The New York Times publication of the blatantly anti Semitic cartoon is not to be dismissed lightly.

It was described by Bret Stephen in  A Despicable Cartoon in The Times:

It did so in the form of a cartoon, provided to the newspaper by a wire service and published directly above an unrelated column by Tom Friedman, in which a guide dog with a prideful countenance and the face of Benjamin Netanyahu leads a blind, fat Donald Trump wearing dark glasses and a black yarmulke. Lest there be any doubt as to the identity of the dog-man, it wears a collar from which hangs a Star of David.

Here was an image that, in another age, might have been published in the pages of Der Stürmer. 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. The nominal servant acting as the true master. The cartoon checked so many anti-Semitic boxes that the only thing missing was a dollar sign.

The offense of the cartoon is magnified by the stature of the New York Times.  In a much lesser publication it could have been written off as sloppy editing or thin inexperienced staff.  If it had appeared in Breitbart or a similar political tilt, the airwaves would be jammed with condemnations and no apology would suffice. Its proximity in time to the recent shooting at the Chabad in Poway near San Diego would have made it unforgivable.  That is how the New York Times treated far less offensive remarks from Republicans;  Sarah Palin’s use of the word ‘cross hairs’ in a political speech was enough to blame her for the Gabby Giffords shooting.

This would have been an inconceivable mistake a few years ago; it is indicative of how far down the slope leftist anti-Semitism has progressed. Coupled with the failure to effectively counter the anti-Semitic tropes of Ilhan Omar and her supporters this act should give us great pause.

To respond with accusations of anti Semitism on the right is a dishonest equivalence. Anti-Semitism on the right is the work of isolated individuals and outlying organizations, though they should also be marginalized.  On the left we have seen it grow in college campuses, political rallies, in Congress, and now in the New York Times.  On the left we have allowed the institutions to be infected.  This is not to say that anti-Semitism on the right is not a problem, but it is expressed differently and this difference is more critical than the deflection of ‘what aboutism.’

Further from Bret Stephens:

The problem with the cartoon isn’t that its publication was a willful act of anti-Semitism. It wasn’t. The problem is that its publication was an astonishing act of ignorance of anti-Semitism — and that, at a publication that is otherwise hyper-alert to nearly every conceivable expression of prejudice, from mansplaining to racial microaggressions to transphobia.

Imagine, for instance, if the dog on a leash in the image hadn’t been the Israeli prime minister but instead a prominent woman such as Nancy Pelosi, a person of color such as John Lewis, or a Muslim such as Ilhan Omar. Would that have gone unnoticed by either the wire service that provides the Times with images or the editor who, even if he were working in haste, selected it?

The question answers itself. And it raises a follow-on: How have even the most blatant expressions of anti-Semitism become almost undetectable to editors who think it’s part of their job to stand up to bigotry?

Also commented by Dennis Prager in National Review, Why the New York Times’ Anti-Semitic Cartoon Didn’t Bother Most Jews  ;

Why aren’t most American Jews troubled by the Times‘ cartoon? Why were all American Jews horrified by the anti-Semitic shootings at the California synagogue this past weekend, while most barely had their feathers ruffled by the anti-Semitic cartoon in one of the most influential media in America?

The answer is that most American Jews, while ethnically Jewish, are ethically leftist. And ethics trump ethnicity — as they should. For most American Jews, therefore, the Times is far more consonant with their ethical values than are Jewish values (if, by Jewish values, we are talking about the Torah and traditional Jewish religious and moral teachings).

Republican Steve King was stripped of his committee seat after his racist remark.  Ilhan Omar still sits on the Foreign Relations Committee.  Candidates and activists are still comfortable shamelessly cozying up to Louis Farrakhan and Al Sharpton is spite of their blatant anti-Semitism.

From The Wall Street Journal, The Party of Buttigieg and Sharpton

While Joe Biden is being held to account for things he said and did as long ago as the 1970s, Mayor Pete Buttigieg had lunch in Harlem Monday, seeking the blessing of the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Mr. Sharpton also has a history of anti-Semitic agitation. In August 1991 an Orthodox Jewish driver ran a red light and swerved into Gavin Cato, an 8-year-old black child, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. The following night a mob set upon 29-year-old Yankel Rosenbaum—an Australian student who had nothing to do with the accident—and stabbed him to death. At Gavin’s funeral, Mr. Sharpton caricatured Jews as “diamond dealers” and, according to a report in Newsday, “seemed to scoff . . . at labeling Gavin’s death an accident.” At a rally around the same time, he was quoted as saying: “If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”

In the summer of 1995 Mr. Sharpton’s National Action Network held daily protests against Freddy’s Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned Harlem retailer that had a rent dispute with a black-owned subtenant. Protesters screamed about “bloodsucking Jews” and “Jew bastards,” and Mr. Sharpton himself vowed: “We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business on 125th Street.” In December Roland Smith, 51, who’d participated in the protests, returned to Freddy’s, brandished a gun, and burned the place down. Smith killed seven people and himself in the attack.

What you tolerate you teach.  Anti-Semites on the left have learned well.

PS

Ben Shapiro from NR,  The New York Times’ Anti-Semitism Is Shocking, but Not Surprising

Back in 2015, the New York Times printed a list of lawmakers who voted against the anti-Israel Iran deal — listing them by the percentage of Jews in their districts and noting which ones were Jewish themselves. Back in 2014, the publisher of the newspaper, Margaret Sullivan, had to remind her own reporters to cover the Palestinians as “more than just victims,” thanks to the paper’s insanely one-sided coverage.

The Times’ ugly record of anti-Semitism goes all the way back to 2000, when the newspaper printed a photo of a Jewish student beaten by Palestinian Arabs and defended by an Israeli soldier – but captioned the photo by labeling the beaten man an Arab.

In actuality, the Times cares about anti-Semitism only when it can be used as a political weapon. The Times admitted in November that it had neglected to cover anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City specifically because such anti-Semitism “refuses to conform to an easy narrative with a single ideological enemy,” explaining that “when a Hasidic man or woman is attacked by anyone in New York City, mainstream progressive advocacy groups do not typically send out emails calling for concern and fellowship and candlelight vigils in Union Square.”

The mainstream Left has engaged in self-flattering blindness when it comes to Jew-hatred. And all too often, that blindness veers into outright anti-Semitism.

from National Review by Jonathan Tobin,  The Times Cartoon Reveals the Link between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism

While the Times, like the rest of the liberal mainstream media, remains resolute in its opposition to right-wing anti-Semitism and eager to connect President Donald Trump to any uptick in hate crimes, it is blind or indifferent to expressions of hatred for Jews from left-wing sources. Stephens characterizes this problem as “ignorance” — but considering that, as he acknowledges, the newspaper is “hyper-alert” to every other conceivable expression of prejudice, this creates a terrible double standard. While Israel’s government, like any other, is fair game for criticism, the point of anti-Zionism is the delegitimization of Israel itself. Editors who claim to oppose all sorts of bigotry simply don’t grasp that a movement whose sole focus is the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet is inherently anti-Semitic. And once you’ve legitimized anti-Zionism, imagery and arguments about Israel and the Jews that might once have been easily seen as beyond the pale are no longer viewed with alarm.

Indifference to anti-Semitism isn’t limited to the staff of the New York Times. It is a growing problem that was aptly illustrated by the fawning coverage of Representatives Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) even after they vented anti-Semitic tropes every bit as vicious as the Times cartoon. The willingness of the liberal establishment to rationalize their prejudices and to treat the pushback against them as inherently anti-Muslim speaks volumes.

Until writers and editors in the mainstream media instinctively understand that anti-Semitism, whether in the guise of anti-Zionism or in more traditional forms, is as much of a taboo as other forms of prejudice, hateful “errors of judgment” like the Times cartoon will continue to proliferate.

HKO

If you let them talk long enough the facade of anti-Zionism dissolves quickly into anti-Semitism.

print