Cartoons Blame Israel, US for Anti-Islam Film

Israeli hand behindPic: El-Shorouk

The violence sparked by a US-made film that denigrated the Islamic Prophet Muhammad has been making headlines worldwide over the past week, but the Arab media have also chosen to utilize caricatures to lob accusations at the United States and Israel.

One cartoon, published by the Gaza-based Palestine newspaper, claimed the Jewish state was behind the offensive movie. Featuring a man covering a wall in black paint found in a bucket printed with a Magen David on its side, the caricature was accompanied by the caption: "Israel produced the film that offended the prophet."

A drawing posted on a popular Egyptian Facebook group claimed the film was an American ploy to present Muslims as terrorists. The caricature showed Uncle Sam pondering how to commemorate the terror attack of September 11, 2001.

"We will produce a film that offends Islam," the caption read. "The Muslims will be outraged and the extremists will attack the embassies, and then we will prove to the world they are terrorists."

Jordan's Ad-Dustour newspaper released a cartoon blaming the West for the film. One image showed a Western diplomat lighting a cigar with a fire captioned with "hatred." A second image showed him being burnt by the flames, signifying that the plot had backfired.

Another Jordanian paper, Alghad, chose instead to criticize the Arab world for dealing with the movie instead of the civil war in Syria. The caricature showed a Muslim riding a horse towards a sign that says "offensive film," while leaving behind another sign reading "Syria – massacre of innocent people."

Another caricature showing a clapboard dripping with blood, captioned with "murder of the American ambassador to Libya," goes as far as to suggest that "Israeli hands" were responsible for the death of US envoy Christopher Stevens. The image was published in the Algerian paper el-Shorouk.

Stevens was killed by Libyan rioters who stormed the US consulate in Benghazi on Tuesday night. Three of his staff members died as well.

The crudely made 13-minute English-language movie, allegedly made by Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, an Egyptian Copt residing in California, circulated on the Internet under several titles including "Innocence of Muslims." It mocked the Prophet Mohammad and portrays him as a buffoon.

Yet another image, released by the Saudi paper Alwatan, asserts that while the filmmaker may be American, Jews – depicted by a stereotypical ultra-Orthodox man sitting on top of the director's head – were the ones actually pulling the strings.

This article is reprinted with permission from Ynet.

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