Mail Bag

Paul writes about yesterday’s cartoon:

You really, really don’t get it. Take your number 2 [pencil], darken Olmert’s skin. Give him nappy hair and thick lips while you’re at it. Change antisemite to niggerlover. Is the strip still funny?
 
But the Germans, of all people, can better explain this to you. Go here: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429982,00.html
 
I still think you’re saveable and (usually) love your work.

And it’s good to be loved. Seriously:

Antisemitism is real. To wit: Mel Gibson. (Sorry, but non-antisemites don’t spout antisemitic bullshit when they get drunk.)

The point of my cartoon is that, while some critics of Israel do so because they are antisemites, criticizing Israel does not inherently make one antisemitic. I have serious issues with Israeli foreign policy, yet I admire Israel and despise antisemitism. (Sort of how I hate American foreign policy, yet love America.)

In the analogy that you make, a cartoon called “The Anatomy of Racism” would only work if there were some black-dominated nation whose critics were routinely and automatically accused of racism merely because of that country’s demographics. No one has ever suggested, at least not seriously, that critics of [Zimbabwean President] Robert Mugabe are motivated solely or even partly by racism.