The New York Times Is Slammed Over Anti-Semitic Cartoon

The New York Times acknowledged on Saturday it had published a cartoon earlier this week in its international print edition that “included anti-Semitic tropes.” In an editor’s note that will appear in Monday’s international print edition, the Times said the “image was offensive,” and the newspaper described the cartoon’s publishing as “an error of judgment.”

The editor’s note notably does not directly apologize for the cartoon, which the newspaper said was provided by The New York Times News Service and Syndicate.

Twitter users responded en masse, wondering what the hell the Times was thinking.

The cartoon depicts a visually impaired Donald Trump wearing dark sunglasses and a yarmulke and being led by a dog with the face of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the dog’s collar is a Star of David.

It was reminiscent of 1930s Nazi propaganda, The Jerusalem Post’s Seth Frantzman wrote on Saturday.

Frantzman noted:

The Nazis also depicted us as animals. They also put Stars of David on us. Antisemites have compared us to dogs, pigs and monkeys before. It used to be that it was on the far-Right that Jews were depicted as controlling the world, like an octopus or a spider.

But now we see how mainstream it has become to blame the Jews and Israel for the world’s problems.

He added: “This isn’t a dog whistle. This is a dog.” And it literally is a dog—Frantzman wasn’t being hyperbolic.

The Times has since deleted the cartoon online. In the print edition, it appeared next to a column about immigration by Thomas Friedman, who after being guided around on a border tour by the U.S. Border Patrol wrote that the trip “left me more certain than ever that we have a real immigration crisis and that the solution is a high wall with a big gate — but a smart gate.”