'Sunday Times' calls Scarfe cartoon 'serious mistake'

The Sunday Times "apologized unreservedly" Sunday for last week's cartoon – printed on International Holocaust Memorial day -- of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu cementing a wall with crushed Palestinian bodies and blood."It is one thing to attack and caricature a leader — and it is as legitimate to attack Israeli leaders in cartoons as anyone else. But it is another thing to reflect in a caricature, even unintentionally, historical iconography that is persecutory or anti-Semitic," the paper wrote as a leader on its editorial page.  The paper said that the image of Netanyahu "reveling in the blood of Palestinians, crossed a line. The image would have been a mistake on any day but the fact that last Sunday was Holocaust Memorial Day compounded the error."Calling publication of the Gerald Scarfe cartoon a "serious mistake," the paper said it "abhors anti-Semitism and racism of any type and we would never set out to offend the Jewish people — or indeed any other ethnic or religious group."