Joe Sacco Finds A Way To Justify The Killers Of The Charlie Hebdo Cartoonists

Here.

It was bad taste, you see, for those cartoons ever to have been published, especially at this moment in history– why, just look around Europe, look around the world —  when Muslims feel so threatened by non-Muslims. And there are even those who, Joe Sacco assures us, want to drive them, those inoffensive Muslims, into the sea. And besides, just look at these cartoons I can draw — of a black man with a banana, falling out of a tree, and — oh, here’s one I can do in a jiffy — of a “Jew counting his money.” Funny, but that last cartoon is not very far from the antisemitism of Joe Sacco’s vicious cartoon-book about the terrible torments of the Arabs in Gaza and the cruelty of their Israeli (that is Jewish) overlords who are responsible, in the world of Joe Sacco, for everything they suffer. Joe Sacco isn’t about to defend free speech, not now. Not when Muslims are under such a terrible threat all over the Western world.Now is not the time for it. Not when their outrage is so understandable. Perhaps if some Muslims are killed by non-Muslims for publishing something, then Joe Sacco will be outraged.

I’ve seen his work. I always thought he was an obvious antisemite. Now I’m certain. He’s a Defender of the Faith. Not just when it comes to Israel. But when it comes to cartoonists who were soixante-huitards, as leftwing as one could want. But they offended Muslims. And to Joe Sacco, that’s not defensible. Those Muslim killers had a point. The entire civilized world has another view. But not Joe Sacco. He’s got other things on his mind.

And Joe Sacco knows, when he goes to bed every night, that no matter how vicious his portrayal of certain people, as long as they are not Muslims, he’s safe, Nothing will happen to him.