NEW YORK (JTA) — Rep. Jerry Nadler criticized fellow Democrats Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib for sharing a cartoon that shows President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu covering their mouths.
Omar, D-Minn., and Tlaib, D-Mich., were criticized for sharing it last week because the cartoonist Carlos Latuff participated in an anti-Semitic Holocaust cartoon competition sponsored by an Iranian newspaper in 2006.
Nadler, the House Judiciary Committee chairman from New York, grouped Omar and Tlaib’s move to share the cartoon alongside Trump’s recent comments about Jewish disloyalty.
“The growing anti-Semitism in our political dialogue is repugnant. @realdonaldtrump’s comments about disloyalty are a vicious and dangerous anti-Semitic trope. And the Carlos Latuff cartoon forwarded by @RepRashida and @Ilhan can surely be read for its vile underlying message,” Nadler tweeted.
The president said on Tuesday that Jews who vote for Democrats show “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”
In the cartoon Tlaib and Omar shared, both men are wearing blue suits and in between their outstretched arms is a Star of David. Taken as a whole, that pattern resembles the Israeli flag.
The congresswomen shared the cartoon after Israel announced it had banned them from entering the country on a planned visit due to their public support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting the Jewish state.
Under Israeli law, BDS supporters can be prevented from entering the country.
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