Alana Goodman at the ‘Washington Free Beacon’ is very upset and she wants you to know all about since ‘Politico’ published a cartoon in late March 2026 which lampooned President Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu’s war on Iran.
This really upset Goodman, but for the record (and for the sake of transparency) this is the cartoon in question: (1)
Concerning this cartoon Goodman screeches that:
‘Politico published a cartoon on Friday featuring anti-Semitic imagery in an attempt to criticize the war in Iran. The image depicts President Donald Trump, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Republican members of Congress wearing blood-covered Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes.
The cartoon, drawn by former New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicts the lawmakers aboard a rowboat labeled “Ship of Neocons”—a play on the Hieronymus Bosch painting Ship of Fools—that is about to plummet over a waterfall. A bag of blood-smeared money crowns the mast, and the word “Amalek,” a reference to a historical enemy of the Jewish people from the Hebrew Bible, appears in the background.
Netanyahu, depicted with an exaggerated nose, is also shown wearing a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl and eating from a table covered in blood, while Trump, also in a Jewish prayer shawl, is drawn underneath the word “Amalek.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is not Jewish, is depicted wearing a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl and holding a bottle of blood. Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), also drawn in a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl, have supported the Iran war and are longtime supporters of Israel.
The cartoon plays on classic anti-Semitic tropes about Jews covertly controlling events, in this case the decision to launch the war in Iran, and using financial exploitation to do so. The exaggeration of Netanyahu’s nose in a grotesque, caricatured style plays on age-old efforts to dehumanize Jews.
The drawing was published as part of Politico’s “Cartoon Carousel,” which Politico describes as a round-up of the “best” political cartoons of the week.
Following the publication of this story, a Politico spokesman said the cartoon was removed and replaced with an editor’s note.
“We removed a cartoon by independent cartoonist Sean Delonas from this week’s gallery after weighing comments from readers that it did not meet our standards,” the note reads. “Sharp arguments and provocative imagery in political cartoons are within bounds. Images that could be reasonably interpreted to rely on ethnic stereotypes or employing tropes that have been involved in historically hateful ways are not.”
Delonas declined to comment, saying he “charge[s] $500 for a 1/2 hour interview and $750 for a full hour.”
Politico is owned by the German publishing company Axel Springer, which acquired the Arlington, Va.-based company for $1 billion in 2021. The New York Times reported at the time that Politico employees would be exempted from signing Axel Springer’s mission statement, which includes support for Israel and the trans-Atlantic alliance. Axel Springer’s corporate values include the statement “We support the right of existence of the State of Israel and oppose all forms of antisemitism.”’ (2)
You’ll notice here that Goodman’s ‘argument’ that Delonas’ cartoon for ‘Politico’ is ‘anti-Semitic’ boils down to ‘he is using anti-Semitic tropes in your cartoon’ which then further boils down to just using jewish symbology to represent those behind the Iran war.
You can easily despatch this ‘argument’ by simply pointing out that there is no other way to criticise Israel given that it is:
A) A very overtly jewish state.
B) Deliberately uses – and its politicians deliberately use – the religious paraphernalia of Judaism to cloak and/or justify their actions.
The point is you cannot really criticise Israel without criticising jews and the best symbolism for both jews and Israel is the religious paraphernalia of Judaism. Hence why Trump and Netanyahu are wearing tallitot – jewish prayer shawls – and Lindsey Graham is wearing a kippah (a yarmulke to those less familiar with modern Judaism).
The reference to ‘Amalek’ is indeed a biblical reference to an ancient enemy of Judaism and what Goodman doesn’t tell her readers – predictably enough because it might ‘confuse’ them – is that the term ‘Amalek’ is what jews refers to someone (or something) as when they want to exterminate them/it because they believe Yahweh divinely ordered them to exterminate every single one of the Amalekites (and they believe the Amalekites still exist in the world today) (3) and Israelis referred to Iranians – and particularly the late Ayatollah Khamenei – as ‘Amalek’ in the days after the 2026 US/Israel versus Iran war began. (4)
Thus, we can see that despite Goodman’s kvetching Delonas’ cartoon – while strongly critical of Israel and the power of the Israel Lobby in the United States – isn’t remotely ‘anti-Semitic’ at all and that Goodman’s claim that it is ‘anti-Semitic’ is just veiled allusion based on the fact that because Delonas is criticising Israel. His cartoon is going to ipso facto reference jews in some way, shape or form and any reference to jews whatsoever will be seized on by jews like Goodman to claim that Delonas – or any other anti-Zionist cartoonist – is ‘anti-Semitic’ because of vague claims about ‘anti-Semitic tropes’.
Like so much to do with jews: they lie as reflexively as they breathe.
References
(1) https://freebeacon.com/media/politico-publishes-cartoon-depicting-trump-republicans-wearing-blood-covered-jewish-prayer-shawls-yarmulkes-amid-bags-of-money/
(2) Idem.
(3) On this cf. Elliot Horowitz, 2006, ‘Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence’, 1st Edition, Princeton University Press: Princeton, but for a short summary see pp. 1-5
(4) For example: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/remembering-this-generations-amalek/; https://forward.com/fast-forward/731110/israel-iran-us-amalek-bible-enemy/; https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-845957
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