The ADL has issued a statement on yesterday’s cartoon by Pat Oliphant. I think you should see the cartoon and judge for yourself.
Take a good, hard look at the cartoon. It’s a caricature of the Israeli flag. And yet, that doesn’t excuse the offense.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center didn’t like the cartoon, either.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, the group founded by a famed Nazi hunter which has more than 400,000 members in the United States, says the cartoon denigrates and demonizes Israel and mimics the Nazi propaganda.
Here’s the thing: The line where criticism of Israel crosses into anti-Semitism is actually pretty clearly drawn in certain instances. Those instances include the use of Nazi imagery to depict the modern Jewish State, which came into being out of the ashes of the Holocaust, and which Holocaust survivors had a major hand in founding. In fact, next to portraying Jews in black hats, curls, and hooked noses, I’d say Nazi imagery is the major sign of anti-Semitic commentary on Israel.
By portraying victims as victimizers, Oliphant is employing the anti-Semitic tactics of a Latuff, who himself uses the same themes that the German propandists used, and who is a vicious anti-Semite only too happy to contribute to Iran’s Holocaust Denial contest.
Yahoo! News is still carrying the cartoon, as are the websites of the Los Angeles Times, the Washingto Post, and Slate. Oliphant is the most widely published cartoonist in the world.
And now he has devolved into yet another anti-Semitic Israel critic who will tell us, I’m sure, that he’s not anti-Semitic. That this was merely his thoughts on the Gaza war. The goose-stepping Nazi imagery tied to the Star of David? Well, that was artistic license. Don’t be so politically correct. Don’t be so sensitive.
Watch for it.
As for Pat Oliphant: He can kiss my shapely Jew ass.
It’s obviously anti-Jewish.
Great righteous rant Meryl!
-Barb in ill-ANNOYZ
This is absolutely #%%^^$ disgusting!
If this does not convince NY Jews to rise up and cancel their subscriptions to this rag, then nothing will.
I would like to see Oliphant and the times try to publish a toon that depicts Mohammed in any way, shape, or form, and see the consequences.
By publishing this crap, they are convinced that Jews are too civilized to do anything about it.
Hi, Meryl. I’m off HotAir for Lent, and I missed your wit and wisdom. Came over here to kiss up to you.
Good for you Ms. Yourish; thanks for sharing your thoughts. And to think, I thought nobody could sink lower than Latuff or Ted Rall.
I used to respect Oliphant and his creative editorial cartoons. But this – this is right our of Der Stuermer. I am thoroughly disgusted.
Everything old shall be new again… including 1930’s-style anti-semitism. Feh.
Well, of course it’s designed to have an anti-Semitic impact and I’m sure he’ll engage in some slick language to petend it doesn’t. But he’s too good a draftsman (if a lousy political observer) to mean it.
What I object to is not just that but hefactual inaccuracy. Even if you believe the worst said Opration Cast Lead–and isn’ it odd that absolutely nothing our government says is believed yet everthing Hamas, with a proven record of legerdemain, is taken as gospel, as it were?–the Israels did not conduct the operation in the manner of the German army in World War II, not close, not comparabl.
But obviously facts don’t get in the way of people like this. Roger Simnon has a good response:
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2009/03/26/oliphant-does-us-a-favor/
See, the cfry is always that pro-Israel people try to silence criticism of Israel by shouting “anti-Semitism.” I personaly decry that but it’s just so hard to tell when it isn’t.