Palestine

Thursday December 7, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 7, 2017

Defiant Trump confirms US will recognise Jerusalem as capital of Israel

Donald Trump has defied overwhelming global opposition by declaring US recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, but insisted that the highly controversial move would not derail his own administration’s bid to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In a short speech delivered at the White House, Trump directed the state department to start making arrangements to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem – a process that officials say will take at least three years.

“I have determined that it is time to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel” Trump said. “While previous presidents have made this a major campaign promise, they failed to deliver. Today, I am delivering.”

Trump said: “My announcement today marks the beginning of a new approach to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Rex Tillerson, the secretary of state, announced his officials would “immediately begin the process to implement this decision by starting the preparations to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem”.

Trump’s announcement provoked condemnation from US allies, and a furious reaction from Palestinian leaders and the Muslim world.

Trump insisted that his decision would not derail his own administration’s attempt to make peace, stressing that he was not stipulating how much of Jerusalem should be considered Israel’s capital. Palestinians see East Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state, and Trump did not rule out a future division of the city. (Source: Guardian)

 

Thursday August 18, 2016

2016-08-18Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 18, 2016

Elizabeth May could quit as Green Party leader this month

Elizabeth May says she could step down as Green Party leader later this month if her party doesn’t reconsider its decision to endorse a movement that calls for the boycott of Israel.

At its policy convention last weekend, Green Party members voted in favour of a resolution which, in part, said the party “supports the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (BDS) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT [occupied Palestinian Territories.]”

“I would say as of this minute I think I’d have real difficulties going not just to an election but through the next month,” May said in an interview with CBC Radio’s The House, set to air this Saturday morning on CBC Radio One.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay Ð Monday August 22, 2016

 August 22, 2016

“There are a lot of issues I want to be talking about with Canadians, and this isn’t one of them.”

May is headed to Nova Scotia for a family vacation, where she will seek their advice on her future as leader.

“I need to talk to my family and ask them what they think I should do,” May said. “You’re talking to a broken-hearted person who is trying to figure out the best way forward.”

After Green Party members endorsed the BDS movement, several prominent Jewish organizations denounced the move, with one leader saying he was “irate” with the party.

But another Jewish group was enthusiastic about the resolution brought forward by the Green Party’s justice critic, Dimitri Lascaris.

May — who opposes BDS — said she has been criticized as both a Zionist and an anti-Semite since it was adopted as official party policy.

“It’s horrible. You are caught between two very strong loud voices,” she said.

“I think it is wrong-headed for the party. It’s a very polarizing and divisive campaign.” (Source: CBC News)

 

Thursday August 14, 2014

Thursday August 14, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 14, 2014

Pop-Culture President Fails To Issue Statement on Death of Hollywood Legend

President Barack Obama, whose opinions on entertainment are eagerly awaited by all Americans, has shocked the entertainment industry by ignoring the death of legendary Hollywood actress, and lifelong Democrat, Lauren Bacall.

Bacall, a movie legend whose career included work with filmmakers ranging from Howard Hawks to Douglas Sirk to Lars von Trier, died Tuesday, leaving behind a legacy that included many classic films, a youthful marriage (and early widowhood) to Humphrey Bogart, and a lifetime of activism for liberal causes. Bacall joined protests against the House Un-American Activities Committee, campaigned for two-time failed presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson in the 1950s, and identified herself as “anti-Republican . . . a liberal” in a 2005 Larry King interview.

Yet Bacall’s loyalty to the president’s party has not earned any recognition from the pop-culture-saturated commander-in-chief. Obama has spent much of his time in office taking selfies with cultural notables; giving his opinions on Downton Abbey, Orange Is the New Black, Mad Men, and many other popular television shows; texting with Jay-Z; and gracing the nation with his opinion of Kanye West’s interruption of Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Obama rarely leaves America in the dark about his media diet and pop-culture opinions.

Inconveniently, Obama’s pop connoisseurship is occasionally interrupted by details of national and global politics: Russia is on the verge of invading Ukraine; an area of Iraq the size of Belgium is under the control of a mass-murdering Sunni Islamist terror group; and the United States remains stuck in the longest period of economic stagnation since the Great Depression. But Obama has until now found ways to soldier through, most recently taking time during his Martha’s Vineyard vacation to issue a statement on the death of hirsute funnyman Robin Williams.

The cause of Obama’s Bacall snub is not known. It is possible that he is preparing to hug it out with his former secretary of state Hillary Clinton on the Vineyard tonight. The president may also share the view, held by a large minority of American men, that Martha Vickers, who played Bacall’s slutty younger sister in Hawks’s 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, was the real hot one. (Source: National Review)

FEEDBACK

Letter to the Editor, August 15, 2014

Poor taste in celebrity death cartoon

 I was disgusted by the lack of sensitivity in Graeme MacKay’s cartoon of Aug. 14, depicting the recent deaths of celebrities and asking who’s next. It was an utter lack of taste and poor decision-making on the part of the editor for publishing it. Shame on you.

 S. Skalko, Hamilton

 

 

Friday July 25, 2014

Friday July 25, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 25, 2014

Does Hamas use civilians as human shields?

“Hamas is using them, Palestinians, as human shields.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, 20 July 2013

There is no dispute that Palestinian civilians tend to suffer disproportionately when the Arab-Israeli conflict boils over into violence.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014At time of writing, more than 700 Palestinians have died in the latest fighting, compared to 35 on the Israeli side, 32 of them members of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

The lop-sided human cost of this conflict is entirely in keeping with previous outbreaks of fighting.

More than 7,500 Palestinians and 1,100 Israelis have died since the outbreak of the second Intifada (Palestinian uprising) in 2000, according to the Israeli human rights information centre B’Tselem.

All of this is often used as evidence of the brutally disproportionate nature of the military action Israel periodically launches in the occupied territories.

But the Israeli military has blamed high Palestinian casualty rates in the recent fighting Gaza on Hamas, saying the Islamist group that runs the enclave has a deliberate policy of placing its own civilians in harm’s way.

Actually Hamas has made no secret of advocating the use of civilians as human shields to try to face down Israeli aggression.

A senior spokesman for the group, Sami Abu Zuhri, gave an interview on Palestinian station al-Aqsa TV earlier this month.

He said: “This attests to the character of our noble, jihad-loving people – who defend their rights and their homes with their bare chests and their blood.

“The policy of people confronting the Israeli warplanes with their bare chests in order to protect their homes has proven effective against the occupation… we in Hamas call upon our people to adopt this policy in order to protect the Palestinian homes.”

Credible reports from journalists in Gaza suggest some civilians are choosing to stay in their homes, ignoring warnings of imminent destructions that the Israeli military gives via telephone calls or empty shells “knocking on the roof”.

On the same day as Mr Abu Zuhri was broadcasting Hamas’s message, the New York Times reported the fate of a Palestinian man, Salah Kaware, who received a telephone warning that his house in Khan Younis in south east Gaza was about to be hit by the IDF.

The newspaper reported that another warning came as the occupants were leaving, when an Israeli drone fired a flare at the roof of the three-storey home. (Continued: Channel Four News)

 

FEEDBACK

I just wanted to tell “Mackay” that I feel his editorial cartoon in friday’s paper is very inappropriate. He is either very naive/ignorant, or very biased. With the public platform provided him by The Spec, he needs to educate himself before spouting off. Khalid Mashaal in his public conversations explains the Palestinian side, and some of the roots of the ongoing conflict. Gaza is a prison, and Israel is the jail guard. However there are obviously other opinions. As I said he needs to educate himself on the issues pro and con, and then maybe he could better express a view that is more balanced. This cartoon is a disgrace to ALL who have died over the years. Shame on you.

Anonymous

 

 


 

Post by Graeme MacKay – editorial cartoonist.

 

 

 

 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Tuesday, January 21, 2014Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, January 21, 2014

Harper’s bromance with Netanyahu designed to shift focus from PM’s domestic troubles

If Hollywood hadn’t already coined a bromance called I Love You, Man, they could have made a movie about the prettiest love story in international politics — namely, the one between Benjamin Netanyahu and Stephen Harper.

Mr. Harper thanked him in return, while saying that he would save his more substantive remarks for when he addresses the Knesset Monday.

But this is a relationship based upon mutual back-scratching. Mr. Netanyahu is being forced to address the prospect that Israel’s regional hegemony is under threat. At the same time, his hawkish policies on settlements in the West Bank mean Israel is increasingly isolated and ostracized. It needs friends and there have been none more unconditional than Mr. Harper.

Reminders that this is a tough neighbourhood are everywhere you look — when the media were being cleared for entry to the official welcome ceremony, a cherubic looking member of the security staff asked if we had any weapons to declare. Gulp.

The Canadian leader has his own reasons for indulging in a little bromance. Standing alongside a strongman like Mr. Netanyahu reinforces the impression that Canada is back on the world stage, with a “principled” foreign policy that does not require us to “go along, to get along.”

The Israeli prime minister welcomed his Canadian counterpart to Jerusalem Sunday, and was gushing in his praise.

“In a world that is often cynical and hypocritical, you have shown great moral leadership in fighting terrorism and not engaging in politically-correct double-talk,” he said.

Canada under Mr. Harper has stood unabashedly at the side of the Jewish people “and on the side of decency,” particularly in the face of threats from an Iranian regime set on developing nuclear weapons. “You’ve stood on the right side of history,” he said.

The Canadian government has recognized that lasting peace depends on mutual recognition and sound security arrangements. “You’ve been an indispensable voice,” the Israeli leader concluded. (Source: National Post)

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