Norway press council declares that vile cartoon is not antisemitic

Last May, I reported on a disgusting cartoon published in Norway's Dagbladet. Here is my translated version:

As I noted then, this cartoon was clearly aimed at the tiny Jewish community in Norway:

Only Jews routinely circumcise boys when they are infants. (Some Muslims will have doctors circumcise boys in the hospital soon after birth, but not in their homes.)

Only religious Jews are associated with black hats and beards.

Muslim circumcision, and female genital mutilation when practiced, is not a ceremony with prepared texts from prayer books.

There are only about 1300 Jews in Norway, while there are over 100,000 Muslims.

Despite his protestations, [cartoonist] Drefvelin is clearly aiming this cartoon at the minuscule Jewish population of Norway, not the growing Muslim population.

Now the Press Council of Norway has declared that the vile cartoon is not antisemitic.

PFU Secretariat pointed out in its proposal to the opinion that in the Norwegian media hass a tradition of caricature with very wide latitude, and those who feel wronged or violated should not have a veto over what can be published.

"This is an important, a fundamental issue for the press and freedom of expression such that even if this strip was aimed at one particular religion, I would have acquitted Dagbladet," said Martin Riber Sparre in Today's Market.

He added that if the Jewish community felt threatened by the comic strip, it was a matter for the police and not the PFU.

I would still love to know why the artist would say that he chose to depict the people attacking the child as members of the tiny Jewish community rather than the far more numerous Muslim community.

We know the reason, of course - the Jews aren't going to threaten to murder him, unlike Muslims. So it is far safer to characterize Judaism as a bloodthirsty religion than to worry about ruffling Islam's feathers.

Over time, incidents like these ensure that there would be real hatred against Jews in Europe. This specific cartoon could be explained away, of course, but the cumulative effect means that Jews will be perceived as barbarians in Norwegian media.

(h/t Ian and IsraelWhat)