After being barred from entering Israel, both U.S. Rep Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and U.S. Rep Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) continue to speak out against both President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Their speaking out now includes the two posting cartoons by Brazilian-Lebanese cartoonist Carlos Latuff, who participated in Iran’s annual Holocaust cartoon contest in 2006.
In the cartoon, which the two have put on their Instagram stories, both Trump and Netanyahu are seen silencing the two by putting their hands on the congresswomen’s mouths. The post by Tlaib included the statement: “The more they try to silence us, our voices rise. The more they try to weaken us, the stronger we become. The more they try to discredit us, the truth prevails.”When talking about his controversial work, the artist has often compared Israel to the Nazi regime. On the subject of using the Holocaust as criticism of Israel he said: “Of course Israel isn’t building gas chambers in the West Bank, but surely we can find some similarities between the treatment given to Palestinians by the [Israel Defense Forces] and the Jews under Nazi rule,” according to Fox News. “My cartoons have no focus on the Jews or on Judaism. My focus is Israel as a political entity,” he continued, though he did not specify why exactly it was necessary to use such motifs in his works. “It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors of Palestinians.”Oof. Looks like both Rep. Omar and Rep. Tlaib shared this awful Carlos Latuff cartoon in Instagram stories yesterday. In 2006, Latuff came in second in Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon Contest, which is a thing that exists, in case you thought the TL couldn't get any worse. pic.twitter.com/uwyBPAsz7T
— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) August 18, 2019
This post comes after the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance changed the definition of "antisemitism" to include "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.”The cartoons come after Omar introduced a resolution endorsing the use of boycotts, specifically referencing to their past use against Nazi Germany.