Bugs blamed.
Bugs blamed.Screenshot from MEMRI video

Zionists and racists use the world media – including cartoons featuring Bugs Bunny – to perpetuate anti-Islamic notions, according to a "Palestinian-American" lawyer named Lamis Deek. Deek also accused the U.S. Department of Defense of financing anti-Islamic propaganda films.

Deek's website says she is a board member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

The interview aired April 25 on Egypt's ON television station, and was monitored and translated by MEMRI, whose transcription of the interview follows:

"People interested in attacking the Arab and Muslim communities, and the people who sympathize with the Arabs... I am not talking only about the U.S., but elsewhere as well. They got an opportunity for coordination. I'm talking about the corporations involved in national security and wars, along with Zionist and Israeli institutions, and people who generally believe... I'm talking about Zionist Christians, who believe in the annihilation and demonization of the Muslims. I also mean the racists in general, who are still afraid of what happened in 9/11.

"So all these things - the industry, along with the Zionists and your run-of-the-mill racists who don't know any better, and who get their information only from the media and the press... I'm not talking only about the news, but also about the cartoons on which we were raised, even before 9/11.

"In Bugs Bunny, which we used to watch, they would sometimes bring a character pretending to be an Arab Muslim Sultan. He has a potbelly, and he spends most of his time sitting around and eating, indulging in women day and night, and killing people.

"This is the general notion, but the use they make of it has become more targeted. The film we just watched... The Department of Defense finances such films in order to increase suspicion towards our community in America and abroad."

Interviewer: "The Department of Defense?!"

Lamis Deek: "Yes, it has happened. The DoD has financed films, showing soldiers in Afghanistan killing some Muslims, and the spectators give them a standing ovation. This happens all the time. This is the goal of the film..."

ON television was launched in 2009 by Coptic communications tycoon Naguib Sawiris.