Coatbridge
– Jewish leaders have condemned an internet prankster who released a viral
video in which he teaches his girlfriend’s dog to Sieg Heil and react to the
phrase “gas the Jews”.
The
short clip, recorded by Markus Meechan from Coatbridge, has attracted almost
one million views on Youtube and has been shared widely on social media after
it was released just over a week ago.
The
video shows Mr Meechan, who goes by the online moniker ‘Count Dankula’,
teaching a pug-breed dog named Buddha to respond to the anti-semitic phrase and
to raise its paw in an imitation Nazi salute when it hears the words ‘Sieg
heil’.
He
also films it watching speeches made by Hitler on a TV screen.
The 1
minute 30-second clip is titled ‘M8 Yer Dugs a Nazi’.
At
the end, the former security guard insists that he is a not a racist, but is
only trying to play a joke on his girlfriend to “p*** her off”.
So
far it has been watched more than 750,000 times and was featured on the front
page of the popular content-sharing website Reddit, as well as on other sites
around the internet.
But
the clip has raised concerns about casual antisemitism in Scottish society and
prompting a leading Jewish group to call for a zero approach to online material
which targets Jews or makes light of the holocaust.
A
spokeswoman for the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities said:
“Antisemitism is not something that can in any degree be regarded as a
joke.
“It is a form of racism which needs to
be condemned just as we would any other form of racism, just as we would
condemn Islamophobia or anti-African racism.”
And
the council’s director Ephraim Borowski challenged Mr Meechan’s suggestion that
he was not a racist.
He
said: “To regard the meticulously planned and industrialised murder of six
million people solely on the grounds of their ethnicity as a joke is
outrageous, and for someone who does so to claim not to be racist, beggars
belief.”
Many
viewers have accepted the video as a joke but others were quick to take
offence, with one saying: “Maybe one day this guy and those who find this
humorous will experience something as terrifying as that which happened to the
Jews and learn what is and isn’t cause for humor.”
