Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus, recently became the center of controversy when a Tennessee school district removed the book from its curriculum. The first graphic novel to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, Maus is widely credited with bringing the Holocaust to the attention of a wider audience, particularly younger readers. Yet Spiegelman himself is less well understood. Saul Jay Singer examines the legacy of both the work and its creator:

Over and above Maus, the magnum opus for which, much to his chagrin, he became celebrated, Spiegelman’s work was featured on 21 New Yorker magazine covers. The one that generated the most attention and generated the most controversy was his February 15, 1993, Valentine’s Day cover, which depicted a black West Indian woman and a ḥasidic man kissing, drawn in response to the Crown Heights riot of 1991 in which racial tensions led to the murder of Yankel Rosenbaum.

Spiegelman is a non-practicing Jew who, he says, “has never had a religious bone in my body.” He married Françoise Mouly, a non-Jew, in a 1977 City Hall ceremony but, as he discusses at the beginning of Volume II of Maus, she converted to Judaism only to please his father.

As to Israel, Spiegelman says, “I’m really glad I’m a Diaspora Jew; I don’t identify with Israel.” He claims that “the Holocaust is the broken condom that allowed Israel to be born”; and characterizes Israel as “a sad, failed idea.” He once proposed a New Yorker cover that depicted a beefy armed Israeli soldier guarding a group of ragged Palestinians behind barbed wire who are wearing Jewish stars; the comparison with Jews in concentration camps is both unavoidable and disgusting.

Offering a physical safe haven for Hamas’s leaders is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Qatar’s bad behavior. Danielle Pletka explains:

Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh and his cronies live a plush life in Doha. He is reputedly worth billions. Is all that dough under his mattress? Or in a bank in Qatar? I don’t know, but presumably the Treasury Department does.

Qatar has funneled billions to Hamas, an organization that currently holds 120—and five live American—hostages in Gaza. When the U.S. was playing the good guy in Afghanistan (before Biden’s disgraceful withdrawal), where were the exiled al Qaeda-loving emirs of the Taliban swanning about? Qatar.

Then there’s Qatar’s super-cozy relationship with Iran. Qatar’s cronies in the Washington lobbying world, at the Department of State, and—perhaps most importantly—at the White House, insist that the Qataris are only acting at America’s behest. Hamas? They wouldn’t be there if the U.S. hadn’t asked. Iranian money flowing through Qatari banks? Ditto.

Finally, . . . there’s Qatar’s nefarious influence on U.S. universities. Between the numerous “Qatar campuses” and the largely unreported cash gushing to U.S. institutions of higher ed, we shouldn’t be surprised to see Jew-hatred flourishing. And yes, there’s a direct correlation between that cash and anti-Semitism.

It’s way past time for the United States to get serious about this regime. And if the White House won’t, let’s hope that Congress will.