Politico cartoon depicts Trump, Republicans in antisemitic caricature amid Iran war

Following the publication of this story, a Politico spokesman said the cartoon was removed and replaced with an editor’s note.

By Alana Goodman, The Washington Free Beacon

Politico published a cartoon on Friday featuring anti-Semitic imagery in an attempt to criticize the war in Iran.

The image depicts President Donald Trump, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Republican members of Congress wearing blood-covered Jewish prayer shawls and yarmulkes.

The cartoon, drawn by former New York Post cartoonist Sean Delonas, depicts the lawmakers aboard a rowboat labeled “Ship of Neocons”—a play on the Hieronymus Bosch painting Ship of Fools—that is about to plummet over a waterfall.

A bag of blood-smeared money crowns the mast, and the word “Amalek,” a reference to a historical enemy of the Jewish people from the Hebrew Bible, appears in the background.

Netanyahu, depicted with an exaggerated nose, is also shown wearing a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl and eating from a table covered in blood, while Trump, also in a Jewish prayer shawl, is drawn underneath the word “Amalek.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who is not Jewish, is depicted wearing a yarmulke and a Jewish prayer shawl and holding a bottle of blood.

Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), also drawn in a blood-covered Jewish prayer shawl, have supported the Iran war and are longtime supporters of Israel.

The cartoon plays on classic anti-Semitic tropes about Jews covertly controlling events, in this case the decision to launch the war in Iran, and using financial exploitation to do so.

The exaggeration of Netanyahu’s nose in a grotesque, caricatured style plays on age-old efforts to dehumanize Jews.

The drawing was published as part of Politico’s “Cartoon Carousel,” which Politico describes as a round-up of the “best” political cartoons of the week.

Following the publication of this story, a Politico spokesman said the cartoon was removed and replaced with an editor’s note.

“We removed a cartoon by independent cartoonist Sean Delonas from this week’s gallery after weighing comments from readers that it did not meet our standards,” the note reads.

“Sharp arguments and provocative imagery in political cartoons are within bounds. Images that could be reasonably interpreted to rely on ethnic stereotypes or employing tropes that have been involved in historically hateful ways are not.”

Delonas declined to comment, saying he “charge[s] $500 for a 1/2 hour interview and $750 for a full hour.”

Politico is owned by the German publishing company Axel Springer, which acquired the Arlington, Va.-based company for $1 billion in 2021.

The New York Times reported at the time that Politico employees would be exempted from signing Axel Springer’s mission statement, which includes support for Israel and the trans-Atlantic alliance.

Axel Springer’s corporate values include the statement “We support the right of existence of the State of Israel and oppose all forms of antisemitism.”

In that context, Politico’s overwhelmingly negative coverage of Israel has attracted attention in recent years, including in 2024, when it published a cartoon suggesting that Israel was exploiting centuries of discrimination—including the Holocaust—to carry out the war in Gaza.

An Axel Springer board member, Martin Varsavsky, also publicly rebuked the publication last year.

Delonas was a cartoonist for the Post for over two decades.

He drew national controversy in 2009 for his cartoon depicting two police officers shooting a chimpanzee under the caption “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Although the cartoon came out shortly after the highly publicized police shooting of a chimpanzee who mauled a woman, critics claimed that the drawing was actually a racially charged reference to then-president Barack Obama.