ADL blasts anti-Semitic Gaza cartoons

Gaza-Holocaust linkage made in Arab caricatures comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis.

By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
arab cartoon 224 (photo credit: Courtesy ADL)
arab cartoon 224
(photo credit: Courtesy ADL)
The Anti-Defamation League on Wednesday blasted a series of "outrageous anti-Semitic" cartoons in the Arabic media that compare the situation of Palestinians in Gaza to the Holocaust. The cartoons, which appear in Arab newspapers across the Middle East, repeatedly portray Israelis and Jews as bloodthirsty Nazis, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert depicted as a modern-day Hitler, said the human rights organization, which is devoted to fighting anti-Semitism worldwide. "Once again, the Arab press has taken a no-holds-barred approach in their criticism of Israel, using the latest hostilities as an excuse to diminish and trivialize the Holocaust while depicting Israeli soldiers and Jews as cold-blooded Nazi killers," said ADL National Director Abraham H. Foxman, who is a Holocaust survivor. "When it comes to the six million, there are no boundaries, there is no conscience for the Arab cartoonists, who cynically turn the Holocaust on those who suffered the most under Hitler's regime," Foxman said. In addition to a cartoon labeled "The New Nazism," published in an Algerian newspaper and portraying Olmert as Hitler, a cartoon in a Jordanian daily depicts IDF soldiers raising a Nazi flag over Palestinian victims in Gaza, borrowing from the famous image of US Marines at Iwo Jima. A third cartoon, published in Bahrain and entitled "Recycling History," uses the triangular symbol for recycling and repeatedly shifts from the star of David to the Nazi swastika. The controversial cartoons can be viewed on the organization's Web site at www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/gaza_cartoons.asp. Last week, Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilna'i sparked an uproar after warning the Palestinians in a radio interview that they faced a bigger "shoah" if they increased rocket attacks from Gaza. Vilna'i's spokesman later clarified that the deputy defense minister had used the Hebrew word - which is primarily used in Israel to refer to the Holocaust - only to mean "disaster, ruin or destruction." However, this did not stop Palestinians from seizing upon the original statement, which was widely reported around the world, to compare Israel's attacks in the Gaza Strip with that of Nazi Germany.