In a Facebook post about Saturday's synagogue shooting near San Diego, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan claimed that the shooter had been influenced by a blatantly anti-Semitic cartoon that appeared in The New York Times earlier this weekend.
Erdan wrote that anti-Semitism in political cartoons extended beyond the pages of newspapers and turned into the "blood of Jews" being spilled in synagogues or other places "identified as Jewish."
"That is always the true motive for terrorism and murder against our people – not 'the territories' or 'concessions,' – hatred of Jews," Erdan wrote.
"The loathsome terrorist who carried out the murderous act in the California synagogue and killed the late Lori Gilbert Kaye was inspired to kill by the same anti-Semitic motives in the cartoon published in The New York Times – [accusations] that the Jews run the world, that the prime minister of Israel runs the world. The Israeli prime minister is portrayed as a guide dog leading a blind man. How much hatred and incitement that illustration contains," he wrote.
"So people are saying that the newspaper supposedly apologized and that the cartoon's publication was an 'error in judgment.' … You wouldn't accept such a limp-wristed condemnation of racism and incitement if it were directed at any other minority," Erdan continued.
