On October 9 and 10, HRC Assistant Director Robert Walker was published in The Hamilton Spectator and the Waterloo Record respectively, after cartoonist Graeme Mackay published an editorial cartoon depicting Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu fighting over a dove with Iran’s Ayatollah, standing over a mountain of bones.

Walker wrote that this obscene cartoon drew a false moral equivalence between the Jewish state and Iran and its proxies. Not only is Iran directly responsible for Hamas’ October 7 massacres in southern Israel, but Tehran is also responsible for terror attacks by Hezbollah, who the very next day on October 8, began firing rockets into northern Israel, as a sign of ‘solidarity’ and haven’t stopped since.

Israel should not be castigated in the same realm as Iran, just for defending itself against genocidal terrorism. That’s a complete inversion of reality.

Graeme Mackay’s Oct. 8 cartoon depicted Israel’s prime minister fighting over a dove with Iran’s ayatollah, standing over a mountain of bones. This caricature drew an obscene moral equivalence.

One year ago, Hamas (an Iranian-backed terrorist proxy), launched the biggest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The next day, Hezbollah, another Iranian proxy, began firing 10,000 rockets indiscriminately into Israel. Soon the Houthis in Yemen and other groups allied with Iran joined in. All of them are sworn to Israel’s destruction.

And yet Israel — for refusing to lie down and die — is put in the same category as the genocidal maniacs who seek to destroy it, and whose followers have been rampaging on our streets for a year? This is akin to showing Hitler and Churchill fighting over a mountain of graves and is an absolute inversion of reality.

Robert Walker,
Assistant Director
Honest Reporting Canada