An Israeli news publisher said Thursday it had fired a cartoonist who depicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as one of the pigs in George Orwell's political satire "Animal Farm". Following passage last week of a controversial law which critics say discriminates against non-Jewish Israelis, the Jerusalem Report news magazine published cartoonist Avi Katz's take on a selfie taken with Netanyahu by triumphant members of his right-wing Likud party after the vote.

Katz sketched them with pigs' heads, provoking outrage among some readers in Israel where pigs are considered unclean and eating pork is forbidden under Jewish law. The Jerusalem Post newspaper group, which owns the Report, said that Katz had ruffled feathers with previous cartoons, but his latest was particularly offensive.