Israel Matzav

The Muhammad cartoon controversy greatly increased the amount of anti-Semitic material in Arab and Muslim newspapers, according to a report issued by the Anti-Defamation League over the weekend. [The ADL report can be found here. CiJ]

The report highlighted cartoons and opinion pieces that demonized Jews, Israel and the Holocaust in media across the Arab world and in Iran.

The publications cited depicted Jews in "outrageous and deeply anti-Semitic caricatures and themes, including anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of Jews plotting to control US foreign policy and dominate the world," the report said.

For example, in the government daily Al-Ittihad from the United Arab Emirates, a cartoon of a Jew holding the world at bay with a gun labeled "the Holocaust" was published on January 24. And, in an apparent reference to the Muhammad cartoons, on February 16 the Bahraini Akhbar al-Khalij ran a picture of an inkpot marked with a Star of David accompanied by a pen writing "cartoons harming Allah's messenger."

While anti-Semitic tropes have long filled the Arab media, ADL Israel office spokesman Arieh O'Sullivan said the intensity of such material "skyrocketed" when Muslim rage exploded over the controversial Muhammad depictions carried in the Danish press and elsewhere.

You can find an example of a recent anti-Semitic cartoon in the Arabic press here.