The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Conveyed Through Political Cartoon
L. Groarke cites this figure in his essay on “Depicting Visual Arguments: An ART Approach”. This is a political image depicting the Israel Palestine conflict. This conflict is a long-lasting conflict starting over 50 years ago, with its roots starting even earlier. Ever since Israel has become its own country there has been a constant battle between Israel and Palestine. The conflict, for the most part, is over the land of Israel. This past year there was a spike in the conflict. The spike started because Many Israelis tried to legally reclaim the land that Palestinians have been occupying without any form of rent. This caused uproar in Palestine; within weeks Palestine’s “army”, Hamas, sent thousands of rockets aimlessly into Israel. It was only because of the iron dome that most of the rockets did not hit the ground. Although the iron dome does take a great job taking out Hamas’s rockets, occasionally, some rockets do get through. Israel gave warnings saying that they would have to send rockets at the rocket sites if Hamas didn’t send, for the most part, pointless rockets. When Hamas didn’t stop, that’s when Israel had to send back rockets. Israel only blew up rocket sites but unfortunately, Hamas planted their rocket sites at places like schools and hospitals so when Israel would be forced to blow up the hospitals, they would also have to kill some Palestinians who were at these hospitals and schools. This is what the image is depicting. The Hamas rockets barely made a dent in Israel’s defense system, the Iron dome, and the rockets came back killing innocent Palestinians. This image is propaganda trying to sway people’s opinion of Israel and against Hamas. The image itself does not have much credibility to it. Although the image has virtually no ethos, it has very strong logos. Essentially what the political image is saying is that if Hamas didn’t send rockets at an almost indestructible wall the people they are trying to help, Palestinians, won’t get hurt. The image seems to say that it is Hamas who is to blame for the innocent Palestinian deaths. The Palestinians in the image seem to be silent and clueless about the rocket that’s about to hit them that was because of Hamas. The illustrator of the image makes it seem that the Palestinians themselves are almost blinded to what is happening to them; and that it is in their best interest too, to stop Hamas from sending rockets at Israel. The image also has pathos. The Audience viewing this image would feel bad for the Palestinians who, according to the image, don’t realize that Hamas, their protectors, are in reality hurting them. The Ethos and Pathos together paint the picture that Palestinians are clueless about the big picture and that Hamas is the real bad guy.
The Valley Torah Scroll 