi, nice to be here.
Thanks for inviting
Daryl Cagle: Here's one of yours.
Uh, you've got a Hamas, uh, artist painting like Picasso, kind of, uh,
uh, horror, Picasso, of a disembodied.
victim, and defense officials expect the latest attack to inspire others,
and the Hamas artist says this is what will happen to the next Jew I meet.
Moshik Gulst: So, actually, this is a cartoon I did, a year ago.
Oh, really?
So, um, yeah, so it just, it, got a new, uh, meaning, uh, new
dreadful horror, uh, meaning.
and it.
It's connected with the things that, uh, with the previous cartoon by Michel
that some of us, some of the cartoons that we do, they seem to, um, to be
relevant again and again and again.
And this, uh, this, this thing, I, it was before I even thought
of such a barbarism that happened on the 7th of October, the 7th.
And I did it after just one, uh, terror attack that somebody,
um, stabbed, uh, Israeli.
and we have, uh, this, cop cats that just mimic, the terrorist, actions.
so, uh, that, that was the, the, the main, uh, the main theme.
Um, and I care.
A lot of the defense officials, uh, they always say that one, one terror
attack inspired other terror attacks.
So I just, I thought, okay, what could be inspiring?
I took it to the, to the art field.
And so, uh, yeah.
And, some, and today just got, uh, horrific meaning.
And the sad thing is that this is not the most, Horrific things that was
done in the, in the terror attack.
Daryl Cagle: there is a theme of the cartoons about, Israel and
the Palestinians of, the conflict repeating and going on forever.
And, those cartoons are evergreens.
you can look back in your archives and run those anytime.
Yeah,
Moshik Gulst: yeah.
I'm sure it happened to, to all of us.
Again and again.
And although this attack is something different, because, it killed the, like,
the faith in a lot of Israelis that somehow you can't get, I don't know,
you can't have peace with the neighbors.
And suddenly the, the difference between East and West, became, uh, For my opinion,
really, uh, clear, uh, and, the result is, is devastating for, for a lot of
Israelis that, for, from what I, I hear, uh, from, I'm originally from the south
and what I hear from a lot of people who were there where their parents that
killed or their friends that killed who managed to escape the, the horror.
And a lot of them had, uh, really, uh, like, peaceful, um, views.
They are, uh, shattered.
They just don't know what to do.
Their hope is gone.
And...
So, today I wouldn't do, uh, this kind of cartoon.
Because it's just too, too, still too, too fresh.
Daryl Cagle: Okay, uh, here's another one of yours.
The Conflict in a Nutshell is a four panel cartoon.
1940, no to a Jewish state.
1967, no to a Jewish state.
That looks like Yasser Arafat.
2014, Abbas, no to a Jewish state.
And 2100, no to a Jewish state.
It just goes on and on.
One of those on and on cartoons.
Although, uh, you see the, the buildings growing bigger and more successful
looking, in Israel as the years go by.
Moshik Gulst: Yeah.
Yeah, because, that's what we, that's what we do in Israel.
We try to, to be successful, to make life, to, to, to bring, uh, achievements.
we always try to, Put our hands, uh, and then try to make peace with the neighbors.
And the funnest thing for me is that, um, this attack and the war, a lot of people
are beginning to call the Hamas and also the Palestinians, some of them Nazis.
And this is, um, something that wasn't really popular before.
And because of the, the, the horror that we experienced these kinds of, of
actions only, only in the Holocaust.
Mm-Hmm.
. And, in the forties, the, the, leader of the Palestinian national
movement, uh, Hamen Hui, he was a Nazi.
So somehow it's like the history has a way of repeating itself or, or connecting
to the past or I don't know what, but um.
This is also something interesting.
And also, at the end, the fourth panel, it's a Hamas soldier's
Michel Kichka: It sums up the situation.
I like this cartoon.
I haven't seen it before because it sums up the situation of
the tragedy of the two people.
The Palestinians who have no states and Israel who have no peace.
Okay?
Somehow.
Daryl Cagle: They are
Michel Kichka: talking to Americans, I would like to add something
about the villages and kibbutz who have been attacked on October 7th.
You know, most of those villages and kibbutz, mainly
kibbutz, they are leftists.
And some of them have relation, work relation with people
from Gaza for years and years.
and some of them have friends in Gaza.
And so this is why what happened in October 7th is so terrible.
No one imagined some of the people who have been taking hostages or
assassinated were, uh, in NGOs helping, people from Gaza to be taken in Israeli
hospitals to get operations that the services that they can't get in Gaza.
And, uh, helping, helping, helping them in all the ways they could.
And so they could not imagine.
And the other thing is that in 48, there were the pioneers who
defended the south border of Israel against the Egyptian army.
So those people are the constructors of this state.
They are also those who are ready for compromise.
And they were the victims of this terror attack.
This is terrible for them.
I think that feelings that they had is also due to this, let's say, the lack
of any illusion of possible solution for a conflict in the generation
to come, one or two generations.
This is terrible what happens.
People have to measure it.
It's not like what we knew before with Hamas.
That's something
Daryl Cagle: different.
Well, I'm going to go through, a dozen, uh, cartoons from around the world.
And, uh, maybe you guys wanna make some comments.
This one's by Chris Wyant.
one of our cartoonists.
Oh, I thought this was, uh, for, a symmetry cartoon.
I thought this was,
Uri Fink: oh, yeah, we, yeah.
We already discussed the, the symmetry thing.
Symmetry is not, uh, don't think it's, uh, appropriate at the moment.
'cause it really wasn't symmetry this time because, uh, what Hamas.
What I think is we have to separate the thing is we have to the only
thing that I can identify with this cartoon Is that it shows the
Palestinian flag and not the Hamas flag.
I think the only thing that we should And the only realization you
should come to is that Hamas, Hamas has always been an organization
that is, as I said, is pure evil.
This is nothing to talk to him.
We can't negotiate with him, can't do anything with him.
So I think his point was to attack those kibbutzim because he knows
those are these biggest enemies, the people who believe in peace, so
that he targeted those kibbutzim.
specifically to, you know, to, wipe out any hope for peace.
That was it.
That's his goal, all his existence, everything he, that's his, uh,
that's his raison d'etre, to stamp out all hope for peace.
Daryl Cagle: Well, you know, the symmetry thing is, what we're hearing as a
drumbeat on television all the time.
1, 400 casualties in, uh, Israel and 4, 000 in Gaza.
Moshik Gulst: I think that, I think we live in a, in a world that, uh, like
the, the, the strong is less moral.
I mean this, way of thinking of a lot of people.
So if you're strong, it means that, you are less moral or less
ethic or, and I guess that like.
It's if you, if you try to, to see it like, you know, in American
eyes, it's like Canada was, was, uh, I don't know, uh, was governed
by ISIS and attacked America.
So the U.
S.
So, but, but, uh, the U.
S.
is much stronger.
So, you know, I'm sure, uh, Montreal would, would have
suffered a lot of, uh, bombshells.
Uri Fink: Death to America, eh?
Yeah, that's, that's, uh, the Canadian.
The
Michel Kichka: previous one, you know, the previous one shows a misunderstanding
of the situation, I think, because this cartoon is very generic.
It could be the cover of a book explaining the long conflict
between Israel and Palestine.
This cartoon will always be right, but it's not up to date, as we say.
It's not about what is happening now.
Uri Fink: Yes.
It's too light.
Yeah.
That's the thing is, okay.
Thank you.
Michel Kichka: This is Tom, no?
Daryl Cagle: This is Tom Janssen.
And, the hostage is hidden in the tunnels.
Uri Fink: The thing is that, uh, the good thing is that Hamas
terrorists, they wear masks and you don't have to draw their faces.
Because if you had to draw their faces they would be like monsters and
it would be it would be a cartoon.
Idiotic, I dunno.
So it's good that they wear masks, so you have to draw them, just draw a person
with a, with a mask and a, green headband, and you're set, it's a Hamas snake.
It's not a Palestinian, we don't, don't fight Palestinians.
We fight Hamas snakes.
That's, that's the whole, that's the, that's the difference.
You don't, uh, you know, and that's the, the thing is he's trying
to get in and, and look for it.
Michel Kichka: I must say that, I don't know Tom, I never met him.
But I like this guy.
I like his work, and all his cartoons are artistically wonderful, intelligent
and sophisticated, and balanced.
I really like this man.
I'd like to meet him in one of my next trips to Europe.
He's from Holland.
Daryl Cagle: He comes to St.
Just sometimes, this one's by Bart Van Leeuwen, with the Hamas driving,
out between the legs of Netanyahu, not much, Security from Netanyahu.
Uri Fink: Yeah, that's a cartoon that could be done in Israel nowadays.
I mean, but an Israeli cartoonist would, they, they, some of them draw pretty
much, uh, in that vein, you know, that, that kind of, uh, a way of thinking
that, uh, Netanyahu as an idiot, as a buffoon, and still, you know, and
you don't see the faces, it's good.
Daryl Cagle: Well, Netanyahu is looking pretty terrible
with all that, judicial reform.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, he looks like a villain here.
Uri Fink: Oh, really?
I thought he looked funny.
Maybe.
Okay.
Maybe I look at that
Daryl Cagle: alone.
No, I mean with regard to the courts.
I
Michel Kichka: think this cartoon, I think this cartoon, the previous one
that you showed, you can't understand what is the position of the cartoonists.
This one?
Yeah, this one.
It could have been done in Gaza, in a local newspaper, celebrating the Ah,
Uri Fink: you think so?
Yeah.
Looks celebratory to you?
I don't know.
I don't
Daryl Cagle: know.
The whole, the focal point of this is, Netanyahu's butt.
Moshik Gulst: Yeah, yeah.
I think Michel is right because, uh, I mean, just, uh, I think today or the
day before, the Iranian, press service just posted the Israeli cartoon and it's
hard in a war to criticize, without your enemies try benefit from it.
And I think in the times of war, it's one of the hard things, I mean, for
me, for us as a cartoonist, I'm sure.
Which I don't know if he will, will agree.
Yeah.
Daryl Cagle: Okay.
Well, to be fair to Bart, I don't, I don't think there's
any pro Hamas in this cartoon.
No, I don't think
Michel Kichka: so.
This cartoon published in Gaza would make people laugh, and
in Israel it would make people
Uri Fink: cry.
No, no, I don't think, well, come on, have you seen the cartoons in Ha'aretz?
The second day of the war, Yeah.
Biderman drew a cartoon of the entire government hiding under the table.
Yes, I see.
I saw it.
That's, that's a defining cartoon.
I mean, people are turning like crazy all over the, all over the internet.
So, I think it's very important to keep criticizing the government, especially
now that they're so incompetent.
Not security wise, I'm talking about, you know, the whole managing of the, the
Daryl Cagle: country.
This is a Dave Granlund cartoon with, Bibi Netanyahu, being blind with his
Intel guide dog, who is also blind.
Uri Fink: Well, that's not very, that's not very, uh, clever, I think.
It's just, uh, I don't know.
It's not that clever.
Daryl Cagle: Just illustrating the situation, I guess.
Alright, here's a, cartoon from Andy Singer, uh, terrorism just touches
the tail of the Israeli dog, which then, rushes to bite his own tail.
Uri Fink: That's, uh, that's nasty.
That's, that's a nasty cartoon because, you know, it's like overreaction
that has all the elements of, Of a wrong position on the matter.
Daryl Cagle: Well, that is half the news that we're getting
that uh, Israel is overreacting
Uri Fink: No, I think the thing is then we are we like the dog's
bite is supposed to be the terror attack of I don't understand.
I, I don't understand , I'm sorry, please.
I, I think that,
Moshik Gulst: that this is the, the, the goal of, of terrorism.
Like, maybe here it's, I don't know, look a little bit funny or something, but,
uh, terrorism can't win military wise.
So they just try to, to make you fall into your own, uh, holes.
And then just, like they, they did.
To so many other Western countries, I think, um, that's eventually, you
know, especially in Gaza, it happened a lot and with the Palestinians that
they're doing terrorist attacks and eventually, eventually just, um, it
shakes apart the political structure.
Uri Fink: I don't understand the dog biting.
When did we bite our tail?
I don't understand.
I mean, what's the tail bite represents?
I don't understand this cartoon, really.
Michel Kichka: You want me to explain?
How I understand
Uri Fink: it?
Yes, please do.
Please do, professor.
Michel Kichka: No.
I'm your colleague,
and your friend.
It's about the difficulty to fight against an army, against
something which is not an army.
And actually, uh, the Americans have experienced it in Afghanistan.
Actually, they did not know how to fight there.
and the consequences were a lot of loss of lives and, and money
for the American and they couldn't bring stability to the region.
And as far as they left Afghanistan, the Taliban came back.
So when it's not a, let's say a normal war, is there such a thing, a normal war?
But again, terror, you sometime bite yourself.
I mean, you, you, you, you go on being the victim of the fight, the right
fight that you are doing, trying to do.
It's not so simple.
So I, I don't, don't think it's so nice.
I think that, uh, we still don't know how it'll end.
We'll see.
Daryl Cagle: Here's another grandlin cartoon with, uh, Israel
will allow, civilians to evacuate.
And Gaza at the edge of the cliff with nowhere to go.
Says to where, yeah.
Uri Fink: Okay.
That, okay.
That's, that's simply wrong because if, if Egypt would let open the, the
border, they would be able to go there.
It's not a cliff.
It's the, you should, you should draw there in Egyptian.
And not letting them in.
I mean, that's the whole, uh, problem.
They, they say they are, are barrack.
That that's a, and and, and it's not.
I mean, they have a open border.
They have a border with Egypt as well, so they could go there,
but they, they don't let them.
So this cartoon is simply, it's nice, it's funny.
So it's a funny situation, but it's a wrong situation.
It's not that, it's not that way, you know, but,
Daryl Cagle: but you know, given that Egypt won't let them in,
there is no place to evacuate.
Uri Fink: Okay.
Okay.
But, uh, if you ignore that fact, you know, you, you, you're simply
left with the fact that, uh, the tank is one to, you know, okay.
That's, uh,
Moshik Gulst: if I may add, something that maybe it's not quite, um,
uh, spoken in the media that, that a lot of the people who made all
those atrocities were civilians.
I mean, it wasn't just Hamas terrorists.
Okay.
It was a lot of, uh, just ordinary cousins who came into the,
kibbutzes and settlements and all this, and just, like, slaughtered.
And this is something that really, um, made the people of Israel
horrific and made them like shocked.
And, and it's also, um, So, so this is like, um, something that's, when
you see it in all the cartoons, you see, all the, just the Hamas
militants and Hamas fighters and, and terrorists, and not the civilians, but
this is a point that's, It's worth, uh, talking about or mentioning.
Daryl Cagle: Well, the point that we see on TV all the time is that
the civilians are victims and not necessarily in support of Hamas, but
my understanding is that, there hasn't been an election, on the West Bank for
the Palestinian Authority for 17 years, largely because there's an expectation
that they would vote for Hamas.
And, it may be, it seems to me that perhaps the civilians in Gaza support
Hamas, even though there's no election.
Do you look at it that way?
Michel Kichka: Listen, I think that in Gaza itself, the people have no choice.
There's no...
The political party has opposition.
Daryl Cagle: If they had a choice, would they vote for Hamas?
Michel Kichka: Listen, I don't know.
I don't know, but this cartoon, The second balloon where to
where is written could be...
uh, Hamas want us to use as human shields.
Okay?
So we will not evacuate.
Because I don't know if you heard of it in the American media, but some
of the Palestinians from Gaza who moved to the south in the direction
of the Egypt border were also bombed and killed on their way to there.
Because the Hamas did not want them.
They wanted to use them as human shields.
And It seems that people are forgetting that.
Okay?
So, this cartoon could be good with another caption.
Even better, I see.
Uri Fink: Okay.
I've seen that one.
Daryl Cagle: Hajjaj, yes.
This is by Emad Hajjaj.
Yes.
Uri Fink: Emad Hajjaj is a great cartoonist, but, uh, But he did this one.
This one that
Michel Kichka: he did.
This is one of the softer.
Uri Fink: Yeah, but this is, like Michel said, it could be done as
a book cover for the situation.
Everything.
Daryl Cagle: It was done in the last week.
Uri Fink: Yeah.
That's not, that's the only , that's the only thing that it's relative to,
to this, to this, uh, discussion because it's, it could be done anytime, you know?
And who killed this?
Uh, this could be Kibbutz Bay.
Daryl Cagle: Well, this is obviously Israel that killed the bird because
it's the bombed out building.
And,
Uri Fink: uh, well, we, yeah.
Yeah, the kibbutz team don't look much better now.
I mean, so after the, you know, after the massacre, so, I dunno.
Okay.
Michel Kichka: You know, the, the, I think that the difficulty of
moderate, , people in the Arab part is that they condemn the Hamas.
That they, they cannot also identify with Israel.
So, so this cartoon is somehow soft, even if it's not right.
It's soft.
It tries to be somehow moderate.
And it's well done artistically.
He's a very good artist, but, uh, it's really one sided.
Really, really.
One sided.
Daryl Cagle: This one's by Marian Kaminsky from Austria.
Yeah.
Okay.
Uri Fink: Um, okay.
That's, uh, , the first one that I can really, you know,
that puts all the blame on the, on the, on the Palestinians.
Uh, that's,
Daryl Cagle: uh, yeah, and it shows that they, uh, they, that that's
something I should have a good idea of what was gonna happen.
Uri Fink: Yeah.
, that's a, that's one.
I, I thought I, I should have, I wish I, I, I thought about that.
Uh, cartoon, that's the first one that I said is, wow.
That's a great one.
That's a good image.
And, uh, and it, it shows the situation.
What's, uh, what's probably about to happen, I guess.
Daryl Cagle: Oh, that's, here's another Hajjaj cartoon.
Uri Fink: Yeah.
I, I, I don't know if I'm, uh, you know, that's another, the attitude towards Hamas
as a cat is, is too forgiving, I think.
It's not, the, both Hajjajs, they, all the time, they, they can't, they can't bring
themselves to be really against Hamas.
They can't bring, I don't know, it's not legal in, I don't know, in
Jordan to do things like that, but to compare Hamas to a cat, I don't know.
I'm not a big fan of cats anyway, but, but, uh, it's not Hamas.
I'm not a big fan of Hamas either, but, uh, I don't know.
Like, you feel sorry for the cat, you know, but they should
be much more, you know, the cat.
Should be it's like a little demon or something should be, you know, or
something more evil, you know, although cats are pretty evil, I must say.
Daryl Cagle: This is one of mine.
it's an older one.
I've got the kids in the sandbox.
They're playing Israel versus Palestine and they're fighting each other
and their cussin' and the Mom's...
The kids are playing Israel vs.
Palestinians, their mom says, how cute.
And they grow up still fighting and playing, still fighting
with, knives and guns now.
Then they're old men, and then they die, and then they're skeletons
with their bones bleaching.
Michel Kichka: The good point is that they rest in peace.
Daryl Cagle: Thank you, gentlemen, for being here.
That is the end of our podcast.
I appreciate you, coming on to talk about all these serious issues in
cartoons, because, cartoons make, serious commentary and people need to understand
that not all the things we do are jokes.
And, I think, editorial cartoons convey, all of those.
issues better than words and, it's time that editors realize that.
So, remember to subscribe to the Caglecast wherever you're
watching or listening today.
Our Caglecast is available in both video and audio versions, so if you don't see
the cartoons, go to Cagle.Com or Apple Podcasts or YouTube or Spotify to see
the cartoons and the video podcasts.
We're available on all the podcast platforms, one that I like is Podcrusher,
which shows the videos very nicely, but, just watch it wherever you want,
but be sure to subscribe there, and, thank you all for, coming again, and,
we are going to do a part two of this one, and we will see you again soon.
See you soon.
Michel Kichka: Soon, when the war will be over.
Soon.