Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar has become a gift to Republicans and a favorite on Fox News. She seems to be unaware of anti-Semitic tropes and stumbles into repeated, ugly slurs against Jews. Many Democrats defend her and an awkward attempt to condemn her statements was so watered down in the House that it was laughable.
Editorial cartoonists have a special responsibility regarding anti-Semitic clichés given the history of Nazi cartoons leading up to the Holocaust. At Cagle.com we have received many ugly cartoon tropes from worldwide cartoonists over the years, particularly from Arabic language cartoonists and Latin American cartoonists. When I talk to the cartoonists about it, they tell me that they were unaware, that it wasn’t their intent; they are generally happy to take the cartoons down and they tell me they appreciate being told about why their cartoons were offensive to an American audience. The most common images depict a Star of David representing Judaism, rather than the Israeli Flag representing Israel, and use images that equate Jews with Nazis, that show Jews crucifying Palestinians as they “crucified Christ,” Jews as rats, as spiders, Jews killing babies, or like vampires drinking baby blood – the whole Nazi panoply of Der Stürmer clichés in cartoons gets repeated frequently around the world, and these cartoonists aren’t used to hearing any push-back from their local readers. Nancy Pelosi seems to see it in the same way with Omar, who Pelosi thinks simply wasn’t aware and hasn’t been educated about the bigotry.
Whatever the reasons are behind Omar’s ugly comments, she is a gift to Republicans, Trump and Fox News. My cartoon from last week shows Democrats wrapped up in Omar’s hijab, to the delight of Republicans.
Here are some more Omar favorites from last week. This one is from Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune …
This is from RJ Matson …
This is from Nate Beeler of the Columbus Dispatch …
This one is from Rick McKee of the Augusta Chronicle …
This is from Taylor Jones …
And this one is from Dave Granlund …
