No, Israel didn't jail a cartoonist because of his cartoons

On Monday's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, besides the absurd charge by Jimmy Carter that jihadists in France were really motivated by Israeli policies, we saw Stewart accuse Israel of jailing a Palestinian cartoonist because of his work and ironically pointing out that this terrible, freedom hating state was allowed to send Bibi to Paris:

Al Jazeera is such a trustworthy source!

The cartoonist says one story now, and his lawyer said another one at the time.

Mohammad Saba’aneh the cartoonistm who of course can be trusted not to be biased at all, was quoted in Electronic Intifada:

In the end, the focus of the interrogation became a book about Palestinian political prisoners that Saba’aneh’s brother — a member of Hamas — wrote and published. Because several of Saba’aneh’s cartoons were published in his brother’s book, “I was charged with collaboration with Hamas.”

Of course, he says, it was all an excuse to jail him for his cartoons.

But Saba’aneh's lawyer said something quite different at the time he was jailed:

According to his lawyer, Mohammad is accused of accepting money in Jordan for his brother Tamer, a member of Hamas who is currently in an Israeli prison. Mohammad denies this, and claims he handed the money to another person while still in Jordan, because he suspected the funds were linked to Hamas.

So Saba’aneh admitted that he accepted money that he thought was meant to go to Hamas! (And he disingenuously claims that he simply handed the money to someone else. Was that someone else going to give it to Hamas too? How does that make him less guilty?)

Of course, he no longer tells anyone that story, because the idea of his being a martyr for freedom of expression sounds so much better - and makes Israel sound so much worse.

Of course, The Daily Show doesn't claim to be a real news show so it doesn't do corrections - allowing it to have no responsibility for lying about Israel even when it is not joking.