On Death Threats, Haaretz Cartoons and Charlie Hebdo
Ronen Shoval, a candidate with the right-wing Habayit Yehudi party, is calling for an investigation of Haaretz on suspicion for “defeatist propaganda” for running a cartoon paying tribute to the murdered Charlie Hebdo journalists.
Or at least that’s what the Haaretz print edition would have readers believe today. The page three article (“Haaretz death threats appear on rightest politican’s Facebook”) reads:
Facebook users have called for the murder of members of Haaretz’s editorial board, responding to a call by a right-leaning politician who wants an investigation into Haaretz’s editors on suspicion of “defeatest propaganda” under Statute 103 of Israel’s penal code.
Ronen Shoval, who is running in right-wing party Habayit Yaheyudi’s primary, called for the investigation on Facebook over the weekend. This came after Haaretz had run a cartoon in which its graphic designers paid tribute to the cartoonists killed in the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo newspaper in France.
But Shoval is not calling for an investigation of Haaretz because a Haaretz graphic artist paid tribute to the murdered Charlie Hebdo attackers. Nor are those issuing death threats doing so on the basis of Haaretz‘s solidarity with the Charlie Hebdo victims. Shoval’s objection is to a Haaretz cartoon which likened the murdered Charlie journalists to 13 Gazans said to be journalists killed in fighting over the summer.
The online edition includes the cartoon in question at the bottom of the article.
But the print edition did not at all describe the controversial cartoon, likely leaving readers completely puzzled about why a tribute to the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre would provoke cries of incitement as well as death threats in right-wing circles.
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