Washington Post removes Hamas cartoon slammed as racist

The Washington Post has removed a cartoon that pictures a Hamas leader who has bound himself with children and a woman as human shields after public backlash.

The cartoon, by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Ramirez, pictured a Hamas leader dressed in a black suit. The man, who has a hooked nose, grey beard and bushy black eyebrows, says: "How dare Israel attack civilians …" 

The cartoon drew condemnation on social media.

“As well as justifying the killing of Palestinians, this cartoon, published in the Washington Post is racist, Islamophobic, dehumanising & anti-Palestinian,” Journalist Hind Hassan, posted on social media platform X.

“It’s 2023 and this is a cartoon that the @washingtonpost decided was fit for print,” said another user on X. “It includes a portrait of the angry brown man (complete with a big nose), [and] the ugly veiled docile Arab woman.”

David Shipley, editorial page editor of the Washington Post, wrote in a statement the cartoon "was seen by many readers as racist. This was not my intent," adding that he saw the cartoon as "a caricature of a specific individual, the Hamas spokesperson who celebrated the attacks on unarmed civilians in Israel." 

"The reaction to the image convinced me that I had missed something profound, and divisive," he said.