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Saudi Newspaper Compares President Bush With Hitler
New York, NY, September 24, 2002 ... Less than a week after a German minister was publicly rebuked for her comments comparing President Bush with Hitler, an English language newspaper in Saudi Arabia has published a "deeply offensive and repugnant" cartoon making a similar comparison.
The cartoon, which portrays President Bush morphing into Adolf Hitler, appeared just days after the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued an open letter to the leaders of Saudi Arabia calling for a moratorium on the almost daily barrage of anti-Semitic and anti-American themes in the Saudi media.
Cartoon from The Arab News, Saudi English language daily online version, September 21, 2002, shows a belligerent President George W. Bush yelling at Kofi Annan, the U.N Secretary General, while morphing into Adolf Hitler.
"Clearly all of our appeals to Saudi leaders have fallen on deaf ears," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The Saudi news media regurgitates this kind of hatred for America and Jews almost daily. This cartoon is deeply offensive and repugnant, and not just to Americans. People of good will understand that the use of hateful Holocaust imagery to criticize a democratically elected leader is unacceptable and beyond the pale of legitimate criticism of a world leader or sovereign government."
The editorial cartoon, published September 21 in The Arab News, an English-language Saudi daily, depicts President Bush with an outstretched arm pointing at a trembling Kofi Annan. The President is made to say, "Those who are not with us ... are against us....", while a caricature of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld appears to be using a tire pump to inflate the President, who morphs into a towering Adolf Hitler, his arm extended in the Nazi salute.
ADL recently issued a report, Demonizing Jews: Anti-Semitism in the Saudi Media, which documents dozens of instances since 9/11 where the Saudi media has published strongly anti-Semitic and anti-American articles. The report and recent Saudi cartoons are available online.
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
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