Jewish editor in Florida says he was fired after running cartoon about Gaza
The cartoon showed an Israeli hostage returning home — over a pile of Palestinian bodies
A row of newspaper boxes in Florida. (Getty Images)
(JTA) — A Florida editor says he was fired by his local paper, part of a national network, after he ran a cartoon that was critical of the death toll in the war in Gaza.
Tony Doris says he was fired as editorial page editor at the Palm Beach Post in February after the paper, owned by the company Gannett, got blowback about the cartoon from local Jewish leaders.
The cartoon, which ran in January, showed Israeli soldiers helping a freed hostage exit Gaza — by walking over a pile of bodies labeled “over 40 thousand Palestinians killed.”
Doris’ firing was first reported by Stet News, a nonprofit newsroom covering Palm Beach County. Doris told Stet that he saw the cartoon as antiwar.
But the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County bought a full-page ad in the Post decrying the cartoon as “a modern-day blood libel” and saying, “Hate speech turns into hate crimes. Journalism must inform, not incite.”
Michael Hoffman, the CEO of the federation, told The New York Times that the cartoon, by the artist Jeff Danziger, was antisemitic in the context of how the war in Gaza has been covered.
“Since Oct. 7, the dramatic rise in antisemitism has been the result of how the conflict in Gaza and in Israel has been reported,” Hoffman told the newspaper. “We believe that there has not been a fair and balanced approach toward how the war has been reported.”
Doris said he was subsequently fired. He said he had been told his work violated unspecified company policies.
The incident demonstrates that tensions over the Israel-Hamas war in American media and public life remain high — and that Jews who consider themselves pro-Israel, as Doris told the Times he does — can find themselves in the crosshairs.
Immediately after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, took about 250 hostages and triggered the war, Doris posted a graphic on Facebook calling attention to the children who had been abducted.
He told Stet News he had been the Palm Beach Post’s only Jewish editor.
“They’re conflating criticism of the government of Israel with antisemitism,” he said about the cartoon’s critics. “I fully support Israel’s right to exist. … I think you can feel that way and still be open to discussion of the issue of violence that has taken place there. They don’t get to shut down the conversation just because they’re not comfortable with it.”
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