Can cartoons predict violence? This enticing question is asked by Ilan Danjoux, a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The idea behind the question is that the tone and content of political cartoons change in the period leading up to the outbreak of a violent conflict; in this way cartoons can actually be harbingers of conflict.

Danjoux wrote a book on the subject, for which he examined over 1200 Israeli and Palestinian editorial cartoons to explore whether changes in their content anticipated the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in October of 2000.

A review of this title is coming soon on the Cartoon Movement blog.