A CARTOON meant to be depicting Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's acquisition of an app business has been lambasted as anti-semitic.

German cartoonist Burkhard Mohr has been forced to apologise after his work was published in Munich daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

The cartoon, which depicted 29-year-old Zuckerberg as an octopus reaching with its tentacles to control social media after Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp, also showed the Jewish man with a long nose and thick lips.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem, protested about the depiction of Zuckerbeg. The centre’s Associate Dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, told The Algemeiner newspaper that the cartoon resembled Nazi propaganda and was “an outrage” that showed the artist was anti-Semitic.

Mohr said that he had intended to make a point about Facebook devouring rival WhatsApp and didn’t realise the parallels to the Nazis’ anti-Semitic portrayal of Jews as hungry tentacle monsters.

The cartoon was removed from later editions of the newspaper with an empty hole where Zuckerberg’s face had been shown instead.

“I’m very sorry about this misunderstanding and any readers’ feelings I may have hurt,’’ Mohr said in an email today.

“Anti-Semitism and racism are ideologies that are totally alien to me,’’ he added.

Efraim Zuroff, the head Nazi hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, said he wasn’t convinced by the apology.

“He drew a caricature that is so reminiscent of Der Stuermer caricatures that it’s inconceivable to me he didn’t realise this,’’ said Zuroff, referring to the weekly propaganda paper that the Nazis used to whip up hatred against Jews.

“Maybe he should pay a visit to their archives.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung has been criticised in the past for appearing to defame Jews.

Last July it was forced to apologise after printing a picture caption that likened the state of Israel to a ravenous monster. The paper said at the time that it regretted any “misunderstandings’’.

perthnow.com.au