When a political cartoon, or any idea, strikes a nerve

For nearly the past week, a torrent of complaint messages have inundated my email along with that of other Daily Herald editors and executives and of our fencepost@dailyherald mailbox for letters to the editor.

The source of the outrage? A political cartoon we published on the Opinion page last Wednesday. Playing off the Hamas organization's well-known practice of building tunnels throughout Gaza City to avoid detection, the cartoon by artist Dick Wright depicted a series of "Hamas Tunnels" funneling into "American universities" with the messages of "Hate," "Genocide," "Defund Israel," "Death to Israel" and "Kill All Jews."

Its obvious theme was that American college campuses are being influenced by the terrorist group's messages of hate and violence.

That is a strident point of view, but not an irresponsible one nor an uncommon one. Concerns about free-speech issues on college campuses have been widely discussed for years and issues involving university responses to the Hamas terrorism of Oct. 7 and the subsequent Israeli retaliation are a frequent subject of debate. Just a week before, we published an essay by syndicated columnist Jeff Robbins under the headline "Academia says it's down with mass slaughter."

But the image demonstrates some characteristics that distinguish editorial cartoons from written arguments. One is the unique power of a striking visual scene. Another is the medium's limited ability to include nuance in the argument an artist seeks to make.

In this case, an agency or individual I don't know shared the Wright cartoon with a large partisan audience and urged individuals to write us to protest. That is, of course, fine. Indeed, we encourage and welcome reasonable responses to any expression of opinion or, for that matter, any article in our paper.

But the vast majority of letters we received regarding this cartoon were distinguished by the fact that they came from individuals who likely had never heard of the Daily Herald, much less seen a copy or read us online. And most demanded an apology, "retraction" or removal of the cartoon from our web site with no awareness of our longstanding policy to publish views from across the broad spectrum of responsible political and social thinking.

Not one, it struck me, mentioned the Jeffrey Koterba cartoon critical of Israel that we published Nov. 2 showing two ragged, mourning children clinging to each other in the midst of overwhelming devastation in Gaza crying, "The grownups say, it's 'complicated' ..." Or the one we published Oct. 11 suggesting the vicious cycle of violence in the Mideast started with the policies of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Almost none of the letters we received included the writer's full name, home town and phone number as required for letters to the editor, so we cannot publish them immediately, but when we have that information from some who are in our area, we will share them. Just as we've recently shared complaints from a variety of writers complaining about Susan Estrich's "biased" liberal columns and demanding that we stop publishing them.

Which brings me to an important final point. Amid all this, the most distressing issue has been the calls for us to silence writers with whom the complainant disagrees. The philosophical underpinning of our democracy, and certainly of freedom of speech and the press, is the acknowledgement that we won't all agree on important issues and at times we may disagree profoundly.

But we let each other have their say, as long as it's reasonable and responsible. Some of the letters I received at least approximated this standard. They noted correctly that the cartoon provides no distinction between criticism of Israel and antisemitism or that it suggests the messages it derides are common at all American universities and colleges.

These are surely legitimate points to be made in this conflict we adults say is "complicated." But it is just as surely a dangerous oversimplification to merely suppress points of view we object to. We get closer to the truth when we share opinions and facts that add illumination, or nuance, to opposing arguments we find wanting.

This is not to say that every argument or every political cartoon is legitimate fodder for publication or public examination. We make value judgments every day about cartoons, columns and letters that stretch civility, facts or reason to a breaking point. For this cartoon, we thought that point had not been reached.

You may disagree. You may agree. Either way, we welcome the opportunity to share your reactions with our audience and build a broader, more meaningful picture of the crisis in the Mideast. Write us at fencepost@dailyherald.com and express yourself.

Just don't ask us to refuse to publish ideas different from yours.

• Jim Slusher, jslusher@dailyherald.com, is managing editor for opinion at the Daily Herald. Follow him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jim.slusher1 and on Twitter at @JimSlusher.