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Madonna, performing at the premier of her Sticky and Sweet tour at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium in Wales on Saturday.
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NEW YORK (EJP)---Two human rights US Jewish organisations have condemned as “inappropriate and offensive” the use by singer Madonna of an image of Hitler as part of a concert photo montage that also included photos of John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, and Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.
The images were projected on a screen as Madonna launched her Sticky and Sweet world tour at Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, Wales, on Saturday, with a live concert.
In a statement issued on Monday, Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director and a Holocaust survivor, issued the following statement:”Comparisons to Hitler have no place in a music concert, or in the presidential campaign. Whatever Madonna’s political or personal views, it is outrageous to invoke Nazi imagery in the context of John McCain’s candidacy or to make a comment on American political leadership.”
During the concert, an image of John McCain was shown alongside those of Adolf Hitler and Robert Mugabe, as well as photos of global warming and destruction.
Later in the evening, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's face was shown in a sequence that also includedimages of Mahatma Gandhi, John Lennon and Al Gore.
“It is inappropriate and offensive to compare any current or former world leaders with the man ultimately responsible for the death of six million Jews and the suffering of countless others during the Holocaust.Doing so trivializes the history of the Holocaust and is an insult to the memories of the victims and their families."
The founder of the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, which fights anti-Semitism in the world, called Madonna's montage "an insult to all Americans, Democrats as well as Republicans.”
"There ought to be no place in the political and social discourse of American culture for such deliberate distortions and lies sure to be viewed by hundreds of thousands of young people around the world," Rabbi Marvin Hier said in a statement.
A spokesman for the McCain campaign called the comparisons "outrageous, unacceptable and crudely divisive all at the same time.”
"It clearly shows that when it comes to supporting Barack Obama, his fellow worldwide celebrities refuse to consider any smear or attack off limits,” Tucker Bounds added.
Earlier this month, the McCain campaign released a television ad portraying Obama as a celebrity, juxtaposing images of the Illinois senator with photos of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.
Shortly after, hotel heiress and notorious party-girl Hilton starred in a tongue-in-cheek internet rejoinder that poked fun at the "wrinkly, white-haired dude" who endorsed her for president with his ad.
