Dec. 23, 2013: San Antonio Spurs point guard Tony Parker, left, of France, drives around Toronto Raptors center Jonas Valanciunas, of Lithuania, during the first half of an NBA basketball game in San Antonio. (AP)
The Simon Wiesenthal Center is calling on NBA star Tony Parker to apologize for his past use of a gesture that is widely considered to be anti-Semitic and similar to a Nazi salute.
French media reports earlier this year showed a picture of the San Antonio Spurs player backstage at a French theater doing the “quenelle” gesture alongside its creator, comedian Dieudonné, The Algemeiner reports.
“It’s the Nazi salute in reverse,” Roger Cukierman, the leader of an umbrella group of French Jewish organizations, told Reuters.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which is a Jewish human rights group, said Sunday that Parker should “apologize for his use of the quenelle ‘Nazi’ salute.”
“As a leading sports figure on both sides of the Atlantic, Parker has a special moral obligation to disassociate himself from a gesture that the government of France has identified as anti-Semitic,” Cooper said, according to The Algemeiner.
The call came a day after French soccer player Nicolas Anelka came under fire for his use of the gesture after scoring a goal for English Premier League soccer club West Bromwich Albion.
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