USA Today Cartoon Notes Palestinian Calls to Destroy Israel
A USA Today cartoon, published on Dec. 8, 2017, detailed the response by many Palestinians to the United States recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. As the cartoon, entitled “Same old Palestinian response,” highlighted, not much has changed.
The illustration, by Nate Beeler, a syndicated cartoonist with The Columbus Dispatch, showed two “American textbooks,” each with a map of Israel. One “old American textbook” listed Tel Aviv as Israel’s capital and a “new American textbook” showed the capital city as “Jerusalem.”
Juxtaposed underneath these books were two “Palestinian textbooks,” one “old” and one “new.” Both remained unchanged despite the U.S. recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in a Dec. 6, 2017 announcement by President Donald Trump. Both said “Wipe Israel off the map!” Prior to the announcement, it was official U.S. policy to decline to “acknowledge any capital at all,” as the President noted in his remarks.
As CAMERA highlighted in a Dec. 7, 2017 Times of Israel commentary, Palestinian leadership called for Israel’s destruction long before the U.S. acknowledged that Jerusalem is the capital of the Jewish state—a fact that many in the media coverage failed to note (“’Days of Rage’ and Bad Reporting”). And Palestinian textbooks have long shown maps that erase Israel.
With one cartoon, USA Today offered more insights than numerous media reports.
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