In his latest cartoon, this time focusing on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election, Chicago Tribune cartoonist Joe Fournier decided it was okay to draw an offensive, untruthful and venomous cartoon against Netanyahu.
The cartoon, which appeared in Tuesday’s Chicago Tribune as well as on Fournier’s Facebook page, depicted Netanyahu saying, “Seriously? People were surprised when I said that there would be no two-state solution in order to secure my re-election? Come on, this is Bibi we’re talking about! The same Bibi who had the Israeli military repeatedly bomb Palestinian hospitals, mosques and schools…”
The false accusation Fournier makes here, is that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) deliberately targeted civilian and religious infrastructure during last year’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Fournier’s outright lie cannot be further from the truth.
The truth, is that last summer the terrorist group Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction, again launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians from among Palestinian civilians – a double war crime according to international law. Israel was required to protect its civilian population – permissible from an international law standpoint – and launched a defensive war against Hamas.
Israel went to great lengths to ensure it avoided as many civilian casualties as possible – exactly the opposite of what Hamas was doing.
US General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Israel went an “extraordinary length” to avoid civilian casualties in Gaza. Dempsey also said that the US Pentagon sent a team to learn from the Israeli military how to limit civilian casualties.
Israel doesn’t try to kill civilians. It takes great measures to save them.
For its part, Hamas admitted that it uses human shields, placing innocent civilians in harms way. Click herefor the video.
Even the New York Times has admitted that Hamas hides weapons in civilian buildings.
So Joe Fournier got it wrong. Israel did not, and never will, deliberately target civilian infrastructure because Israel is a moral country with a moral army.
