A political cartoonist at the University of Pennsylvania has come under scrutiny for a series of illustrations referencing Israel's ongoing war in Gaza.
The work of Dwayne Booth, a lecturer and artist at Penn's Annenberg School of Communication, drew criticism Sunday night from Penn interim President J. Larry Jameson, who accused Booth of including antisemitic imagery in his cartoons. For months, the university has been mired in claims of antisemitism causing turmoil on campus, which intensified following the Hamas attacks on Israel in October.
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Booth's political cartoons, often published under the pseudonym Mr. Fish, were shared on his personal website and social media pages, but not used as material in either of the two courses he teaches at Penn, Jameson said.
One drawing, published in December, shows a hand holding a pistol marked with an Israeli flag against the head of a baby. Another, titled "The Anti-Semite," shows a group of men sipping blood from chalices in front of a flag with the logos of Israel and the United States.
"I find them reprehensible, with antisemitic symbols, and incongruent with our efforts to fight hate," Jameson said. "They disrespect the feelings and experiences of many people in our community and around the world, particularly those only a generation removed from the Holocaust."
Jameson's statement came after the conservative website Washington Free Beacon published a post last Thursday that included other Mr. Fish cartoons. One depicts soldiers in front of what resembles a Nazi flag except the swastika replaced by the Star of David. Another depicts a blue man with the letters "IDF" on his chest, carring a spiked bat and urinating on a peace sign; IDF is an abbreviation for the Israel Defense Forces, that county's military arm./
Statement on political cartoons from J. Larry Jameson, Interim President, University of Pennsylvania https://t.co/be9r32piun pic.twitter.com/dwUOM05byt
— Penn (@Penn) February 5, 2024
The Free Beacon described a drawing of the men drinking blood as an antisemitic reference to the ancient blood libel myth, which accused Jews of drinking the blood of Christian children as part of their religious rituals.
In emails Monday, Booth said the negative reaction has been "a misreading" of his work, which he said often aims to provoke difficult conversations that disrupt "mainstream narratives." One of those narratives, he said, is the approach to all criticism of Israel as hatred of Jewish people.
"In the case of the international conversation about the current war in Gaza, it will be impossible to have a substantive debate over the specifics and potential outcomes so long as there remains a lazy conflation that makes the State of Israel and the politics that guide its actions as a nation inseparable from Judaism, itself," Booth said.
On Instagram, Booth addressed his readers and said it is not the first time that he and other political cartoonists have "set themselves willingly into such crosshairs" in the name of democracy. A new drawing he shared Saturday criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a caption claiming complaints about antisemitism have stifled political debate.
Comments on Booth's recent posts have been harshly critical, including backlash from many who say Booth refuses to acknowledge that his work on the Gaza war repeatedly has been called offensive by Jewish people. Others, like author and activist Cornel West, have come to Booth's defense.
"Mr. Fish is one of the great artists in American culture! Like the great satirists of the past – from Jonathan Swift to Ishmael Reed – he exposes the hypocrisy and cruelty in our lives and society!" West wrote Saturday, reposting Booth's cartoon.
On Monday, Booth shared a drawing of Uncle Sam's hand over a man's mouth.
Booth's work is published regularly by the progressive outlet ScheerPost.com, founded by journalist Robert Scheer. Booth also has had his work featured in Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times, Mother Jones and other outlets, his university bio states.
"Using the shock of unexpected imagery is one way to test our connections to various things and force us to grapple with how and why we commit to certain ideas," said Booth, who has published multiple books.
About the drawing showing the men drinking blood in front of the blended flags of Israel and the U.S., Booth said he understands how it could be interpreted as a reference to blood libel.
"When the cartoon was originally published and posted by me, it received nothing but praise because the narrative read cleanly as this: Warmongers and those who benefit from the deaths of civilians are, as a metaphor, drinking the blood spilled by their actions," Booth said. "Only when framed in the context of antisemitism did the reading distort. This is something that happens all the time in art, the fragile connection between intent and interpretation."
Booth has been teaching two courses at Penn for the last 10 years and said he was originally hired as a professional craftsman and scholar. He is not tenured at Penn and confirmed that he has not used his cartoons about Gaza in the courses he teaches.
One course, called "WARNING! Graphic Content: Political Cartoons, Comix, and the Uncensored Artist," teaches students how visual jokes and images can propagate "both noble and nefarious ideas." Booth's other course examines how satirical humor can be influential "as both an instigator and peacemaker." Both courses explore how society struggles with uncensored artistic expression and what Booth calls "radicalized creative candor."
Jameson said Booth's drawings use the loss of life in Gaza as "fodder for satire," but said the university upholds its principles of free expression.
"At Penn, we have a bedrock commitment to open expression and academic freedom, principles that were unanimously reaffirmed last week by our Faculty Senate Executive Committee," Jameson said. "We also have a responsibility to challenge what we find offensive, and to do so acknowledging the right and ability of members of our community to express their views, however loathsome we find them."
Source/University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania lecturer Dwayne Booth, aka Mr. Fish, says the negative reactions to his political cartoons about the Israel-Hamas war are 'misreading' of his work.
Jameson was appointed in December to replace previous President Liz Magill, who resigned not long after testifying at a congressional hearing on antisemitism on college campuses, the culmination of several months of criticism about how Penn handled incidents on its campus and threats by high-profile alumni to withhold their donations to the school. Former board of directors Chair Scott Bok also resigned and was replaced in January by long-time trustee Ramanan Raghavendran.
Penn also is being sued by two students who claim they and other Jews have been subjected to a "hostile environment" at the University City campus. The U.S. Department of Education dismissed a similar case of its own due to redundancy last month. The university now has an Action Plan to Combat Antisemitism and a task force that was convened in November to evaluate the impact of antisemitism on academic life.
Booth said he was disappointed that Jameson "gave credibility" to the report in the Washington Free Beacon, which he said removed his drawings from the context of columns that they had originally accompanied. Jewish readers of his did not object to his cartoons about the war in Gaza, apart from reminders to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 attacks, Booth claimed.
"There was absolutely no comment on my imagery and absolutely no statements accusing me of anti-Semitism," Booth said.
He quoted the famous Jewish comedian Lenny Bruce, who was arrested and tried multiple times for violating obscenity laws in the 1960s: "Take away the right to say 'f***' and you take away the right to say 'f*** the government.'"
Still, Booth acknowledged that political cartoons often are interpreted in ways the artist may not intend.
"It's always a challenge to determine the right strategy for a piece of commentary to land with minimal inference from misinterpretation," Booth said. "Sometimes you nail it and sometimes something happens to complicate the reading."
