Video: Former New Zealand Herald cartoonist showcases anti-Zionist work that got him fired

Just came across this short film about Malcolm Evans, the former editorial cartoonist for the New Zealand Herald. During his six years at the paper, he was twice awarded the New Zealand Cartoonist of the Year.

One of the editorial cartoons that Malcolm Evans was fired for producing.: (http://www.evanscartoons.com/)But back in 2002, Evans was dismissed following complaints over several anti-Zionist cartoons, and his subsequent refusal to stop publishing cartoons on the Israel-Palestine conflict. The video showcases his art along with many of the cartoons about Zionism that the New Zealand Herald refused to publish.

At the time of his dismissal, Evans wrote a letter to Darryl Cagle, head of the Cagle Cartoons Syndicate, who distributes Evan's cartoons in the United States:

Dear Daryl -

Thanks so much for taking the time to drop me a line. The response to my situation has been overwhelming and so, while on the one hand I have never felt so alone, at the same time so surrounded by friends.

I am by nature, as I think many of our fraternity are, a relatively solitary person and so didn't go looking for this fight. However, as you correctly report, it came looking for me in the form of an ultimatum, that I must desist from supplying anti -Israel cartoons to the paper, if I wished to remain employed. That was subsequently watered down to the assertion of an Editor's general right, but I believe that's only window dressing.

As you also report, I have always acknowledged the Editor's absolute right of refusal to run a cartoon, but this edict went an ominous step further and I had no choice but to resist.

I believe that the public not only regard our work as a reflection of the cartoonist's opinion on any given day, but judge it as part of a continuum - part of a bigger picture - and a certain trust is established - the viewer can see where the cartoonist is coming from. So, in my view, it's a fraud on the reader to allow someone else to genetically engineer a detail of that bigger picture.

And as more and more media is controlled by fewer and fewer people, the cartoonist must be ever more vigilant that his opinions are not hi-jacked in the way that so much of our news appears to be.

However the saddest thing for me throughout this whole affair (and it's been going on for a year or more) has been the Pro-Israeli faction's attempt to paint me as an anti-semitic Nazi. While I realise that such a smear campaign is part of their stock in trade, it still hurts.

For the record, I happen to believe that our society and civilization owes a debt of gratitude to centuries of Jewish initiative in every field of human endeavour. Out of all proportion to their number among us, we have been blessed with the efforts, both singly and as communities, of Jewish scholars, artists, authors, composers, craftsmen, social scientists , philanthropists you name it - the list goes on.

But Zionism is something else!

I also believe that the Holocaust is without doubt the greatest crime in recorded history and together with all the pogroms and persecutions of Jews that preceeded it, is Europe's greatest shame. But if it's Europe's greatest crime, how can it be fair that it be used to justify the establishment of a safe haven, for which Palestinian peasants must pay the price.

Kind regards - Malcolm Evans.

View more of Evans' cartoons here.

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