World Jewish News

German paper publishes 'anti-Semitic' cartoon attacking Israel, July 2, 2013. Photo: Süddeutsche Zeitung

Israel’s Ambassador condemns ’anti-Semitic‘ German cartoon

Israel’s Ambassador criticized on Wednesday the publication of an alleged “anti-Semitic“ cartoon, which appeared in the Tuesday edition of Germany’s largest daily broadsheet, the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung.
On the embassy’s Facebook page, the Israeli Ambassador, Yakov Hadas-Handelsman, wrote that the cartoon is marked by a “severe tastelessness and misleading” presentation of Israel.
In a letter sent to Kurt Kister, the editor-in-chief of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Hadas-Handelsman wrote, the paper went beyond the “limits of acceptable journalistic presentation” and noted that ”one hopes in Germany for a special sensitivity” toward the Jewish state.
Hadas-Handelsman further criticized the motive and text of the illustration in the paper. The Bavarian daily, which reaches over 1,000,000 daily readers, published a photo of an illustration showing Israel as a wild, hungry, and horned beast ready to devour food with a fork and knife. The monster is being served by a woman. Under the cartoon, the left-liberal Süddeutsche wrote, "Germany is serving. Israel has been given weapons for decades ­ and partly free of charge. Israel''s enemies think it is a ravenous Moloch.“
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said “the characterization of the Jewish state as a ravenous Moloch - an idol to whom children were sacrificed - is a blatant anti-Semitic canard. The attempt to mention a Jewish critic of Israel is a failed fig leaf that neither justifies nor covers up the hate masquerading as political commentary.”
The paper triggered criticism from one of Germany’s leading commentators on modern anti-Semitism. Writing in the right-of-center daily Die Welt on Tuesday, Henryk M. Broder, said the Süddeutsche Zeitung is acting like “Der Stürmer” — the notorious Nazi-era paper which attacked Jews—and is carrying forward the tradition of the Stürmer into the present. He wrote that no mainstream newspaper has dared since the Holocaust to publish such a cartoon. He said the Süddeutsche replaced classical Jew-hatred with loathing of Israel. Broder argued that the Nazi depiction of Jews has now been replaced with the Jewish state.

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT

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