The syndicated cartoonist Jeff Danziger — whose drawings, on any subject, are unusually grotesque — in January drew a cartoon depicting two Israeli soldiers helping a hostage step over the bloody bodies of Palestinians with the headline, “Some Israeli Hostages Are Home After Over a Year of Merciless War,” and the words “Watch your step.” The bodies are labeled “Over 40 thousand Palestinians killed.”
That cartoon appeared in The Palm Beach Post. Its publication led to a storm of protest, and condemnations of it as antisemitic. As a consequence, the Editorial Page Editor, Tony Doris, who had approved of the cartoon’s publication, was fired by Gannett, the owners of The Palm Beach Post.
More on the cartoon and its consequences can be found here: “Exclusive: Gannett fires Post editorial page editor,” by Joel Engelhardt, Stet News, March 2, 2025:
The owners of The Palm Beach Post fired Editorial Page Editor Tony Doris last month after the paper published a syndicated cartoon condemned as antisemitic.
Executives with Gannett, the nation’s largest daily news publisher with more than 200 newspapers and 19 in Florida, fired Doris on Feb. 17. They did not respond to requests for comment.
Doris, 67, had been editorial page editor since April 2021. He said he viewed the cartoon by Jeff Danziger of Counterpoint Media, which ran on Jan. 26, as anti-Israel but not antisemitic.
“They’re conflating criticism of the government of Israel with antisemitism,” Doris told Stet News. “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.”
Doris said he was told he had been fired for violating Gannett guidelines and standards.
In “An Open letter to the Community” published Feb. 9 in The Post, the Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County said the cartoon trivialized “the suffering of Israelis kidnapped and brutally held captive for 16 months” and “even worse, it spread dangerous antisemitic tropes, including the false and inflammatory accusation of bloodlust — a modern-day ‘blood libel’ used for centuries to incite hatred and violence against Jews.”
The full-page ad, co-signed by the federation’s Palm Beach Center to Combat Antisemitism & Hatred, continued: “We cannot stay silent. Hate speech turns into hate crimes. Journalism must inform, not incite. We welcome opportunities to work with media organizations to educate the public on the danger of antisemitism.”
Four days later, three Gannett executives came to West Palm Beach to meet with three federation representatives and a Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League.
Doris, who worked at The Post for 20 years, said he had been suspended and not allowed to attend the meeting. The following Monday, “it resulted in them firing their only Jewish editor,” he said….
The decision to fire Doris, for an act of gross editorial misjudgment, in publishing Danziger’s cartoon, was made only by Gannett. Jewish groups complained about the cartoon, but none of them asked for Doris to be fired. That decision came from Gannett executives alone. Yet the New York Times, in covering the story, made it seem as if a vindictive group of Jews had called for the editor to be fired. You know: one more example of “the Jews control the media.” Well, of course they don’t, and what better proof of that is there than the fact that Jeff Danziger has been allowed to publish his anti-Israel cartoons in the more than 200 newspapers owned by Gannett, until this one that graded into antisemitism, as it suggests that the Israelis care only for their own people held hostage, and — full of bloodlust — are indifferent to the people killed in Gaza, on whose corpses the two IDF soldiers and the hostage they are holding up are trampling.
But the Israelis are not indifferent to civilian deaths. We know what tremendous efforts the Israelis make to minimize civilian casualties, by warning civilians away — dropping millions of leaflets, sending millions of text messages, making millions of robocalls — from places about to be targeted. It is Hamas, by embedding its operatives and weapons in civilian buildings, including schools, apartment buildings, mosques, and even hospitals, endangers civilian lives. For reasons that deserve to be pondered, Jeff Danziger during the 16-month course of this war has not done a single cartoon showing Hamas’ orgy of rape, torture, mutilation, and murder on October 7, nor any cartoons about the hostages who were murdered, including four-year-old Ariel Bibas and nine-month-old Kfir Bibas, nor any cartoons showing Hamas firing at the IDF from civilian buildings. Why not?
Tony says
The deceitful, virtue-signaling Leftists partner with Islam’s Muslims with deceit and hatred against Israel, America, and Non-Muslims to help gain ultimate power and control.
Islam is a Terrorist Criminal Gang, and Deceitful Allah promises Heavenly Paradise to Muslim killing in terrorist attacks against Non-Muslims when Quran 9:111 says, “Surely Allah has purchased from the believers[Muslims] their souls and their money so that they may have the garden[Heavenly Paradise]. They engage in war for the sake of Allah, so they kill and are killed…”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
There is a legitimate criticism of Israel possible. On things like their judicial overreach, them forcing their citizens to take Covid vaccines (not much different from many other countries), allying w/ Azerbaijan against Armenia,…. However, criticizing the Israeli government for retaliating against the October 7th massacres by Hamas or the October 8th attacks from Hizbullah are a tacit endorsement of those atrocities
Only thing I wonder – why didn’t the post simply terminate Jeff Danzinger’s contract? Is this a part of a trend by Tony Doris? The way I see it, the former needed to be canned even before the latter
Also, the claim that he’s their “only Jewish editor” and therefore needs to be kept on, according to himself…. Why exactly? Him having his job hasn’t done the Jewish community any favors, if they publish material that just exacerbates the current toxic environment against Jews. In fact, I’d argue that there are several Jews who seem to go out of their way to tolerate antisemitism just to prove that they don’t have “dual-loyalties” (one of Ilhan Omar’s and Candace Owens’ charges), so doing DEI w/ Jews is hardly the solution in combating antisemitism
carpediadem says
Considering the loyalties of both Ilhan Omar and Candace Owens, accusing others of dual loyalties comes into the category of ‘accusing others of what you are guilty of.”
RegT says
“Projection” – accusing others of what you are guilty of – is one of the defining characteristics of the Left, along with hypocrisy, lying, and the total inability of feeling embarrassed when confronted with their lies, hypocrisy and projection. Omar (not her real last name) holds loyalty only for Somalia, Yemen, and other muslim cesspits. Certainly not for America. I don’t know to what Owens feels loyal – perhaps America? – but I haven’t paid enough attention to her to know what else. Perhaps whatever is the current source of anti-zionism/anti-semitism? The National Socialists didn’t have much respect for blacks, so possibly it is something more current – like the confused, illogical socialism of the modern Left?
Jon Sobieski says
The Jews, why do they get to dictate what is hate speech, and get people fired or publishing an offensive cartoon? Grow a pair. Do a cartoon that offends them, don’t demand a ban and an apology. Free speech trumps hate speech.If I had to follow Jew hate speech rules, I could not blast Islam, but be punished.
PR says
The ones being punished, are those of us unfortunate enough, to have read your comments.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Part of the reason: ADL, not normal Jews. Other part of the reason: the offending party wasn’t islamic
Jim Harmon says
FOAD, Nazi filth.
(That’s not dictation, it’s just a suggestion.)
Jo Brown says
No law is banning Danziger’s cartoon. Rather, it is left to the private, free market of ideas, as it should be. The Palm Beach Post is a private entity. It has every right to exercise it’s right of free speech.
gravenimage says
Spot on, Jo.
gravenimage says
Good grief. “Jon Sobieski” here is anything but.
Tony says
Democrats and Islam’s Muslims want to ban freedom of speech and expression so that Islam is NOT criticized or the truth of Islam’s discrimination, hatred, violence, and terrorism is NOT told.
Kepha says
As an Evangelical Christian, I hold to covenantal rather then dispensationalist theology, and hence support Israel more out o natural law considerations–since, biblically, the Chosen People are gathered about the Messiah rather than a piece of land. But I would be a lot more sympathetic to the Palestinian Arabs if they hadn’t cheered, danced in the streets, and handed out candy on 09/11/01; held ghoulish demonstrations over the return of corpses of children whom they murdered; and lie like dogs (oops, insult to the whole genus canis) in their propaganda. Even a Leftist I knew admitted that he saw them as “such bastards”.
Gaza suffered devastation because it committed atrocities of its own against southern Israel. Worse, the Israelis evacuated it, leaving plenty of infrastructure, yet the Gazans decided that they would rather be an international eyesore dependent on the largess of the international community than use what was left them to become productive.
@Tony on Mar. 7, 3:24 AM–Indeed. The Left’s alliance with Islam is one of two disgusting and immoral movements whose only real skill is propaganda.
RegT says
Good comment. It bothers me that few people – especially in the legacy media – mention not only that the claims of Hamas of 40,000 civilian deaths are exaggerated by almost an order of magnitude, but they neglect to mention the fact that Hamas FORCES civilians to stay in areas where they have been warned to vacate, to be used as human shields and also to inflate the numbers of dead non-combatants.
As do you, Kepha, I think of the so-called “palestinians” as they danced in the streets on 9/11, and my sympathy wanes considerably. [I try to avoid using capitals in regard to islam, except occasionally as proper names of groups or individuals, as I feel it confers undue respect. ]
gravenimage says
+1
OLD GUY says
Islam is doing its best to hide its evil ways. Just look at the number of Christians being murdered every week on the African Continent, Oh I forgot the media keeps that hid under the rug so as to not make Islam look EVIL.
gravenimage says
And now in Syria, as well…
RegT says
Good comment. It bothers me that few people – especially in the legacy media – mention not only that the claims of Hamas of 40,000 civilian deaths are exaggerated by almost an order of magnitude, but they neglect to mention the fact that Hamas FORCES civilians to stay in areas where they have been warned to vacate, to be used as human shields and also to inflate the numbers of dead non-combatants.
As do you, Kepha, I think of the so-called “palestinians” as they danced in the streets on 9/11, and my sympathy wanes considerably. [I try to avoid using capitals in regard to islam, except occasionally as proper names of groups or individuals, as I feel it confers undue respect. ]
gravenimage says
The Palm Beach Post and Jeff Danziger’s Grotesque Cartoon
………………………………….
Just sickeing apologia for the savagery of kidnapping, holding hostage, raping, and murdering civilians.
Danziger is a thug.