Dear Hamilton Spectator, Waterloo Record, and Peterborough Examiner,

My name is Mike Fegelman, and I’m the Executive Director of HonestReporting Canada, we’re a non-profit organization that ensures fair and accurate Canadian media coverage of Israel and combats antisemitism.

I am writing with respect to today’s editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay,where he portrayed Israel’s prime minister as blood-soaked and leading Donald Trump by a leash.

In our view, this caricature parrots age-old anti-Jewish tropes about Jewish control and is reminiscent of blood libels about Jews eating Christian blood.

The cartoon implying that the “Israeli tail wags the American dog” goes well beyond political commentary and legitimate discourse, and in our view, into spreading hateful anti-Jewish themes and conspiracy theories of Jewish control over world leaders. This is not simply an academic issue; Jews have been historically massacred as a result of such lies, and in an era of antisemitic incidents at record highs, this is irresponsible and, in our view, deeply dangerous.

As such, we request an immediate removal of this cartoon from your respective websites and for an apology to be issued and prominently placed, along with an explanation of the steps your publications will undertake to ensure that such hateful content is never published again.

Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Mike Fegelman
Executive Director
HonestReporting Canada