March 14, 2024
Mathias Döpfner
CEO
Axel Springer SE
John F. Harris
Global Editor in Chief
Politico
Brad Dayspring
Executive Vice President,
Global Communications and Brand
Dear Mr. Döpfner, Mr. Harris and Mr. Dayspring:
We were deeply concerned by Politico’s decision to publish a highly offensive political cartoon by Matt Wuerker, depicting a “punch card” suggesting that Israel and Jews are using “centuries of pogroms, antisemitism and the Holocaust” as their “free pass” – presumably to wage war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Wuerker’s cartoon “Punch Card” is misleading and offensive in several ways.
First, it is objectionable to suggest there is no connection to the history of antisemitism and the struggle that Israel is facing in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Without making direct analogies, what Hamas did on Oct. 7, and what they stand for, as reflected in their antisemitic charter, are very much in line with that tragic history of anti-Jewish violence. To turn that around and imply that now it is Israel committing such acts, without this recognition, is abhorrent.
Furthermore, to suggest that Israel is getting a free pass because of past Jewish suffering is transparently absurd, especially considering the explosion of criticism and protests and antisemitic attacks that have emerged post-Oct. 7. What should disturb the cartoonist and others is not any fictitious pass that Israel is receiving, but rather that immediately after the massacre on Oct. 7, many incredibly blamed Israel for the Hamas atrocities.
Perhaps more accurate would have been a cartoon depicting how Oct. 7 and its aftermath are unfortunately the modern-day form of Jew hatred that has its precedents in centuries of antisemitism, pogroms, and the Holocaust.
At best, the cartoonist misses this continuity; at worst, his cartoon gives Hamas and terrorism a pass and deceives those who view this cartoon into forgetting about the most depraved and inhumane details of Hamas attack, namely the intentional murder of innocent men, women, and children, which started this most recent conflict.
What’s more, Mr. Dayspring’s defense of his cartoon in Jewish Insider as “the opinions of the author” and not those of your publication is unconvincing. While we understand that political cartoonists are often given leeway to provoke their audience, there’s a fine line between what is simply confrontational and ideas that are founded in conspiratorial antisemitism, and your editors have a choice in deciding which cartoons to use and which to reject. In this case, the cartoon is playing into conspiratorial notions that are often parroted by Holocaust deniers – the notion that Jews and Israel can get away with things because they use historical antisemitism and the Holocaust to gain sympathy for their so-called nefarious deeds.
I look forward to your response here and am available to speak by phone at any time to further clarify these concerns.
Sincerely,
Jonathan A. Greenblatt
CEO and National Director
Anti-Defamation League