Someone named Vita Wolinsky was deeply offended by the Oliphant cartoon depicting Israel as a goosestepping fascist in Gaza. She said she found the cartoon through this page on the Times website and was cancelling her family's subscription to the Times, in an email she sent to a bunch of reporters and editors at the paper:
I ask, what is your true goal, anyway?? To incite more global scapegoating and calls for annihilation of the Jewish People?
A Times exec wrote back to Wolinsky, today, and distanced the paper from the cartoon, saying it didn't run in the Times, and will never run there. The exec, Diane McNulty, circulated her email to many reporters:
The offending cartoon by Oliphant was not and will not be published in The New York Times. It did not appear on our Web site either. What did appear there, by a long-standing contractual arrangement, is an "Oliphant" button. This button on the cartoons page took people who clicked on it on March 25 to that cartoon, which is now relegated to the Oliphant archive.
Nobody at The Times, therefore, made any decision to "publish" the cartoon. But, though the click gets you to a page that is not a Nytimes.com page, the banner on the page says "The New York Times .....Cartoons."
We are currently reviewing those arrangements.
Thank you for contacting The New York Times. We appreciate your readership -- and your taking the time to write.
Diane M.
Diane McNulty
Executive Director of Community Affairs and Media Relations
Wait. This is the internet; and obviously, no Times editor made a "decision to publish." But didn't the Times run the cartoon? Oliphant had met its standards as a content-provider; notice the Times logo, per contract, on Oliphant's latest cartoon. More important: shouldn't the Times stand up for the contracted cartoonist? I see a Vita Wolinsky who lives in Monsey (a hub of Orthodox Jews, including Neturei Karta, which I imagine shares my feelings about the cartoon) and has family in Israel. Why does the Times defer to her?
The bottom line here is that Many Americans feel a need to express severe criticism of Israel in the wake of that country's slaughter of Palestinian children with white phosphorous and other weapons. Should such criticism be outside the American pale? Of course not. Now someone please tell Vita Wolinsky, and the Times.
Just ask yourself: Would the same thing have happened — a quick, apologteic, throw-the-cartoonist-under-the-bus-and-make-sure-the-press-hears-about-it response — if a Palestinian had been offended at an NYT link to something hostile to his/her viewpoint? Of course not.
The Oliphant cartoon should be condemned: because it is LAME. Satire requires a deft hand; not a bludgeon.
"There is no such thing as a jerk store." Elaine of Seinfeld
I don't know what a deft hand is in political or cultural cartoons,but I'd say Oliphant has an applauded, long track record–certainly more than Ms.Hyde or the fictional character in Seinfeld–now, all of a sudden, because Israeli policies are targeted, he's a moron, anti-semite, and not worthy of the time of day. Interesting.
Next!
it was a clever cartoon, but I don't think using jewish symbols in negation will advance the palestinian cause. it's shock value repels the world jewry, which has been brainwashed for generations to believe in "a jewish state". Once the world jewry catches on that Israel is rogue…
RE: "I don't think using jewish symbols in negation will advance the palestinian cause"
I agree but that was not necessarily Oliphant's objective. While I do not approve of Oliphant's cartoon, I think it is appropriate to note that the Star of David often appears on Israeli fighter jets, bombers, tanks etc.
Clever? please. How does a headless nazi see where's he going? How does that one dinky wheel support that shark-shaped star capable of shredding refugees? What's with the sword, he's already got a star-shaped killing machine. I could go on.
A better cartoon is the one out there where a Sharon look-alike is being served up a US Taxpayer with an apple in his mouth on a platter. Saw it on reddit, I think. Anyway it's out there.
Precisely. And the point of the cartoon. Which is why it's accurate.
How is it that Diane McNulty of the community affairs and media relations department gets to make unambiguous pronouncements about what will not run in the New York Times? Isn't that up to Bill Keller, the executive editor? What if the Oliphant cartoon becomes the subject of a dispute between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, or becomes "newsworthy" in any of a dozen different ways? Would the Times refuse to show it to its readers? What else can Diane McNulty keep out of the paper?
Precisely? The point is a farago of non-sequiturs? You don't have both oars in the water.
The Times isn't publishing the so-called Muhammed cartoons published in Denmark, either.
In that case, the Death Lobby would have threatened to cut off the heads of the editors of the Times.
I see no problem in the Times publishing the cartoon. But it is anti-Semitic and would reflect badly on the Time's editorial staff if they published it as an opinion piece in the Times.
Many news outlets refused to publish the Muhammed cartoons, even though they were part of a legitimate news story – putting aside the judgment (or lack thereof) of the Danish editors who published the cartoons.
Oliphant used sterotypical anti-Jewish images to make his point – the Jewish monster out of control. He hasn't, to my knowledge, published a cartoon with a headless Hamas monster pushing a toothsome crescent wearing a bomb belt.
Tough. The accusation of anti-semitism does not absolve Israel from what it did in Gaza: horrific, specific brutality. If pointing that out is what you now call anti-semitism, then I am proudly anti-semitic.
And those who hurl the anti-semitism epithet are beneath contempt.
The Times at least is somewhat consistent in not publishing the Danish Mohammed cartoons. But Oliphant is right on point. His analogy is proper, as the reaction shows.
From reading the thoughts of great and not-so-great Jewish people and writers in the last two centuries of Jewish "emancipation", and from the reaction of the ZioNazis at this site and others to legitimate criticism of Zionist goals and policies I am beginning to understand that Judaism and Anti-Semitism are two sides of the same racist ideology – one does not exist without the other. It is as if some Jews try to make us hate them – literally TRY with hate and vile inhumanity and lies.
This coming from someone who grew up in Jewish communities with Jewish business associations , and who was always sympathetic to Jewish concerns of anti-semitism. Of course according to Abe Foxman and Witty I am likely one of the goy who has the anti-semite gene. It just took a while to manifest.
Slaughtering children in Gaza deserves criticism. Israel needs to amend its policies. Instead, there is a never-ending effort to change the subject. Enough, already!
Everyone misinterprets the cartoon.
The jackbooted, headless sword wielding figure is not Israel– it is meant to be the U.S.
We are the headless jackbooted thugs, being led around by the Jewish state.
I think it comes down to what 'group' holds the most power and influence.
How much money from the Jewish community goes into the Dems and the Repubs?
I don't see any reason to believe that our press would cater to any other crowd other than the Jewish Establishment.
Furthermore, we are at war with the Arab world.
We keep in power corrupt Arab dictators and have destroyed 2 Arab countries with our eyes on another Islamic country.
So the collusion between perceived national interests and the interests of the Jewish Establishment + the cowardice and subservience of the mainstream media = fail.
I mean, remember the Obama and wife Islamization pic? It caused some noise but it wasn't retracted right? Did the group responsible apologize?
I recall a college paper (dominated by Jewish Zionists) mocked Rachel Corries death in a cartoon. There was criticism. But they didn't retract it or apologize.
Follow the money. It's that simple.
When you factor in the exploitation of the Holocaust and the social taboo associated with discussing things in a non-PC manner when it comes to favored groups (ie, jews and blacks) – i think it should be of no surprise.
if we had an honest press with people who actual gave a damn about people rather than POLITICS ALL THE TIME – we'd have less problems.
I mean, when will we be able to talk about these things without some jackass crying about racism when it's clearly not the case?
Its like we're all Bill Hicks and people don't get that the joke is not about jewishness but about HOW (the mechanism) people exploit jewishness
That makes sense, Madrid.
If the jackbooted sword-wielding figure is Israel, I don't see why it should be headless.
Jacqueline Hyde: "A better cartoon is the one out there where a Sharon look-alike is being served up a US Taxpayer with an apple in his mouth on a platter."
That sounds like a good cartoon. Love to see it. But it makes an entirely different point than Oliphant's does. Oliphant's cartoon was crude. No doubt he meant it to be, probably because he considered the ugly assault on Gaza merited an equally ugly response. I suspect he expected to get a lot of criticism for it and was prepared to take the hits and loss of publishing outlets or syndication.
I wonder if Wolinksy expressed the same outrage when everyone was defending the choice to publish that Mohammed cartoon in that Danish newspaper.
You can be as offensive as you want with satire as long as it denigrates Muslims.
Duscany, Phil discussed the cartoon earlier today here:
more on the hatred/delegitimization of Israel in the U.S.
link to philipweiss.org
Click on the US media and Israel link.
Madrid: "We are the headless jackbooted thugs, being led around by the Jewish state."
That would make more sense. But there is nothing in the man's posture that suggests he is being led. Can you be led while you are goose-stepping?
It looks to me like he is either pushing or accompanying the sharp-tooth star of David. Also the Star of David has just a single castor wheel and no obvious means of stability or propulsion.
Perhaps Oliphant meant that a powerful but otherwise blind and thoughtless America steadies a vicious but teetering Israel even as it terrorizes women and children.
Jacqueline Hyde, your condemnation of the cartoon is a morally cowardly prevarication and dissembling of your real views. I can say this with confidence because your thought process is painfully obvious, and very familiar.It can be expressed in general terms as "we don't need to condemn this as anti-Semitic, because we can condemn it (retrospectively) on some other ground."
Harry Fenton
Every criticism of Israel becomes a debate over whether the criticism is anti-Semitic or not. That's the wrong standard. The right standard is whether it's true or not.
Here you go:
Eeekkks…"scapegoating" the jews again…eekkks!
I use to say all the time about the jewish 'victim' zionistas that they were the stupidest people on the face of the earth. I stand by that observation even more today.
Doing the same thing over and over and over, then spewing out the same whine and excuses for themselves over and over and over and over and over and over.
I can think of a lot of simple truths(isms) that apply…like you reap what you sow.
Duscany,
Some are saying that the two bands in the cartoon are the stripes in the flag and that this is Oliphant's Israeli flag.
Criticism of mass murder (more, on racial lines) committed by people of Jewish ethnicity is labelled anti-Semitic.
It follows that the defendants of mass murder by people of Jewish ethnicity are pro-Semitic.
What an advertisement for world Jewry.
It was with this inevitable logic in mind that Canadian philosopher Michael Neumann (in The Politics of Anti-Semitism) declaimed:
”Suppose, for example, an Israeli rightist says that the settlements respresent the pursuit of aspirations fundamental to the Jewish people [not hypothetical], and to oppose the settlements in anti-Semitic. … since we are obliged to oppose the settlements, we are obiged to be anti-Semitic. Through definitional inflation, some form of anti-Semitism becomes morally obligatory. …
”Given the crimes to be laid at the feet of Zionism, there is another simple syllogism: anti-Zionism is a moral obligaton, so, if anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism is a moral obligation.”
Sign me up.
I saw the jackboot as Avigdor Lieberman.
Yeah. Insane.
Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. This cartoon is not antisemitic. Unfortunately, we have many antisemites here at this site that are using demon Israel as their sword to denounce all Jews.
I wouldn't say 'many', syvanen; what few we do have may well just be provocateurs, anyway.
Let me just post this again, since i would really like views on it. It's something I posted on my own blog as a preface to one of those innumerable articles (usually from JTA) about "rocketing anti-Semitism in Europe", which singled out the Israel flag with swastika that often appears on demonstrations:
The so-called ‘Star of David’ was not considered to be the premier Jewish religious symbol until the 1700s or even 1800s e.v., but was generally regarded as a magical device. The premier Jewish religious symbol was (and, formally, still is) the menorah, or seven-branched candlestick.
If god doesn't exist, anything is possible. if Mohammad cartoons are OK, then the Star of David is fair game.
The same Vita Wolinsky…she should have moved to Israel with her daughter.
Despite war, Lower Hudson Valley families make move to Israel
By SHAWN COHEN
spcohen@lohud.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: July 20, 2006)
NEW YORK — Standing near the departure gate at John F. Kennedy International Airport, Vita Wolinsky held tightly onto her 1-year-old grandson, half-joking when she told his parents, "You go, we'll keep Aryeh."
The grandmother from Monsey paused, then handed the boy over to his parents before saying a bittersweet goodbye to them yesterday as they boarded an El Al plane for a one-way flight to Israel.
"Call us when you get there," she said, tearfully, as they headed for a country that is now battling enemies on two fronts.
The violence makes all of them nervous, but it also emboldens the young family to carry on with their mission to start a new life in the Jewish state. They were among 239 American and Canadian Jews who took the flight yesterday through the organization Nefesh B'Nefesh and are among 2,300 who are making "aliyah" — immigration to Israel — during the summer.
"I've always spoken about my support and solidarity for the state of Israel," said Ilanit Zakowski, Wolinsky's daughter. "Now is a better time than ever to express that."
god, that is pukey writing.
MRW: "I saw the jackboot as Avigdor Lieberman."
That makes a lot more sense than assuming he's American.
I like the following cartoon better – it involved Madoff and compared the fallout of Madoff's crimes to the Holocaust: link to jewishjournal.com
It just might be that this e mailer to the NYT is a long time
zionist activist. Consider how she responded in 2006 to the Israeli attack on Lebanon..
link to nbn.org.il
Oliphant's cartoon comes barely one month after a New York Post cartoon depicting a dead chimp triggered protests. Protesters believed the chimp represented President Barack Obama and demanded the newspaper be shut down. Post Publisher Rupert Murdoch later apologized for the cartoon. Oliphant, back in the 1960s-'70s, depicted the Israeli as plucky little farmers fighting
the rodent Arabs; seems he's learned something since those days.
"Every criticism of Israel becomes a debate over whether the criticism is anti-Semitic or not. That's the wrong standard. The right standard is whether it's true or not."
Well, it's not true. It's extremely exaggerated and plays on anti-Semitic images. Accordingly, it is anti-Semitic. I don't have any issue at all with its right to be published; but I do have issue with the politics and values of those who would choose to publish it. It is a racist caricature – it doesn't belong in the Times, unless the Times has decided to become a tabloid.
I think Oliphant meant the cartoon to be offensive and ugly because he thought the assault on Gaza was offensive and ugly. He was trying, I suspect, to make Israel apologists finally understand what they're blindly supporting–calling in air strikes on schools, firing white phosphorous shells at kids.