Yes, we CAN cry over a brave IDF Dog, on Holocaust Memorial Day

“But what about the thousands of children…the refugees…any other conflict anywhere, the persecution of…(insert favourite cause here)”?

In my book, “2020, The Year We Were All Cancelled”, I have a section called The Cancelled Cartoonist’s Club.

No single political cartoon in recent years was so detrimental to it’s own outlet, and had such a withering effect on free speech generally, as this one in the New York Times in 2019.

(I would say “except for the one I was cancelled for”, but the Morning Star, with it’s 20,000 circulation hardly compares to the NYT’s 10 Million)!

Here it is on page 9 of my book:

The reason for the condemnation of the cartoon - which showed a blind President Trump being led by a Dachshund-shaped Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu, was that the Nazis often referred to Jews as “Dogs”.

I have no idea if the choice of a Dachshund, which are called “Sausage Dogs” by English speakers, was another subtle level of anti-semitism in the cartoon (because of the Kosher diet), but you can read anything into it - and many Jewish organisations lined up to do just that.

At a stroke, several editorial cartoonists lost their jobs, the newspaper promised to never print political cartoons again, and an age-old cartoonist’s trope, of one politician being led on a lead by another (called being someone’s “poodle”), was effectively cancelled.

It was a clear warning to satirists everywhere not to try THIS one again.

I thought of this controversy when I saw the moving story of “Mikey” the IDF soldier dog.

Broadcast by Keshet 12 News, the whole of Israel, certainly all dog-owners and children who love dogs, will have cried tears of sadness and admiration over this heroic creature, responsible for saving numerous soldiers in her 7 years as a battle dog. For all I know, she’s already got her own fan club and YouTube channel.

Is it embarrassing or inappropriate to be celebrating the life of a Jewish Army dog, so near to Holocaust Memorial Day? Well, the “show us the dead babies” trolls on YouTube were out in force - “who cares about a Jewish dog, when all the thousands of Palestinian children” etc etc

By putting out the story of Mikey and her soldier buddy to the media, (the IDF Oketz Unit calls their dog-handlers ‘drivers’), they have said clearly that no, it’s not inappropriate at all.

To all those of you saying “No animals should be used in wars”, this is of course true. But it’s been a fact for thousands of years, as long as wars have been fought. From pigeons carrying messages, to dolphins attaching limpet mines.

They have featured in movies, like War Horse. Even in fantasy - such as the Bats carrying messages in Frank Herbert’s Dune, called “the Voice of The Cielago”.

Next time you are in London, go to Hyde Park and have a look at the beautiful Animals in War Memorial. You can read all about it here: animalsinwar.org.uk

In 2018 I was very proud to organise and produce an HMD exhibition at my workplace in Bristol, in my role as a PCS Union Learning Rep. It was in the foyer of our building, open to the public and visitors.

We worked on it for weeks, making imitation fence posts, and electrified barbed wire out of scrap cardboard. (The idea was that you looked at the display from inside the barbed wire). As part of the series of events, we were pleased to welcome Professor David Tollerton, Professor of Jewish Studies at Exeter University as a speaker.

It was part of the UK Government’s Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s national memorial. The display included photos and poems from our colleagues who had visited Holocaust sites, and concentrated on resistance, especially by the White Rose student group of Munich. Here’s a photo of it:

We mentioned one other example of genocide briefly: Rwanda - which the US Clinton administration shamefully refused to call a genocide, so paralysing the UN troops from reacting to the massacres. But the exhibition was overwhelmingly, as HMD was originally intended, about the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people of Europe.

I was allowed time away from work to organise this display and associated talks. I seriously wonder if now, with all the home working, the institutionalised Wokery, and all the “but, but, what about” going on today, whether any civil service employer would even allow it.

I hope the HMD events in Britain and around the world pass off peacefully. Take time out of your day to remember, or read something about that thing which should “Never Happen Again”, but so awfully has, in our own lifetimes, on October 7 2023.

It’s not trivial or inappropriate on this day to cry about this IDF dog, who saved so many lives, and who so many soldiers, medics, and volunteers laboured to save.

It’s not a completely happy ending, but she will be loved and celebrated as an example of the resistance to genocide, to the end of her days and after. Just as all the hostages, the dead, and the survivors of Israel will be.

Get the tissues ready!

The illustrations are from my website, radicalcartoons.com

My book “2020, The Year We Were All Cancelled” is available online via Amazon, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble etc