A DRAWING by Fairfax cartoonist Michael Leunig that found its way on to an Iranian newspaper website without his approval was anti-Semitic and not an anti-war comment as claimed by the artist, Jewish groups believe.
The controversy continued yesterday with a column by Michael Gawenda in The Age, critical of the cartoonist.
Gawenda, the paper's former editor-in-chief and now US correspondent, refused to print the cartoon on the grounds it was "inappropriate" when Leunig first submitted it in 2002.
Gawenda yesterday wrote the cartoon "clearly drew a parallel between Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the treatment of Jews at Auschwitz".
Leunig's cartoon depicted a Jew walking towards the Auschwitz concentration camp under the banner "Work Brings Freedom".
In a second panel it showed a Jewish soldier walking towards what appears to be a military camp or border crossing under the words "War Brings Peace".
Leunig said he was hurt by the actions of a hoaxer who sent the work to an Iranian cartoon competition which called for entries on the "alleged historical event" of the Holocaust.
But Leunig defended the drawing as essentially anti-war.
Gawenda wrote that Leunig was silent about "the fact that the competition's organisers thought his cartoon -- which is not a hoax -- was a perfectly fine entry for this racist exercise.
"Indeed, Leunig goes out of his way to praise the Iranians who were 'courteously apologising. They had been co-operative. They cared'."
Deputy chairman of the Jewish Anti-Defamation Commission, Michael Lipshutz, said the drawing clearly equated Israel with Nazism.
"Leunig has . . been saying he has been misrepresented, but it identifies Israel as a Nazi state and belittles the Holocaust," Mr Lipshutz said.
"It's obscene and Michael Gawenda clearly understood that. Leunig doesn't."
Australian freelance journalist Richard Cooke, who contributes to the satirical website The Chaser, has admitted sending the Leunig work to the Iranian newspaper without Leunig's knowledge.
It surfaced in the Iranian government-controlled newspaper Hamshahri as part of a competition launched in response to Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
