With the Guardian's Steve Bell disgracing himself this morning, it's maybe worth showing how a decent cartoonist might comment on the current situation in Gaza. Peter Brookes in today's Times (£), for instance:
« Red white windows | Main | New Healthway »
With the Guardian's Steve Bell disgracing himself this morning, it's maybe worth showing how a decent cartoonist might comment on the current situation in Gaza. Peter Brookes in today's Times (£), for instance:
The comments to this entry are closed.
agreed!
Posted by: shir | November 16, 2012 at 09:54 PM
The Brookes cartoon would make more sense if it was only Hamas preventing civilians from leaving, but in contrast to North Korea they have a bit more help with keeping hold of their captive population.
We can imagine what would happen to the Kims' regime if people were able to travel out of North Korea. So what would happen to Hamas if more people were able to travel out of Gaza?
Posted by: Kellie | November 17, 2012 at 12:55 AM
@Kellie ask the Egyptians, they control Gaza's south border, even before the Muslim brothers took over the revolution and won the elections. In fact, about three weeks ago Ismail Haniye asked president Mursi to open a new trade zone, which would be combined for Gaza and Egypt. Mursi said no (Egypt has no plan of being accused if something rocketish would cross their border into Gaza - they prefer to let Hamas roll it freely underground so that they can claim it was "smuggled")but that's not the point, the point is that both presidents (of Egypt and of Gaza) discussed this over at a hotel in Alexandria, afterwards Haniye went back home to Gaza along with other Gazans who were returning from Egypt that evening... above ground by the way.
Posted by: shir | November 18, 2012 at 07:12 PM
I'm sure there must be a degree of Egyptian state complicity or at least corruption to allow smuggling on such a scale, and I agree on how smuggling gives the advantage of deniability to the Egyptian government, but even when Israel's ground occupation was in place they weren't able to stop tunnel smuggling on that border.
It'll be interesting to see if Egyptian government policy on the border holds, and what reaction will be if it falls apart. Hamas would welcome it in public, but I think free trade and movement with Egypt could be highly disruptive for their operation.
Posted by: Kellie | November 18, 2012 at 08:30 PM
Sorry, for movement I meant travel.
Posted by: Kellie | November 18, 2012 at 08:32 PM
Schrank's cartoon in yesterday's 'IOS' was surprisingly even-handed.
Posted by: sackcloth and ashes | November 19, 2012 at 11:19 AM