Image by youtube

Mark Meechan appeared in a Scottish court on Monday, charged with a hate crime against Jews. His alleged crime? Teaching his girlfriend’s dog to perform a Nazi salute.

“My girlfriend is always ranting and raving about how cute and adorable her wee dog is, so I thought I would turn him into the least cute thing I could think of, which is a Nazi,” said Meechan, who posted a video of the training session on YouTube, where it garnered millions of views before being deleted.

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Meechan is heard in the video shouting slogans like “Gas the Jews,” and shows the dog video from the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which the Nazis organized. His protestations that he meant no offense did not ease the anxieties of Scotland’s Jewish leaders, who said the video had led to harassment against them.

“There is an echo chamber effect, with people trying to be more offensive. One hundred and sixty pages of messages were collected by us in a day. They supported the video and it was anti-Semitic,” said Ephraim Borowski, head of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, in a comment to the Times of London.

Contact Daniel J. Solomon at solomon@forward.com or on Twitter, @DanielJSolomon

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