Last weekend's horrific attack at a synagogue in Poway, California was just the latest expression of the heightened climate of antisemitism and far-right hatred in the United States. However, instead of prompting an honest discussion of how the president's rhetoric and GOP policies have contributed to these hateful ideologies, the press quickly moved to a debate over an antisemitic cartoon posted in the international edition of The New York Times. That cartoon, depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog leading a blind Donald Trump wearing a yarmulke, generated outrage all across the cable news shows. According to Eli Valley, Jewish satirist and comic artist, this pivot of coverage is the latest example of the political right weaponizing antisemitism to deflect its own complicity in the worldwide resurgence of Nazism.
On his site and in his collection of comics, Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel, Valley uses grotesque caricatures to call out political figures like Meghan McCain and Ben Shapiro, who have blamed the left for the rising tide of antisemitism. In this interview, Valley talks with Bob about the erasure of left-wing Jews of the diaspora and the role of righteous anger in today's political climate.
This is a segment from On the Media’s May 3rd, 2019 program, A High State of Agitation.
Eli Valley comics discussed in the segment:
