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Jewish Human Rights Group Wants Tony Parker to Apologize for "Reverse Nazi Salute"

The image to the left shows Tony Parker and French comedian Dieudonné making the "quenelle" gesture, which is the reverse of the Nazi salute. It is reportedly one of multiple times that Parker has made the body expression this year.

tony parker

Now, the Spurs point guard is being asked to apologize for the gesture by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), a Jewish human rights group.

As The Algemeiner reports:

Calling Parker’s use of the gesture “disgusting and dangerous” and, saying that the star was “mainstreaming anti-Semitic hate,” Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the SWC, said 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, in an interview with The Algemeiner.

Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, the "comedian" whom Parker is pictured with, has reportedly referred to Holocaust remembrances as "memorial pornography" and made light of gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps in the past.

Parker is not the only professional athlete who has recently come under fire for use of the "quenelle" gesture. Nicolas Anelka, a French striker for the English Premier League's West Bromwich Albion Football Club, celebrated a goal this past Saturday with the salute and has been the subject of immense international scrutiny.

Update: Parker has apologized for the gesture.

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The Algemeimer