A Palestinian Authority child is depicted urinating on the Statue of Liberty in the May 25th issue of Al-Risala, a Hamas weekly newspaper. Palestinian Media Watch reports that in this week's cartoon, the Statue of Liberty is holding a book entitled "Democracy." PA media have consistently targeted the Statue of Liberty in the past, according to PMW. The Statue of Liberty, also known as Lady Liberty, is an internationally-recognized American symbol of freedom and democracy. Such ideas are apparently anathema to the PA; at a rally in March 2006, the newspaper Al-Hayat Al Jadida accused the West of "trying to penetrate Islamic youth with dubious things such as the ideas of democracy."
Hamas is by no means the only PA party blasting the United States using caricatures, however. Newspapers linked to PA President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party have printed many such venomous cartoons. Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Al-Quds and Al-Ayam newspapers have all pictured Lady Liberty as a terrorist, an arsonist burning down the world, a prostitute, and a prisoner of U.S. security agencies, among others.