Why is Hamas making cartoons?

Ten days ago, the military wing of Hamas released a CGI animation on YouTube. Narrated in Hebrew, it depicts an aged man named Naom Shalit walking through a desolate Israeli urban landscape. He is clutching a portrait of his son Gilad, who was kidnapped by Hamas while doing national service nearly four years ago and is still being held hostage.

The cartoon’s message—that Shalit could have been freed in exchange for Hamas prisoners held by Israel—is typical drum-beating from Hamas. But putting it in a sophisticated medium amplified its effect. It was covered in the international media, and several versions on YouTube have accrued tens of thousands of views. Such was the attention that, a few days later, the political wing of Hamas were forced to publicly disown it.

How does a cartoon have such an impact? Let us turn from Gaza to the civilised London bookseller Foyles. It now has a whole bookcase devoted to the political graphic novel. On it, you will find Waltz with Bashir and Persepolis, both made into films in the past few years, along with Joe Sacco’s brilliant graphic novels Palestine and Footnotes on Gaza, Guy Delisle’s Burma Chronicles and Rutu Modan’s Exit Wounds, the story of a son searching for a father he believed died in a terrorist blast in Israel.

Though realism is commonly believed to be the natural medium for political fiction, some of the most incisive political writing has been imaginative: Gulliver’s Travels, Nineteen Eighty-Four, and even Midnight’s Children, which pays homage to Marvel comics. So it seems a natural consequence that countries with oppressive regimes, or those under the grip of terror, have become subjects of the graphic novel. This brings their often traumatic stories into popular international culture.



And they're popular. Take Waltz with Bashir, for example. Try asking people to go and see a documentary about Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and there won’t be many takers. Turn it into an animated film, as happened in 2008, and it becomes a box office hit.

There are several reasons why the graphic novel or film lends itself to discussing the politics of war, terror or oppression. Firstly, the genre already embraces such themes. The classic graphic novel, and subsequent films–Batman, Sin City and so on—uses the medium to convey violent settings and explore dark emotions. Secondly, there are places one cannot go, reportage-wise. Cameras are not always welcome when interviewing Palestinian militants as Sacco does, but the graphic novel can recreate scenes while shielding identities. And finally, animating a scene moves it into a different space. It’s not the horrific close-your-eyes reality of photography, or wordy intellectual analysis. The comic form is disarming because you read or watch it with the openness you did as a child.

The Gilad Shalit cartoon is not the first Hamas has made. American satirist Jon Stewart did a roundup of previous efforts on his Daily Show a couple of months ago. Again, unusually, they crossed a boundary. His audience could read and understand the crude political messages, and then chuckle as Stewart made a mockery of them.

This latest animation was no laughing matter, though. It hit hard for political reasons, but also because it took advantage of its form. The cartoon is in Hebrew and launched itself and its message within Israel by setting itself in its territories—a border most Gazans can now only cross in their imagination. It is a film about Naom Shalit and his grief, which Palestinians would never have real-life access to. And it was a cartoon on YouTube, disarmingly simple to watch and interpret.

The Israelis deemed it psychological warfare. Quality CGI graphics and artistic portrayals of a desolate Israel are not a traditional weapon in the Palestinian struggle, but I imagine Israelis and international viewers were taken aback at how technically sophisticated the animation was as a piece of art and propaganda. Hamas have demonstrated that it's now possible to control the political narrative through the humble medium of a three-minute cartoon.