The University of California Berkeley student newspaper has apologized for an editorial cartoon of Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz that had been denounced as anti-Semitic.
“We have seen with sharp clarity the pain and anger caused by an editorial cartoon that ran online in our opinion section on Oct. 18, and we apologize for this,” said Daily Californian editor-in-chief Karim Doumar in a Wednesday editor’s note.
His post ran after UC Berkeley Chancellor Carol Christ called the cartoon “offensive, appalling and deeply disappointing” in a Tuesday letter to the editor.
Mr. Dershowitz, who gave a talk presenting “the liberal case for Israel” at an Oct. 11 event on campus, is shown in the cartoon crushing a Palestinian child with his foot and holding up an Israeli Defense Forces soldier standing over a bloody corpse.
“Are you aware that its anti-Semitic imagery connects directly to the centuries-old ’blood libel’ that falsely accused Jews of engaging in ritual murder?” asked Ms. Christ. “I cannot recall anything similar in The Daily Californian, and I call on the paper’s editors to reflect on whether they would sanction a similar assault on other ethnic or religious groups.”
Noa Raman, northwest campus director of the pro-Israel group StandWithUs, called it “shocking to see a depiction of a prominent Jewish intellectual echo traditional anti-Semitic cartoons and tropes, which were designed to incite hate towards Jews, in a student newspaper at a prestigious American university.”
The student newspaper also ran an op-ed Wednesday by Mr. Dershowitz, who said none of the “hard-left” students who had objected to his speaking on campus took issue with the cartoon or a poster vandalized to show a swastika drawn over his face.
“Those who condemn hate speech when it comes from the right should also speak up when hate speech comes from the left,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “The silence from those on the left is seeped in hypocrisy. It reflects the old adage: free speech for me but not for thee.”
A First Amendment expert, Mr. Dershowitz defended the right of the students to publish the cartoon, adding that they “also had the right not to publish it” and accusing them of a double standard.
“I am confident that if the shoe were on the other foot — if a cartoon of comparable hate directed against women, gays, blacks or Muslims were proposed — they would not have published it,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “There is one word for this double standard. It’s called bigotry.”
He said the cartoon should not be removed, but rather it should be “widely circulated along with the names prominently displayed of the person who drew it and the bigoted editors who decided to publish it.”
“Every potential employer or admissions officer should ask them to justify their bigotry,” Mr. Dershowitz said.
Mr. Doumar said that the cartoon, drawn by Joel Mayorga, was intended to argue that Mr. Dershowitz’s lecture was “hypocritical,” but that the editors “regret that the artistic rendering distracted from the discussion the artist was trying to start.”
“The criticism we have received reaffirms for us a need for a more critical editing eye, and a stronger understanding of the violent history and contemporary manifestations of anti-Semitism,” Mr. Doumar said.
Mr. Dershowitz’s talk was co-sponsored by the Chabad Jewish Student Center and pro-Israel group Tikvah.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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