The woke inmates run the asylum at the Washington Post as executive editor Sally Buzbee apologized to staff on Wednesday for running a cartoon condemning Hamas that some considered racist and insensitive.
The cartoon in question shows a caricature of a Hamas leader, that could possibly be Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk or leader Yahya Sinwar, and not some generic Palestinian, strapping himself to women, children, and babies and saying “how dare Israel attack civilians.”
This is, of course, a completely fair and accurate depiction of Hamas, but the Washington Free Beacon’s Drew Holden reports that Buzbee said in an e-mail, “Given the many deep concerns and conversations today in our newsroom, I wanted to ensure everyone saw the notes sent out tonight by The Post's opinions editor, David Shipley, to Post readers and to his staff in opinions.”
Holden notes that Shipley expressed "regret" that the cartoon had been published and he personally had it "taken down."
As for the readers, one wrote, “Depicting Arabs with exaggerated features and portraying women in derogatory, stereotypical roles perpetuates racism and gender bias, which is wholly unacceptable.”
The only “role” a woman plays in the cartoon is of a human shield for Hamas.
The Post itself also noted, “Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi wrote: ‘This is the Washington Post. This is the kind of anti-Palestinian racism that’s acceptable for publication.’ Left-wing British activist Owen Jones called the cartoon an example of ‘racist dehumanization.’”
How so? If anything the cartoon is saying Hamas doesn’t care about the very Palestinians Kanazi and Jones claim to care so much about and that dead Palestinians benefit Hamas because it gives them a talking point for their propaganda campaign.
Still, Buzbee added, “A cartoon published by Michael Ramirez on the war in Gaza, a cartoon whose publication I approved, was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent. I saw the drawing as a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson, who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel.”
Maybe the readers are wrong. As for Ramirez's history, Holden adds that Ramirez, like all political cartoonists, uses exaggerated facial features in his drawings and provides examples of white guys Mitch McConnell and John Fetterman as examples. He also notes that in 2014, the Post published a cartoon of Benjamin Netanyahu punching a baby.
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