The comic book was edited along with teaching pamphlets to promote the “Palestinian cause” among local teenagers and youngsters. It was a project of the Conselleria d’Afers Socials (Balearic social affairs ministry) that came to life after the demonstrations against Israel’s attacks on Gaza last December and January. According to the Balearic Government, the main purpose of this project is to make local youngsters aware of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and to promote cooperation and work for peace. Of the 5,000 printed comics, 4,000 will be distributed for free in education centres around the archipelago. The other 1,000 will be sold at the Barcelona International Comic Fair. The benefits of these sales will be distributed among different NGO’s working in Palestine.
The Balearic Government also declared that the comic was created from an “objective point of view”. However, according to El Mundo’s article, the pictures are not that objective since they only show one side of the story. For instance, an Israeli soldier can be seen kicking a Palestinian or a Palestinian woman saying that she suffered a lot when she was trapped under the ruins of her house after an Israeli raid. The comic puts on the same level the Tzahal’s actions in Gaza and Hamas’ terrorist attacks and accuses Israel of promoting the radicalisation of extremist Palestinian groups. It also considers the Israel-Gaza Strip barrier and the settlements as “real terrorist attacks” that “create radicalisation”. The comic also praises the figure of an “Ultra-orthodox Jew” soldier who becomes a conscientious objector and declares, from an Israeli prison, that he did not want to destroy houses nor kill innocent civilians.
Interestingly, the comic does not mention anything about sharia or Hamas desire to erase Israel from the map. Furthermore, it does not show any pictures of Palestinians throwing rockets from the Gaza Strip to Israeli cities nor Hamas members using civilians as human shields, among other things.
To read the article (in Spanish) and see some of the comments on the pictures (in Catalan), please go to the following web site:
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/04/19/baleares/1240132459.html
