A cartoon called anti-Semitic that was published in the University of California – Los Angeles student newspaper has been strongly condemned by civic and campus organizations, including the anti-Israel Students for Justice in Palestine organisation.
The cartoon published Monday in UCLA’s Daily Bruin shows Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu standing in front of two stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. However, in the commandment “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” the word “not” has been crossed out in red.
Pointing to another commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill,” labeled as the seventh by the cartoonist, Netanyahu shrugs his shoulders and says, “#7 is next.”
In the upper left corner of the cartoon, the legend reads: “Israel passes law legalizing seizing any Palestinian land.”
The cartoonist, Felipe Bris Abejon, is an undergraduate student in political science, who last year served as education and resources director of the UCLA chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP, a strongly anti-Zionist national student group.
In a letter to the Daily Bruin, the SJP board at UCLA condemned the cartoon and stated that Abejon is currently not an SPJ member.
On Facebook and in letters to the editor, most critics of the cartoon argued that by involving the sacred Tablets of the Law, the cartoonist had crossed the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism.
Danny Siegel, president of UCLA’s Undergraduate Student Association Council, declared in a statement: “As a Jewish student at UCLA, I am disgusted by the anti-Semitic claim in my school newspaper that the Israeli government is purposefully using my Jewish faith to justify policy matter.”
A statement by the Anti-Defamation League denounced the cartoon as “deeply offensive… and impugning core Jewish beliefs.”
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/225004
