“We are deeply sorry for the publication of an antisemitic political cartoon last Thursday in the print edition of The New York Times that circulates outside of the United States,” the newspaper wrote. “We are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again.“Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when antisemitism is on the rise worldwide, it’s all the more unacceptable. We have investigated how this happened and learned that, because of a faulty process, a single editor working without adequate oversight downloaded the syndicated cartoon and made the decision to include it on the Opinion page.“The matter remains under review, and we are evaluating our internal process and training. We anticipate significant changes.”An earlier response by the Times to the cartoon was published on Twitter on Saturday, in which the paper pledged to print an Editor’s Note in Monday’s edition.That response did not directly apologize for publishing the cartoon, but said it included “antisemitic tropes,” was “offensive,” and it was an “error of judgment to publish it.”The @nytimes has crossed a red line today by publishing a cartoon infused with antisemitic tropes.While we appreciate its retraction, it is extremely disconcerting that it received editorial approval in the first place. pic.twitter.com/3YOqzlWoqw
— WJC (@WorldJewishCong) April 27, 2019
Times columnist and former Jerusalem Post editor-in-chief Bret Stephens wrote an opinion piece on Sunday slamming his paper’s decision to run the cartoon.“Here was an image that, in another age, might have been published in the pages of Der Stürmer,” he wrote, referencing the infamous Nazi propaganda weekly tabloid. “The Jew in the form of a dog. The small but wily Jew leading the dumb and trusting American. The hated Trump being Judaized with a skullcap.”Stephens corroborated that a single “mid-level editor” had made the decision to include the cartoon “right before the paper went to print,” and added that the problem showed not willful antisemitism, but “an astonishing act of ignorance of antisemitism.”Nonetheless, he also chalked the publishing of the cartoon up to the “almost torrential criticism of Israel and the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism” by the Times and others, and that as long as “antisemitic arguments or images are framed... as commentary about Israel, there will be a tendency to view them as a form of political opinion, not ethnic prejudice.”Antisemitic cartoon in today's International @nytimes, and an editor's note following the uproar pic.twitter.com/4UMcydtQ93
— Lahav Harkov (@LahavHarkov) April 27, 2019