The New York Times (international edition) recently published a cartoon widely construed as anti-Semitic, and the newspaper has apologized. The cartoon is below.
Sorry, but I’m not seeing it. Granted, the cartoon offers unflattering and critical portrayals of Netanyahu and the First Felon — but how is it specifically anti-Semitic? Where is there an attack upon Judaism qua Judaism? The characterization of Trump as a blind man led around by Netanyahu is well within the bounds of acceptable criticism, however one might feel about the substance of the criticism.
The assumption implicit in the complaint is that any criticism of a Jew is anti-Semitic, which plainly isn’t so, and I can’t help wondering if the real point of the criticism is to foreclose discussion of the cartoon’s substance — the editorial point-of-view that America too-reflexively follow’s Israel’s lead.