Chinese embassy tweets and deletes antisemitic cartoon
The tweet in Japanese reads: "If the United States brought 'democracy,' it would be like this."
By LAHAV HARKOVUpdated: MAY 2, 2021 16:30The Chinese Embassy in Japan tweeted an antisemitic cartoon, which it eventually deleted at the behest of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.(photo credit: Courtesy)
The Chinese Embassy in Japan last Thursday tweeted an antisemitic cartoon and then deleted it at the behest of Israel’s Foreign Ministry.The cartoon featured an image of the Grim Reaper wearing an American flag and carrying a scythe with the Israeli flag as he goes door to door and leaves a bloody trail behind him. The doors are labeled Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Egypt.The tweet in Japanese said: “If the United States brought ‘democracy,’ it would be like this.”The cartoon demonized Israel, Israeli Ambassador to Japan Yaffa Ben-Ari told her Chinese counterpart, Cheng Yonghua, on Friday.Yonghua said he had not noticed that Israel was part of the image.Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General for Asia and the Pacific Gilad Cohen contacted the Chinese Embassy in Israel to inform it about the tweet.Within an hour of Ben-Ari’s and Cohen’s calls, the tweet was deleted, but the embassy did not tweet an apology.Many Japanese Twitter users responded angrily to the tweet, including with the famous photo of a man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square, but they did not seem to notice or take issue with the antisemitic element, Hong-Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
