A Dave Granlund cartoon about the current Israeli-Hamas War brought at least one objection:
I feel compelled to bring to your attention how dangerously misleading the oversimplified “story” presented in this cartoon is.
It represents Hamas as a hornets’ nest. So this cartoon is saying that Hamas is a bunch of potentially annoying creatures, but if left alone, they’ll leave you alone — so if they sting, it’s your fault.
It represents Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — and for many readers it will represent Israel as a whole — as someone going out of his way to antagonize the otherwise quiet, harmless hornets and, basically, asking for what they got.
The response from The Aspen Times:
Saturday’s editorial cartoon is by Dave Granlund, a Minnesota-based political cartoonist whose work has been syndicated nationally since 1978.
Granlund also is responsible for the cartoon published on Monday’s Aspen Times opinion page.
Some readers took offense at that cartoon, mostly on the grounds that it appeared to apply a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas when there is none.
We apologize for publishing Monday’s cartoon and the pain it caused readers. The Aspen Times is committed to a vibrant opinion page that welcomes an open dialogue and a wide variety of viewpoints expressed in its letters, columns, editorials, and cartoons. Toward that end, we encourage those who disagree with Monday’s cartoon to share their criticisms with us as letters and columns.
Read The Aspen Times apology and their atonement.
Finally, we thought it appropriate to give readers a more complete picture of Granlund’s perspective on Israel and Hamas by publishing Saturday’s cartoon [below], drawn several days after the earlier cartoon, which was drawn in the hours after news of the Hamas attack broke.
More Dave Granlund cartoons, including more about the 2023 Israeli-Hamas War, at his Cagle Cartoons page.
Next day update:
Just to note that the hornet’s nest cartoon was picked to be included in Politico’s Cartoon Carousel this week.
In Granlund’s defense, it was probably the best he could put together from the clip-art of Netanyahu and hornets nests he’s created over the years.