Christians angered by Israeli magazine illustration
Israel, Local, 7/8/1997

An Israeli magazine illustration showing Mary, the mother of Jesus, with the head of a cow has triggered angry responses from Christians and Muslims at a time when religious tensions in the Holy Land are ready running high.

The publisher of the Israeli science periodical Galileo on July 7 apologized to Palestinian Christians and Muslims for the picture that ran in April with two articles about cloning.

Jerusalem Patriarch Michel Sabbah, the chief Roman Catholic clergyman in the Holy Land, said on July 7 the drawing was offensive. "We condemn it because we cannot understand that the magazine officials can be so naive as to offend religious icons," Sabbah told a news agency.

Muslims, who also revere Mary, reacted more angrily. Muslim clerics linked the Galileo illustration to a drawing of the prophet Mohammed as a pig that was distributed last month by a Jewish extremist in the West Bank town of Hebron. Palestinian officials in the city have also claimed that Israeli troops desecrated several copies of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, during a raid of a Hebron elementary school last week. "It is another crime to be added to the Jews' crimes in the attack against the prophet Mohammed and the great Koran," said a statement by Muslim clerics and scholars.

Yasser Arafat's spokesman, Nabil Aburdeneh, said he believed the illustration was part of an organized campaign. We blame the Israeli government for all these provocations and crimes. Aburedeneh told the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat.

The controversy began when the Arabic-language weekly, Sunnara, reprinted the illustration last Friday after receiving a copy of Galileo in late June. The weekly called Muslim and Christian clerics for comment.

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