Monday, November 03, 2014

Haaretz refuses to back down in storm over cartoon depicting Netanyahu as 9/11 hijacker...



Left-leaning Israeli daily Haaretz has refused to apologise for publishing a cartoon depicting Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a 9/11 hijacker, in a satire attacking the prime minister for damaging US/Israeli relations.

The cartoon shows Netanyahu in a plane labelled Israel heading toward a skyscraper, atop which the Stars and Stripes flies, in an allusion to the attacks on 11 September 2001 in which commercial airliners were flown into New York's Twin Towers.

In an editorial yeserday, the paper's editor-in-chief Aluf Benn defended the decision to publish, after critics claimed the cartoon was disrespectful to those killed in 9/11, and stoked anti-semitic conspiracy theories.

"Amos Biderman's editorial cartoon was a reaction to the current state of mistrust between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Obama administration," he writes.

He said that the picture was a reaction to recent Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and worsening US/Israeli relations, and writes "Biderman sought to warn against what he views as a grave threat to Israel, if its leadership continues to escalate its diplomatic confrontation with the United States." Full story...

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