Why I can no
longer be a fan of Paul Jenkins
March 13, 2005
By Avi Green
Last year, I was quite unhappy to find Paul Jenkins, someone whom I
thought knew how to ply his trade in the comics writing, dealing
with a political issue he does not have the personal experience to
handle, in the soon to be cancelled Spectacular Spider-Man's "Countdown" storyline
from issues 5-10.
The following is an e-mail discussion I had with him back in June to
August of 2004. Disappointing as it was, I really can't say I'm
surprised that he would maintain his biases the way he did.
Dear Mr. Jenkins (June 26,
2004),
I am writing to ask why, in
Spectacular Spider-Man's Countdown story arc, you depicted the
"Palestinian Authority" in a whitewashed manner, any reasonable
criticism of their threatening to go to war with Israel over
Doctor Octopus's abduction of the Hayyan Zarour character
notwithstanding, whereas this fictional incident in the pages of a
comic book is nothing compared to the PLO's even more serious
crimes in real life. Some points:
While it may seem as if
you're critiquing them in the Spidey story at one point for
threatening to go to war, the fact that you still depict them in
favorable terms undermines that. Plus, I feel that, considering
that they've committed even worse atrocities over the years, such
as the murder of a couple of athletes at
the 1972 Munich Olympics, and the hijacking of an Israeli airplane to Entebbe
in
Africa in 1976, the
massacre of the Lebanese Christians in
Damour
the
same
year, and also the
hijacking of the Italian cruise liner, the
Achille Lauro, in October 1985, in which a wheelchair bound passenger, Leon
Klinghoffer, was murdered in cold blood, any criticism of the PLO
for something that only takes place in a fictional comic book
story, rings hollow at best.
For these reasons, I felt
that I had to write to you to ask, why, when you wrote this story
in Spectacular Spider-Man, did you whitewash much of these
incidents in history involving the PLO? If you could please
explain why you portrayed them favorably, I would be very
grateful. Thank you for any answers you can provide, and I hope
you'll find the article links I worked into this letter
interesting too.
Avi,
First of all, why must the
fictional Palestinian Foreign Minister a member of the PLO as far
as you're concerned? I think you're going to have to move
beyond this kind of prejudice if any of my response is going to
make sense. You see, an ethnic group cannot be held
responsible for the actions of a few. If it were so then I
should never write about Germans in a positive light because after
all, they were responsible for killing 6 1/2 million Jews during
the Holocaust. What about Japanese? Bosnians?
Which ethnic group is acceptable to you?
You know, I am from Great
Britain and we have not been all that nice ourselves. During
the Crusades countless Arabs were slaughtered for their
beliefs. We occupied a huge part of the world during the
days of the British Empire. We treated Pakistanis, Iraqis,
Indians and many North Africans like dirt. Should I commit suicide
as repayment for the actions of my forefathers?
How about the Israelis?
Entirely blameless? I don't think so. They've annexed huge
portions of Palestinian land and depending on the prevailing
political sentiment they construct or pull back from settlements
all the time. They fire rocket launchers into populated areas on
occasion, just ask any of the innocent people on the receiving
end.
Anyway, my point is not to
apportion blame and neither should yours be. My point is to
acknowledge that the only way to peace is to move forwrds together
not to take one step forward and two steps back, which seems to be
the MO of both sets of leadership. You point me towards your
websites as if I have no idea about the '72 Munich atrocity or the
events of the Achille Lauro. Hell, I watched them on
television, just as i watched the events at the World trade
center. They were terrible events but not the fault of some
Palestinian child or mother or someone's brother in-law. They were
the actions of cowardly terrorists.
But let me give you a few
paraphrased words from none other than Tom Brokaw as he spoke at
the opening of the WW2 memorial recently. What made our
grandfathers the Greatest Generation was not just what they did in
wartime but far more importantly what they did in peacetime. Check
your history: Adolf Hitler came to power as a direct result of the
punsihments handed to the German nation after the Treaty of
Versailles. Germany was punished so heavily during the
1920's that when Hitler came along and blame the Jews for the
poverty and economic hardships, people listened to him despite
knowng better. After World War Two, the Allies knew that the
best way to prevent another episode was to allow the Germans and
Japanese to rebuild their economy without penalty. We now
embrace Russia as if the Cold War never happened. Twenty
years ago, we saw them as the Evil Empire and now they are our
friends. It's going to happen one day between Israel and
Palestine, whether you agree now or not.
The only barrier to a peaceful
solution is the kind of attitude indicated in your letter. I hope
my opinion helps you to understand why I have nothing bad to say
about any ethnic group, be they Israelis, Palestinians, Nigerians
or Australians.
Paul J. (June 26, 2004)
Dear Mr. Jenkins, (July 25,
2004)
Sorry if this reply is
coming a little late, but let me see if I can respond to some of
your points in your letter below.
Unfortunately, your
historical knowledge appears very slanted, and deficient in some
areas. I don't mean to be insulting, but consider: you write about
the sufferings of the Arabs at the hands of Crusaders. In fact,
the Crusaders were massacring Jews in Europe, especially the
Rhineland, long before they got to the Middle East. Then, when
they conquered Jerusalem, where I live, they slaughtered both Jews
and Muslims. Also, Jews as well as Muslims fought them, for
instance, the Jews in Haifa defended the town against two major
Crusader assaults (circa 1099), then succumbed to the third
assault. Historians believe that the Crusaders massacred most of
the Jews in Israel at the time. Bear in mind that Jews were still
a substantial part of Israel's population up to the Crusader
invasion (check out Moshe Gil and Joshua Prawer).
As for the British. They
have been an enemy of the Jewish people since 1920. In that year,
Britain accepted the mandate of fostering the Jewish national home
in the Land of Israel (San Remo conference). Yet the same year,
British officials in Jerusalem (Col. Waters-Taylor, E. Richmond,
Ronald Storrs, etc) instigated an Arab pogrom against Jews in
Jerusalem. Throughout the years of the mandate, which was 1920
till 1948, the British thwarted/violated the letter and spirit of
the mandate. In 1939, Britain issued the "White Paper on
Palestine," which prevented Jewish refugees from finding refuge in
the Jewish national home during the Holocaust.
As for the Arabs, the social
system that they imposed on the Middle East made Jews and
Christians inferior subjects of their empires. They were
"Dhimmis", who had to pay special taxes to the Arab/Muslim state,
and were far inferior in rights to Muslims. It was in the
pre-Crusade period that the bulk of Jewish emigration to Europe
took place. During the Holocaust, most of the Arab nationalists
were pro-Nazi, such as Sadat and Nasser. The worst Arab Nazi
collaborator was Haj Amin el-Husseini, who actually took part in
the Holocaust, preventing thousands of Jewish children from being
released from the Nazi fascist domain by the satellite states of
Germany in eastern Europe.
As far as what I wrote, I
did not say that all the Arabs called Palestinians were
terrorists. But I do say that the "Palestinian Authority" is
terrorist. So it's not correct on your part to charge me with
generalizing about Palestinian Arabs.
I like your work that's not
political, but I suggest that you need to do a lot more study of
Jewish and Arab history, Crusader persecution of Jews, Arab
oppresion of Jews, British betrayal of the Jewish national home,
etc. I would recommend for example, this page from http://www.netanyahu.org this article
from The Scribe, and
also this
one by Prof. David
Cesarani. Here are sites on Crusader Conquest, Treatment
of Dhimmis, and Pact
of Umar.
If you have time for books,
I suggest Moshe Gil on Israel in the Early Middle Ages, and Joshua
Prawer on Crusaders and Jews in Israel. I also suggest for
Britain, the Jews and Zionism, Pierre van Paassen, Forgotten Ally;
William Ziff, The Rape of Palestine; Albert Londres, Le Juif
Errant Est Arrive, plus, Shmuel Katz, Jabo; Martin Gilbert, Exile
and Return; Richard Meinertzhagen, Middle East Diary. On Allied
refusal to rescue Jews from Hitler, see Arthur Morse, While Six
Million Died; David S. Wyman, Abandonment of the Jews. On
Arab-Nazi collaboration, see Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the
Fuehrer; L. Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East; Bernard
Lewis, Semites and Anti-Semites; and lastly Anwar Sadat, Revolt on
the Nile.
yours truly, Avi Green
Avi,
I really *do* know my history,
thanks. I mentioned the Crusades as an example pointed towards
atrocities committed by the English. Perhaps I should have
included their actions against the Jews, as you mention, for the
sake of completion. And if so, I should also have brought up the
fact that the Crusaders managed to massacre Christians as well,
since all they were actually trying to do was challenge the
so-called Eastern Empire. Even so, my point was that any society
has a series of black marks in their history books, including
England, Ivory Coast, Greenland and yes, even Israel. i do
not seek to hold the actions of a group of people against all
citizens of that nation but it seems you do. I don't need a lesson
in ideology or history from you because at that point you are
simply pontificating. It is extremely presumptuous of you to
present yourself as my teacher, especially when your original
message to be received a longer answer than it deserved.
Instead of pointing me towards various articles and books on the
subject i would suggest rethinking your strategy: consider the
teachings of Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses and Gandhi, all of
whom have something to say about acceptance and understanding of
others. That is all.
PJ (August 5, 2004)
Dear Paul, (August 6, 2004)
What really irked me was
that you seemed to consider all sorts of nations guilty of
something or other, all but the Arabs in general, and the
Palestinian Arabs in particular. I feel that you have accepted the
pro-Arab line of the BBC and UK government. Which always
scolds/accuses Israel of crimes in a one-sided fashion. Now it's
interesting that you talk about tolerance, and then recommend
studying the teachings of Jesus and Muhammad, among others. It's
probably very educational to read the New Testament and the Koran.
If you read the NT, you might find a quote attributed to Jesus: "I
come not to bring peace but the sword." If you read the Koran, you
might find the command: "Fight the unbelievers...until they're
brought low and pay tribute." [Koran, Sura 9, verse 29 (some
editions of Koran have a slightly different verse number for this
declaration)] Doesn't sound very tolerant to me. Does it sound
that way to you?
regards,
Avi Green
I've seen people who throw away their arguments before, but this--!
My reply at the end pretty much speaks for itself to what Jenkins
himself had to say. But in any case, this very much sums up the
problems I have with quite a lot of Brits. They tend to be quite
self-righteous, and have a problem of going out of their way to
present themselves as experts, and use Room 101 tactics not unlike what our friend from the
UK here, Mr. Jenkins, tried to employ as well.
Is it any wonder that so many people even Stateside have a problem
with the Blighty these days?
Like I've noted already, Spectacular
Spider-Man, the 2003 volume, is out the door already, and
Jenkins himself certainly is. In fact, as this writing, it's already
dealt with the rest of the wretched storyline begun by J. Michael
Strazcynzki over in Amazing,
that being Sins Past, and I have to ask -- would they please, for
heaven's sake, put that dumb crap to bed already? It could certainly
help a bit.
And I should certainly hope that Mark Waid'll be coming aboard soon
too! He was said to be taking over on a Spider-Man book, whether
Amazing or a new series, and with him on board, I should hope that
things'll be looking better for our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
again.
It's about time.
Civil rights for Muslim women in
Kuwait?
The
Wall Street Journal reports that in Kuwait, Muslim women are
now stepping forward to campaign for their civil rights, including
voting, freedom of choice as to whether or not they want to wear a
veil, and equal justice in cases where women are victims of crime.
This of course is something that's been gradually going on ever
since the raid on Afganistan and Iraq, and may also be continuing
with the expulsion of Syria from Lebanon. And with any luck, in
time, we will slowly begin to see the downfall of autocracy in
Islamist countries, and democracy will be able to breath in the
middle east at last.
And hopefully, this will also mean the downfall of the PLO as the
terrorist organization they really are in time as well.
Copyright 2005 Avi Green. All rights reserved.
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