Artist behind cartoon deemed antisemitic will not attend White House event

Cartoonist Ben Garrison, who drew Jewish philanthropist George Soros as a puppet-master controlling the U.S. government, caused an uproar when the invitation became known.

A Trump supporter adjusts her hat as she waits at President-elect Donald Trump’s election-night rally in Manhattan (photo credit: REUTERS)
A Trump supporter adjusts her hat as she waits at President-elect Donald Trump’s election-night rally in Manhattan
(photo credit: REUTERS)
American cartoonist Ben Garrison, who had been invited to a White House social media summit, will not be attending the event following fierce objections by the ADL, on Wednesday.

The objections were spurred by a cartoon Garrison created in which the Rothschild family is controlling George Soros, and he in turn is controlling David Petraeus and H.R. McMaster, leading many to view it as the old antisemitic notion that Jews control governments behind the scenes.
In another, the skull of war – with a Star of David for a nose – is seen chewing on Syria, invoking the idea Jews are behind the suffering and misery of war-torn nations.
Garrison also has on his social media site a cartoon where former US president Barack Obama is drawn as a snake and a man wearing a Trump baseball hat is being forced to be quiet by Twitter.
In another one, US President Donald Trump is shown as Gulliver of Gulliver’s Travels being pinned down by tiny figures of those who are against his policies.

He also shared a video claiming that one should be able to criticize Soros and that doing so does not make Garrison a Nazi or antisemitic.

“At least Trump is giving private people effected by censorship…a  seat at the table,” the video argues regarding the conference, “Trump’s approach is the liberal one here.”
“Hate speech is hate speech, regardless of whether the person spewing it has met with the president,” said Madihha Ahussain, Muslim Advocates’ special counsel for anti-Muslim bigotry, in relation to the Thursday summit.
“President Trump’s social media summit is a ruse designed to intimidate technology companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube into allowing bigoted and white nationalist hate content on their platforms,” he said in a press release.
“Enforcing basic standards of decency on social media isn’t censoring conservative speech,” the release claimed.