Political cartoonist Ben Garrison has been accused by the Anti-Defamation League of drawing a “blatantly anti-Semitic” illustration.

By Jackson Richman,JNS

U.S. President Donald Trump has invited Ben Garrison, a political cartoonist who has been accused by the Anti-Defamation League of drawing a “blatantly anti-Semitic” illustration, to the White House’s social-media summit scheduled for Thursday.

In 2017, Garrison drew a cartoon of then-U.S. National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster and retired U.S. Gen. David Petraeus on strings controlled by Jewish billionaire George Soros, who is dangled on strings controlled by a hand from a single arm labeled “Rothschilds,” referring to the iconic Jewish philanthropic family from the United Kingdom that has been a common target of anti-Semitic conspiracies.

Garrison has a history of drawing and releasing anti-Semitic cartoons, as depicted below by the Reagan Battalion, a conservative group, on Twitter.

Facebook and Twitter have reportedly not been invited to the summit.

The White House declined to comment on the record.

“It is completely unacceptable that the Trump Administration would invite someone to the White House who has been known to write anti-Semitic cartoons,” U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told JNS. “The Trump Administration continues to create an environment where hateful speech, including anti-Semitism, is condoned. The President ought to revoke his invitation immediately.”

Other members of Congressional leadership did not respond to a request for comment.

Nevertheless, Jewish and pro-Israel organizations criticized the White House invitation of Garrison.

“Hopefully, the president is not aware of the anti-Semitic quality of the [McMaster-Petraeus-Soros-Rothschild] cartoon so that he, when he gets aware, he should revoke the invitation immediately,” Sarah Stern, founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East truth, told JNS on Sunday evening.

“By inviting a cartoonist to the White House whose work the Anti-Defamation League calls ‘blatantly anti-Semitic,’ President Trump is, again, fanning the flames of hatred,” said Democratic Majority for Israel president and CEO Mark Mellman in a statement on Sunday evening. “At a time when anti-Semitic incidents are increasing at an alarming rate, President Trump should withdraw his invitation to this purveyor of anti-Jewish hate and condemn all forms of bigotry.”

“#Anti-Semitism becomes normalized when obvious examples, like grossly #antiSemitic cartoons, are overlooked. Just as cartoons of this sort shouldn’t be published anywhere, cartoonists who produce such hate shouldn’t be invited to the White House. We call on WH to rescind invite,” tweeted ADL CEO and national director Jonathan Greenblatt.

#AntiSemitism becomes normalized when obvious examples, like grossly #antiSemitic cartoons, are overlooked. Just as cartoons of this sort shouldn’t be published anywhere, cartoonists who produce such hate shouldn’t be invited to the White House. We call on WH to rescind invite. https://t.co/ts8vnle3Tm

— Jonathan Greenblatt (@JGreenblattADL) July 7, 2019

“We strongly condemn President Trump’s invitation to anti-Semitic cartoonist Ben Garrison to the White House Social Media Summit later this week. Despite Garrison’s record using social media to promulgate hate and disinformation, the White House has opened its doors to him, while reportedly excluding Twitter and Facebook representatives,” Jewish Democratic Council of America executive director Halie Soifer told JNS. “This invitation demonstrates that the Trump administration condones Garrison’s anti-Semitic imagery, as well as his use of social media to spread hate.”

“We call on President Trump to immediately revoke Garrison’s invitation to the White House and denounce white supremacy, which he has refused to do,” she continued. “There is no question that President Trump’s actions, policies and rhetoric have contributed to a rise in hatred and bigotry in the United States, and we condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

The Republican Jewish Coalition said: “We are very concerned by his past cartoons. We have an active conversation with the White House on this and are working with them on it.”