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Cartoon of Israeli Hostage Trampling Bloody Arab Bodies Is Sanitized by New York Times

A taxi passes by in front of The New York Times head office, Feb. 7, 2013. Photo: Reuters / Carlo Allegri
“After He Ran a Cartoon on the War in Gaza, Gannett Fired Him,” is the headline the New York Times put over its recent report about the Palm Beach Post firing an editorial page editor.
The headline, sympathetic to the ousted editor, set the tone for the whole article. The Times dispatch, though delivered in the disguise of an objective news article, sided clearly with the fired editor instead of with the local Jewish community or the newspaper’s ownership. A more accurate headline might have been, “After He Ran an Antisemitic Cartoon Depicting a Released Israeli Hostage as Trampling on the Bloody Corpses of ‘Over 40,000 Palestinians,’ Gannett Fired Him.”
The Times article was by Benjamin Mullin, a reporter who covers the media industry. Had the Times chosen to assign the piece to a reporter on the Israel beat, or one who covers antisemitism (which would be a worthwhile beat for the Times to establish, and especially timely since there’s a new Trump administration and the newspaper has a previous pattern of suddenly discovering a new concern about antisemitism when Republicans are in power), the result might have been different.
The headline was just one of many ways in which the Times signaled its slant on this story.
The article referred to “a local Jewish group that claimed the cartoon was antisemitic.” It wasn’t just “a local Jewish group.” It was the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County, which is the central umbrella institution of the local organized Jewish community. “Claimed” is a loaded verb. Even the Times‘ own stylebook acknowledges that “claim is not a neutral synonym for say. It means assert a right or contend something that may be open to question.”
Nor was it only the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County that called the cartoon antisemitic. The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis also described the cartoon as antisemitic, noting that it “trivialized the plight of Israeli hostages and promoted antisemitic tropes of Israeli bloodlust.”
The Times could have published the cartoon itself and let the readers judge for themselves. Instead, it used a hyperlink and a bowdlerized text description of the drawing. The Times said, “The image shows two Israeli soldiers rescuing a hostage captured by Hamas. Under the words ‘Some Israeli hostages are home after over a year of merciless war,’ one of the soldiers says, ‘Watch your step’ as he, the rescued hostage and the other soldier walk through a mass of bodies with the label ‘over 40,000 Palestinians killed.’”
That description omitted one of the most outrageous aspects of the cartoon: that the Palestinian bodies were colored red, as if drenched in blood.
The Times description also omitted that one Israeli soldier was toting a machine gun, portraying the Israeli military — not the terrorist group Hamas, which was invisible and not present in the cartoon — as culpable for all the killing. The Palestinians were all depicted as unarmed, notwithstanding that “upwards of 17,000” of Gazans killed are said by Andrew Fox to have been “Hamas and affiliated combatants.”
The Times reported that the editor, Tony Doris, “said in an interview last week that the cartoon was antiwar, not antisemitic.” Yet if the cartoon was “antiwar,” why demonize only the Israeli soldiers while ignoring that Hamas is also waging war and began the present conflict by invading Israel and seizing hostages on Oct. 7, 2023? Opposing only Israel’s war and not Hamas’s isn’t antiwar; it’s anti-Israel. It suggests a double standard for Israel that is not only consistent with bias against Jews but also meets the definition of antisemitism used by the US government.
The Times didn’t seem to push or challenge the fired editor on that point; it just parroted his point of view.
As is frequent in these cases, the Times trotted out the ancestry of one of the protagonists as a supposed defense against the antisemitism charge. The Times reported, “In an interview on Saturday, he rejected the idea that the cartoon was antisemitic, saying it was simply a case of, ‘this war’s gone on long enough.’ [The cartoonist, Jeff] Danziger, an Army veteran whose father is Jewish, also said that his service as an intelligence officer has made him critical of war.” The Times told us that Danziger’s “father is Jewish,” as if that is relevant somehow, but it didn’t say what religion Danziger is, if he has any. Why was the father’s religion or Jewish status worth including but not Danziger’s own, or lack of it?
Back in 2019, after a firestorm of condemnation, the Times’ own headline said, “Times Apologizes for Publishing Anti-Semitic Cartoon.”
Back then, Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote of “the almost torrential criticism of Israel and the mainstreaming of anti-Zionism, including by this paper, which has become so common that people have been desensitized to its inherent bigotry. So long as anti-Semitic arguments or images are framed, however speciously, as commentary about Israel, there will be a tendency to view them as a form of political opinion, not ethnic prejudice.”
Sadly, six years later, the Times is still committing the same mistakes, this time in reporting on the cartoon controversy at the paper in Palm Beach.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
The post Cartoon of Israeli Hostage Trampling Bloody Arab Bodies Is Sanitized by New York Times first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.