After publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon for which it later apologized, the New York Times published another controversial cartoon this weekend.
The second cartoon, by António Moreira Antunes, who is Portuguese and works under the mononym António for the Lisbon weekly Expresso, is a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Moses, holding a selfie stick in one hand and a stone tablet with the Star of David in the other hand, descending from Mount Sinai. It was printed on Saturday beside an unrelated David Brooks column.
Wait…the @nytimes featured ANOTHER Netanyahu cartoon? This one AFTER the Thursday cartoon depicting Netanyahu as a dog? Am I reading this right? Is the Times obsessed with Israel’s prime minister? pic.twitter.com/r1KsSaYWtw
— Dan Senor (@dansenor) April 29, 2019
The first cartoon by Norwegian cartoonist Roar Hagen was published in the International New York Times on Thursday, with a drawing depicting President Trump as blind, wearing a yarmulke, and being led by Netanyahu, who is portrayed as a service dog with a Star of David dangling from its collar. The cartoon had earlier been published by Expresso.
In the NYTimes international: Bibi Netanyahu characterized as a dog leading a blind, Jewish Trump.
When did the @nytimes hire David Duke as an editor? pic.twitter.com/7bGf1jLrri— Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) April 27, 2019
The New York Times said Saturday it had made an “error of judgment” in publishing a cartoon containing “anti-Semitic tropes.” It then apologized on Sunday saying they were “deeply sorry for the publication of an anti-Semitic political cartoon.”
António, who has been publishing editorial cartoons since 1974, has a history of controversial cartoons, including one from 1983 that compared Israeli treatment of Palestinians to the Nazi slaughter in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.
In 1993, he was excoriated for an Expresso cartoon depicting Pope John Paul II with a condom on the end of his nose. More than 15,000 people signed a petition calling on the Portuguese parliament to repudiate it.
Note that Antonio Antunes Moreira (from NYT antisemitic cartoon fame) was responsible for this cartoon in 1983 comparing #Israeli treatment of #Palestinians to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews – by evoking the iconic Warsaw Ghetto photo
h/t @hmemcpy pic.twitter.com/tzjF3vkg4Z
— Adam Levick (@adamlevick) April 28, 2019
A 2006 António cartoon unearthed this weekend was described as anti-Semitic by many social media users. Published during the Second Lebanon War, it showed one leg tied up with explosives and attached to an Islamic crescent moon, and another leg — adorned with the American flag — attached to a bloody Star of David.
The cartoonist, Antonio Antunes Moreira, has touched on the same theme before. pic.twitter.com/f29o0AUP3O
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) April 28, 2019
In a 2015 interview with the Portuguese Observador after the mass shooting at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, António defended artistic freedom
“The profession of cartoonist is a profession of risk, we make risks and take risks,” he said in the interview. “There is always fear there, but there is no other option but to defend freedom of expression.”
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the Washington Examiner reported that both cartoons were created by Antonio Moreira Antunes, when in fact the first cartoon was created by Roar Hagen and the second cartoon was created by Antunes. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
