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A Jerusalem-based magazine fired a cartoonist for rendering an image of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Likud legislators as pig characters in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
The cartoon was intended to criticize the adoption by the Israeli government of a controversial law
last week devoting the Jewish character of the state. Critics say that legislation, which defines Israel as a Jewish state and degrades the status of the Arabic language, marginalizes the country's Arab minority.
After the adoption of the bill, Likud deputies, jubilant, took a selfie with Prime Minister Netanyahu. A photograph of the moment has been widely published.
[1965:9006] (Photo: Amit Shaabi) [1965:9007] (Photo: Amit Shaabi)
The cartoon of Avi Katz, independent cartoonist of the Jerusalem Report, portrays this moment but his picture shows politicians drawn like pigs .
It is captioned by the phrase of Orwell: "All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."
Rendered by phone Thursday in New York, Katz said he saw the picture of "those ugly fat people taking a selfie of congratulations after pbading this law with very, very dirty stuff."
"Then they infiltrated this stupid law, and it just seemed to me to be pigs, and I quickly traced it, I just redid the drawing slightly with the faces of pigs, it seemed so obvious to me that it was almost as if I were joking about someone else 's joke.
The Union of Journalists of Israel said that Katz had been removed from the Jerusalem report Wednesday after the cartoon was published in the magazine's edition this week.
The magazine belongs to the Jerusalem Post newspaper. Neither of them responded to requests for comment.
"Usually (the Jerusalem report) has complete editorial independence, but in this case the bosses of the Jerusalem Post apparently were in contact with the editor of the report and said to stop using my job in the future. " Katz said.
Katz said that with fellow cartoonists from the Middle East he "boasted for years that, no matter how terrible the (Israeli) government policy, at least we are free to criticize it."
