The Washington Post bowed to liberal criticism on Wednesday, deleting an editorial cartoon that criticized the terror group, Hamas, after readers complained it was racist and dehumanized Palestinians.
The cartoon, by Michael P. Ramirez, was featured online and in the Nov. 8 print edition. Entitled, "Human shields," it depicts a Hamas spokesperson saying, "How dare Israel attack civilians," while a frightened-looking woman and four small children remain bound with rope to his body.
Washington Post editorial page editor David Shipley said he decided to take down the cartoon after it "was seen by many readers as racist."
"This was not my intent," Shipley wrote, before apologizing.
WASHINGTON POST FACES BACKLASH AFTER WATERING DOWN PRO-HAMAS REMARKS AS ‘CRITICISM OF ISRAEL’
"I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel. However, the reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive, and I regret that. Our section is aimed at finding commonalities, understanding the bonds that hold us together, even in the darkest times," he wrote.
The paper shared criticism from liberal readers, accusing the paper of promoting "racial stereotypes" and complaining the cartoon blamed Hamas for the deaths of Palestinian civilians, instead of Israel.
"The caricatures employ racial stereotypes that were offensive and disturbing. Depicting Arabs with exaggerated features and portraying women in derogatory, stereotypical roles perpetuates racism and gender bias, which is wholly unacceptable," one reader from Fairfax, Virginia, wrote in a letter to the Post.
"I am a scholar of religion and media; I recognize a deeply racist depiction of the ‘heathen’ and his barbarous cruelty toward women and children when I see it again in Michael Ramirez’s Nov. 8 editorial cartoon. It is in no way informative, helpful or thought-provoking to look at this conflict through the glasses of 19th-century colonialists," Suzanne van Geuns, a postdoctoral research associate at Princeton University, criticized.
Owen Jones, a self-described "socialist, antifascist" columnist for The Guardian, wrote, "This racist dehumanisation is always a precondition for mass murder of the sort currently taking place in Gaza."
One reader from Washington complained the cartoon depicted a "gross mischaracterization of the situation" and "amounted to an attempt at excusing Israeli war crimes."
Another reader from San Jose, Calif., slammed the paper as irresponsible for publishing the cartoon, saying its message enabled "genocide."
"It is the height of irresponsibility for a publication with the history and reach of The Post to publish a cartoon that encourages people to continue justifying the atrocities taking place in Gaza 31 days into its bombardment and after an untold amount of human suffering. To do so while trading in the same grotesque, racist imagery that has jeopardized Arabs’ and Muslims’ safety since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks is all the more distressing," she decried.
"What a statement Michael Ramirez made in his Nov. 8 editorial cartoon. I wonder whether he would try to caricature the brutal killing, land dispossession, ethnic cleansing and apartheid oppression that Israel has perpetrated over the past 75 years and continues?" a reader in the paper's comment section wrote. "Let’s see some real bravery, not this self-indulgent, self-righteous parroting of the Israeli government’s line and craven mainstream media miscoverage."
The paper also shared a handful of online comments commending the cartoon for its depiction of Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields.
This is not the first time the Post has faced criticism for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
The paper was accused of watering down rhetoric from pro-Hamas supporters who faced discipline or backlash for their views, in one report. The Post also defended using numbers from the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry in its reporting on the war, following a deadly hospital blast.
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