In response to our communique on the sad situation in Swedish media, HonestReporting readers flooded the inbox of Lilian Öhrström, ombudsman of Dagens Nyheter, the paper that published the highly offensive cartoon of a stereotypical, wicked Jew (at left, click to enlarge).
Öhrström wrote a column in response, which has been kindly translated by the Stockholm Spectator — see it here.
Öhrström brushes aside HR subscribers’ emails, claiming:
…in effect the campaign defeats its own purpose.
In a way, this campaign confirms the message conveyed by the cartoon: that it is impossible to criticize the state of Israel because it can result in allegations of anti-Semitism.
Is it even possible for a non-Israeli to satirize Israel’s politics? It has to be; for just as one can criticize Palestinian leaders, the United States, France, Germany or Sweden, so too must we be able to criticize Israel (even using humor).
Nowhere in our communique did we accuse the cartoonist of anti-Semitism — though he certainly partook of classic anti-Semitic imagery and stereotypes, which was the focus of our critique. And while it is certainly possible (i.e. legitimate) to criticize the state of Israel through humor, the use of Der Sturmer imagery to do so is highly problematic. Any European journalist with even the slightest historical consciousness should be aware of that.
Öhrström goes on to recognize the possiblity that HR was right:
[the cartoon] can also be seen as a malicious caricature of a Jew with a long nose and curly sideburns.
Neither Jews nor Israelis have distinctive [racial] features (and Hans Lindström’s characters all have big noses, regardless their affiliation to particular religious or ethnic groups)…Satirical cartoons often use special characters to represent countries; for instance, the corpulent mother Svea for Sweden and various guises of Uncle Sam for the United States. But by selecting an orthodox Jew to represent Israel the cartoonist has unintentionally allowed his work to be exploited for ulterior purposes.
Even though the cartoonist is not an anti-Semite, his illustration can be misappropriated by those who are. Unfortunately it can also be exploited for numerous other propagandistic purposes.
So HonestReporting is lumped together with neo-Nazis…
But back to Öhrström’s point about the caricature. The problem was not merely his use of a Hassidic Jew to represent Israelis (though it was that also — Öhrström’s other two examples are fictional characters, while Hassidic Jews are alive and well today). It was also the fact that Lindström’s ‘Jew’ is plainly immoral. He rejects a perfectly legitimate statement by the Swedish ‘Everyman’ regarding walls separating people, without responding about the particulars of Israel’s anti-terror fence. This also calls upon ancient stereotypes of the ‘immoral Jew’ who rejects the most basic humanitarian norms. Add that to the imagery, and we’ve moved disturbingly close to Goebbels.
Note that Öhrström doesn’t find any fault with the cartoonist Lindström himself, but rather laments that his imagery could be ‘exploited for ulterior purposes.’ Unfortunately, those with ‘ulterior purposes’ don’t have far to go. Lindström has taken them to the very doorstep of Germany, 1938.
