Remember Those 300 Million Jews? (Re: Auth Cartoon in Philadelphia Inquirer)

Arutz Sheva ^ | 9/8/03 | Jack Engelhard

[veronica]

A few days ago, an editorial cartoon appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer that made lovers of truth blink and gasp.

The cartoon, by Tony Auth, showed Palestinian Arabs fenced in by a giant Star of David.

The outcry (essentially, no terrorism, no fence) came by way of numerous letters to the editor, but an eye-popping response appeared in David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com. In an article titled "Nazi Imagery Goes Mainstream", authors Ricki Hollander and Cynthia Lttleman prove that there is indeed nothing new under the yellow sun of journalism. One frame in this article shows Auth's 2003 rendition of Arabs trapped inside a giant Star of David; another shows Europe trapped inside a giant Star of David. This was drawn back in the 1930s by Josef Plank, Nazidom's leading cartoonist. Here again, a reader had to blink and gasp to tell them apart.

Are we talking anti-Semitism or just plain ignorance?

Back in the ‘70s and part of the ‘80s, I wrote op-ed columns for the same Inquirer. My beat, however, was "local" and humor, and besides, Israel was not that much in the news. Not like today.

Years after I left, I returned one day with an offer to write a piece on Morton Klein. Mort was not yet leader of ZOA (Zionist Organization of America), but was already known as a strong voice for Israel. Back in my day, the Inquirer was still a club of polite ladies and gentlemen. This time, I recognized nobody and nobody recognized me. The building was practically the same, but not the people. The people were different, very different.

I was shuffled from department to department until I landed in Features. I had already secured approval from the Top Guy, so the editor assigned to my project had no choice but to get me started -- and that's what she did. She kept on getting me started, over and over again, until it became obvious that this woman was not going to let this article go through, not counting how many times she made me rewrite the piece. Her main complaint was that it was too pro-Israel.

"What about the other side?" she demanded.

So I got the other side, but she wanted more and more of the other side, until the piece was practically all about the other side. Mort Klein would have disappeared completely had I moved along according to this editor's commands.

In the end, the whole thing was dropped, and months later someone else, a staffer, profiled Mort, and as I remember it, Mort lost and the other side won.

So what's going on today, in general, is no big surprise. I was especially taken by a defensive comment from an Inquirer editor in reference to the Auth cartoon. This person allegedly said that Auth depicted a valid "interpretation of a situation." But here's what really hit home: a further remark from David Horowitz's website that, according to the Inquirer editor, Auth's opinion is "one shared by others on the newspaper staff."

This sounds awfully familiar. Readers may recall the Oxford Incident of a few months ago, when Professor Andrew Wilkie rejected Israeli student Amit Duvshani because he was... well... Israeli.

Wilkie added this: "As you may be aware, I am not the only U.K. scientist with these views."

Is all this anti-Semitism? Ordinarily yes, but to be charitable, I choose to believe that plain ignorance breathes alongside anti-Semitism.

Like the time when I was editor at KYW all-news radio in Philadelphia. This was one of those moments when Easter and Passover arrived practically the same day. On his way to the microphone, my top-Ivy-League-educated anchor handed me his copy, which read, partly, as follows: "Today, the world's one billion Christians and 300 million Jews..."

I fell down laughing and, when I recovered, said that I corrected that typo.

"What typo?" said my Main Man.

I said, "Three hundred million Jews? Are you kidding? Barely fifteen million."

My Guy insisted that I must be wrong... Yes, 300 million Jews.

"Check the Almanac," I said, which he did, shaking his head in disbelief.

"How could I have been that ignorant?" he said.

That may be something for Auth and the Inquirer to consider for themselves.

[hellinahandcart]

Are we talking anti-Semitism or just plain ignorance?

Let's see, plagiarizing Nazi cartoons...hmmm...gosh it's so hard to decide...

[veronica]

FYI.

[Restorer]

Only plagarism if conciously copied. Which it probably wasn't.

Odds are the modern cartoonist had never seen the Nazi version.

Which doesn't mean his cartoon isn't stupid.

[wideawake]

Auth and Wilkie are well-educated and well-informed individuals who hate Jews out of sheer malice and evil intention, not out of ignorance.

[Alouette]

Auth cartoon:

Nazi cartoon:

Here's typical crap from the Arab press:

Al-Watan, June 11, 2003 (Qatar)
The big word with the Star of David: "Terror;" below, on the hand: "The assassination policy."


Al-Watan, May 13, 2003 (Qatar)
In the middle: "the Arab states".


Al-Watan, May 8, 2003 (Qatar)
The Jew is pointing at "Syria".


Al-Watan, May 6, 2003 (Qatar)


Al-Watan, April 19, 2003 (Qatar)
In Arabic, on the Jew: "Weapons of mass destruction". In Arabic, on the left: "Syria".


Al-Watan, April 17, 2003 (Qatar)
The Jew is representing "the big Israel", which pushes the US towards "Syria".


Al-Watan, April 16, 2003 (Qatar)
The Jew is writing "the sanctions on Syria".


Al-Watan, April 6, 2003 (Qatar)
Powell is pointing at "Syria" and "Iran".


Al-Watan, March 6, 2003

[Tribune7]

The Inquirer is absolute, unvarnished garbage. But look at the bright side. Nobody reads it.

I live in the Philly area and I would have never known that Auth -- who is also anti-Catholic, and anti-Evangelical, by the way -- drew such a vicious piece of trash if I had not seen it on Free Republic.

[Tribune7]

ping

[Tribune7]

A Tony-Auth-in-trouble ping

[hellinahandcart]

Odds are the modern cartoonist had never seen the Nazi version.

Well sure. I want to be fair. There's an equal possibility that the modern cartoonist was actually channeling the ancient one:

Evolution of a cartoon

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

Nazi Imagery Goes Mainstream

ANOTHER Nazi propaganda emulating anti-Israel cartoon

[Temple Owl]

Auth appears to march in lock step will all things communist. He is pro-Stalin and pro-Castro. He dislikes all religions and besides being anti- Catholic and Anti-Jewish , he and the rag he works for is anti-Italian. There are not too many Philadelphia Italians who respect the Inquirer.

[alex]

They also use Nazi-cartoon playbook to depict W.

[zeugma]

Absolutely excellent collection of cartoons by racist arabs. Thanks!

[baseballmom]

The only "news" I get from the Inquirer is the Obituaries, sports scores, and the TV listings.

It's hard to lie about that stuff.

I also do the crossword.

Oh, and I tear it up in neat sheets to wash my windows. So it isn't totally a waste of money. :-)

[Tribune7]

I also do the crossword.

I know someone else like that :-)

[Ichneumon]

Auth appears to march in lock step will all things communist. He is pro-Stalin and pro-Castro. He dislikes all religions and besides being anti- Catholic and Anti-Jewish , he and the rag he works for is anti-Italian.

He also authors some of the most misleading, propagandistic, and outright false anti-gun cartoons I've ever seen:

Note on that "than in the other 25 industrial countries combined" caption: He misstates a piece of Brady propaganda which is designed to give the false impression of the "factoid" that Auth misquotes. The original soundbite said that the *rate* of child deaths related to firearms was "12 times that of the other blah blah combined". The "lying with statistics" catch is that when you "combine" *RATES*, they don't get any higher, they *average*. I could just as truthfully (and misleadingly) say that my house has "a higher rate of cat ownership than that of the other 90,000,000 US households combined", because I have more cats than the average. But it sure *sounds* like I must have millions of cats, doesn't it?

Similarly, the *number* of US "child" deaths is NOT actually "12 times higher", our *rate* is higher than the *average* of "25 other countries combined", which is a different thing entirely.

[Ichneumon]

Ah, found another Auth propaganda:

This gives the very false impression that the NRA advocates using fully automatic weapons for hunting, which is NOT the case. They support the common practice of using SEMI-automatic firearms for hunting, which fire one shot per trigger pull.

[yonif]

Ping.

[Temple Owl]

Great post!!!! Auth is a dispicable liar. One good thing, he keeps losing circulation for the Inquirer.