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A cartoon of Meghan McCain that she called "one of the most antisemitic things I've ever seen" propelled Jewish cartoonist @EliValley into the spotlight, and drew attention to the way antisemitism is being weaponized in American political discourse. @MairavZ investigates: (1/10) 
The cartoon by @EliValley depicts a weeping McCain wearing a yellow star (used by Nazis to designate Jews) & saying, "That refugee girl wants to exterminate us Jews!"— mocking McCain's recent labeling of Congresswoman @IlhanMN as an anti-Semite. (2/10)
Valley was responding to McCain saying "just because I don't technically have Jewish family that are blood-related to me doesn't mean that I don't take this seriously." The statement was seen as her appropriating Jewish identity & diverting away from white nationalism. (3/10)
Valley, who's Jewish, has published many cartoons critical of the U.S. Jewish establishment—especially Republicans—for being hardliners on Israel. He has called out Ben Shapiro, Mort Klein & Jared Kushner for enabling Trump, who he calls the "hero of American Nazism." (4/10)
Valley, who was blocked by McCain after the cartoon, now has over 50K followers, and has since been profiled by Vice and interviewed by WNYC, giving his cartoons greater exposure than ever before. (5/10)
Meanwhile, Valley was invited to keynote Stanford's Palestine Awareness Week. Before the talk, the college paper ran an article calling Valley's cartoons antisemitic & implying the event should be canceled. An RT by NYTimes columnist Bari Weiss gave it national attention. (6/10)
Stanford College Republicans also distributed flyers ahead of Valley's talk that showed his drawings alongside Nazi cartoons. Jewish outlet @JNS_org then pubbed an opinion piece accusing Valley of antisemitism. Valley calls Weiss a "smear merchant." (7/10)
Valley ultimately did speak at the event, and told the audience that "a world in which Meghan McCain is a Jew is a world in which Nazis can feign outrage over antisemitism," drawing laughter from the crowd. (8/10)
The fact that an anti-Zionist Jewish artist—and the son of a rabbi—has being accused of antisemitism for portraying certain Jewish figures as Nazi collaborators underlines how toxic the debate over Israel has become; not just among Jews, but across U.S. politics. (10/10)
