After Dagbladet published a caricature drawing of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Embassy is asking them to apologise.
The drawing shows Netanyahu with a body shape shaped like a swastika, punching a member of the Druze community (a minority in Israel) off a bench with a sign saying ‘whites only’.
The reason behind the publication is a controversial law recently adopted by Israel.
Many believe the new law makes non-Jews second-rate citizens. Several minorities in Israel fear that the law legalizes discrimination against, among other things, the ‘drusers.’
Now the Israeli embassy in Norway demands that Dagbladet removes the drawing, wrote Kampanje.
“We demand that Dagbladet removes the anti-Semitic drawing, and that the newspaper gives a public apology to Israel for discrimination against the Jewish people in Norway and around the world,” said Ambassador Dan Poraz at the Israeli Embassy in Oslo.
Dagbladet pointed out that the drawing, which is signed Finn Graff, is a satire, which has a more liberal role in the Norwegian press. At the same time, they say that they would not have drawn comparisons between Israeli politicians and Nazis in editorial texts.
“It is in the nature of the satirical drawing that the ceiling must be higher. Satire is by definition deliberate exaggeration. This drawing moves completely in the borderland, something of which Finn Graff is aware,’’ said political editor Geir Ramnefjell of Dagbladet.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today
