Israel’s ambassador to US says the NYT has ‘become a cesspool of hostility towards Israel’

(Paul Sancya/AP)

The cartoon Dermer was referring to was run by the Times on Thursday and featured President Trump wearing a yarmulke and being led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is shown as a leashed service dog for the blind with a Star of David collar.

“The same New York Times that a century ago mostly hid from their readers the Holocaust of the Jewish people has today made its pages a safe-space for those who hate the Jewish state,” Dermer said. “Through biased coverage, slanderous columns and anti-Semitic cartoons, its editors shamefully choose week after week to cast the Jewish state as a force for evil.”

The Times initially acknowledged an “error of judgment” in publishing the cartoon, but then on Sunday offered a more thorough apology for publishing the cartoon, admitting that it was anti-Semitic.

We are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again,” the Sunday statement said. “Such imagery is always dangerous, and at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise worldwide, it’s all the more unacceptable.”

Trump tweeted about the cartoon Monday, writing: “The New York Times has apologized for the terrible Anti-Semitic Cartoon, but they haven’t apologized to me for this or all of the Fake and Corrupt news they print on a daily basis. They have reached the lowest level of ‘journalism,’ and certainly a low point in @nytimes history!”