The cartoon ignited a firestorm when it was published in the Carolina Review, a campus conservative magazine that Allen founded as an undergraduate at UNC.

By Jackie Hajdenberg, JTA

President Donald Trump’s pick for general counsel of the agency that oversees federal workers’ labor rights testified in Congress on Wednesday that he does not believe a cartoon he published in college that depicted a Jewish student with devil horns was antisemitic.

Charlton Allen appeared at the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs for his confirmation hearing Wednesday afternoon.

There, Sen. Ruben Gallego, the Arizona Democrat, pressed him about the cartoon.

“If you look behind me, you’ll see the front cover of an edition of the Carolina Review depicting Aaron Nelson, a Jewish candidate for student body president. Your magazine altered Nelson’s photo depicting him with the horns and a pitchfork.”

Inside, the article says, ‘The difference between Aaron Nelson is simple. He’s Jewish,’” Gallego said. “Yes or no, Mr. Nelson. Do you stand by this depiction?”

The cartoon ignited a firestorm when it was published in the Carolina Review, a campus conservative magazine that Allen founded as an undergraduate at UNC.

The magazine’s faculty advisor said he resigned after it went to print against his advice, and nearly two dozen Jewish faculty members pressed UNC’s chancellor to denounce the cartoon and censure the magazine, which he did.

Allen fended off allegations of antisemitism at the time and again during a 2014 hearing to confirm him for a position in North Carolina. He did so again on Tuesday.

“I would not say that it’s antisemitic,” he said. “We were the group that was calling for the equal treatment of all student religions.”

“If I were 30 years ago advocating for The Review, I would say, ‘don’t run that cover,’” he testified. “I think it was a mistake.”

According to reports from the time, Nelson had been accused by the Carolina Review of discriminating against a Christian campus group by voting not to fund it.

He had voted in favor of funding a “majority” of other campus Christian groups while he was a representative in the student congress.

Facing backlash, Allen denied at the time that the depiction of Nelson with horns was meant to channel longstanding antisemitic stereotypes.

“Our cartoonist lampooned [Nelson] as such because her perception was that Aaron was evil,” Allen told the Duke Chronicle in April 1996.

“Newspapers in the past few weeks have run cartoons lampooning public figures such as Gingrich, Pat Buchanan and even myself as ‘devils’ with horns and pitchforks. Where’s the public outcry over these cartoons?”

On Wednesday, Allen offered a slightly different explanation. He said the picture was meant to channel UNC’s historic and enduring rivalry with nearby Duke University, whose mascot is the “Blue Devil.”

“The cartoonist’s intention was to make an analogy to that,” he said.

In 2014, during his confirmation hearing ahead of his appointment for commissioner of the state Industrial Commission of North Carolina, Allen addressed criticisms of the cartoon by saying his grandfather had helped to liberate Jews in Europe from concentration camps during World War II, the Indy Week reported at the time.

Trump nominated Allen to the Office of the Special Council — the agency that protects whistleblowers from unlawful conduct — in May 2025 but withdrew the nomination less than a week later.

In September, he nominated Allen to the Federal Labor Relations Authority.

Nelson, meanwhile, won the election handily to become UNC’s student body president.

Now president of The Chamber, Chapel Hill’s chamber of commerce, Nelson did not respond to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency requests for comment.

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Duke’s SJP chapter has shared social media posts excusing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel.

By Washington Free Beacon

Duke University suspended and froze funding for its campus Students for Justice in Palestine chapter after the anti-Israel organization shared an illustration flagged for “antisemitic imagery,” the Duke Chronicle reported Wednesday.

The student organization advertised an event last month in an Instagram post featuring an illustration of two pigs, one labeled as “Zionism” and depicted holding a Star of David, and the other as “U.S. Imperialism” holding the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

A university official informed SJP leadership that the university’s Office of Institutional Equity received 10 student complaints about the image, which was originally published in the Black Panther Party’s newspaper in 1970.

The university’s Student Affairs office suspended the group and revoked its funding over “alleged harassment under the Policy on Prohibited Discrimination, Harassment and Related Misconduct,” the Chronicle reported.

SJP officials told the Chronicle that the illustration “was never intended to be antisemitic” and that anti-Zionism is “not the same as targeting Jewish people.”

Noah Hamid, a leadership member of Duke’s Students Supporting Israel chapter, told the Washington Free Beacon in a statement that “the suspension of Students for Justice in Palestine feels like a long-overdue acknowledgement of what many of us have been experiencing for years.”

“This is not about one protest, one chant, or one controversial flyer,” he said. “It is about a pattern—one that has too often crossed the line from political advocacy into something that isolates, intimidates, and, at times, openly targets Jewish students.”

Duke’s SJP chapter has shared social media posts excusing Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel.

In one Instagram post from July 2024, the group shared a graphic claiming that the Hamas attack was “a reaction and resistance to decades of oppression,” adding that “to insinuate otherwise reveals a deep lack of historical knowledge, a lack of empathy for the daily lived reality of Palestinians, or both.”

On Sept. 11, 2024, the group posted another graphic on its Instagram page that compared Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas to 9/11.

The Duke SJP chapter began justifying the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 itself. In an Instagram post that day, the group wrote, “Hamas explains their attack was in retaliation to [sic] the continuation of Israeli oppression and the damage done to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”

“It is important to consider the long history of systematic oppression Israel has placed upon Palestinians for the past several decades when looking at mainstream media,” the post continued.

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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.

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Outraged by an antisemitic betting app targeting her family, a Jewish character blames Netanyahu for creating an atmosphere of hatred toward Jews worldwide.

By World Israel News Staff

The satirical animated series South Park recently aired an episode featuring a confrontation between an American Jewish character and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In the scene, Netanyahu is accused of deliberately killing civilians in Gaza and cynically exploiting Judaism as a shield against criticism.

Kyle Broflovski, a Jewish elementary school student, is one of the show’s central characters. His heritage has been the focus of numerous storylines throughout South Park, which has aired since 1997.

Broflovski’s outspoken mother, Sheila, often plays a major role in the show. In the latest episode, Sheila becomes enraged after her son encounters an antisemitic app and decides to travel to Israel to berate Netanyahu, whom she blames for the recent explosion of antisemitism in the U.S.

The app, presented as a “social betting platform,” prompts users to gamble on whether “Kyle’s Mom [will] strike Gaza and destroy a Palestinian hospital.” Outraged, Sheila confronts Netanyahu, suggesting he is responsible for the incident.

“Just who do you think you are? Killing thousands and flattening neighborhoods,” the cartoon mother shouts at Netanyahu. She continues by accusing him of “wrapping yourself in Judaism like it’s some shield for criticism. You’re making life for Jews miserable and life for American Jews impossible.”

The confrontation ends with Sheila charging, “You know what you’re doing, and you’re doing it on purpose.”

Matt Stone, one of South Park’s co-creators, has said that while he is Jewish by heritage, he lacks any faith-based connection to the religion.

“You know, I’m Jewish simply because I look Jewish, because my mom is Jewish and so I am Jewish,” Stone said in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air.

“But I grew up completely secular and completely agnostic and completely unaware of the fact I was Jewish until I was probably 17,” he added.

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Turkish authorities vow swift justice after magazine’s cartoon triggers nationwide outrage.

By World Israel News Staff

Four Turkish journalists were arrested after a local magazine reportedly published a cartoon caricature of the Prophet Mohammed, triggering rage-filled protests on Monday outside of the outlet’s offices.

The cartoon in question, published by LeMan, featured two characters, depicted as angels with wings, hovering over a war-torn city.

One character is drawn as saying, “Peace be upon you, I’m Muhammed,” while the other replies, “Peace be upon you, I’m Musa.”

In a statement on social media platform X, LeMan claimed that the cartoon did not depict the prophet but rather a “Muslim killed by Israel.”

The cartoonist behind the drawing “never intended to insult religious values,” the magazine posted. “We do not accept the stain that is cast on us because there is no depiction of our Prophet. You have to be very malicious to interpret the cartoon in this way.”

The publication stressed that “the work does not refer to the Prophet Muhammed in any way.”

The magazine’s denial did not calm public sentiment, as those believing the cartoon negatively depicted the prophet took to the streets to express their rage.

An angry mob of hundreds chanted “tooth for tooth, blood for blood, revenge, revenge” outside the publication’s offices, with police eventually firing tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd.

Turkish police arrested LeMan’s editor-in-chief, graphic designer, institutional director, and the cartoonist behind the drawing.

According to a statement from the country’s Justice Ministry, the four men will be charged with the crime of “publicly insulting religious values.”

Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc wrote on X that “necessary legal steps will be taken without delay” against the detained journalists.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya shared videos of the four men being arrested over the “vile drawing,” showing them handcuffed and dragged barefoot out of their homes by police.

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For Tlaib and others like her, however, charging ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’ is the all-purpose response to any criticism.

By Robert Spencer, Frontpage Magazine

As George Orwell might say, Rashida Tlaib is double-plus untouchable: she is not only a woman but a Muslim Arab. That means that anyone who dares to cross the line prohibiting criticism of anyone who is in one or more of the left’s protected victim groups gets an automatic reaction.

That’s right: charges of racism, sexism, and “Islamophobia,” plus demands for his firing and public humiliation. The leftist attack dogs, however, went easy this week on political cartoonist Henry Payne: all he got were the racism and “Islamophobia” charges.

As of this writing on Tuesday afternoon, Payne is still listed as the Detroit News’ “auto columnist,” and described as “the Detroit News auto critic, a syndicated editorial cartoonist, and radio host.”

He produced the cartoon making fun of Tlaib, however, not for the Detroit News, but for National Review, as the News’ editorial page editor, Nolan Finley, was anxious to remind the world.

Right after noon on Friday, Finley wrote, “This cartoon did not run on a Detroit News platform. It was in the National Review. It was distributed by a syndicate that we aren’t associated with.”

That was apparently insufficient groveling, so Finley weighed in again just under two hours later, writing, “The editorial cartoon depicting Rep. Rashida Tlaib was distributed by @AndrewsMcMeelSyndicate. The @DetroitNews was not involved in its production or distribution and chose not to run it. The cartoonist works for The News in a different role, as an auto critic.”

What had Finley so nervous was actually rather innocuous as political cartoons go. Payne’s drawing depicts Tlaib sitting at her desk looking over at the smoking ruin of her pager and thinking: “Odd. My pager just exploded.”

Abraham Aiyash, a Democrat (what did you think?) who is currently the majority leader of the Michigan House of Representatives, was enraged and apparently unaware that Payne had not produced the cartoon for the Detroit News.

Aiyash wrote, “Shame on the @detroitnewsfor allowing this racist, xenophobic vile cartoon on their platform. Pay attention to who condemns this. And then recognize the different standard Arab and Muslim politicians are held by.”

Others, recognizing where the cartoon had actually run, demanded the usual groveling apologies. Failed Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Fire Alarm) wrote, “Anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia must not be allowed to be normalized.

Henry Payne and the National Review should apologize immediately to @RashidaTlaib for this offensive comic.”

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud also posted the cartoon on X and commented, “Absolutely disgusting. Anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia have become normalized in our media. The National Review ran this dangerous cartoon of @RashidaTlaib. This garbage was created by Henry Payne with the @detroitnews. At what point will people call this out?”

Tlaib was grateful, responding to Hammoud, “Thank you, Mayor @AHammoudMI, for speaking up. Our community is already in so much pain right now.” Then she resorted to the left’s oft-used weapon of equating speech it dislikes with violence:

“This racism will incite more hate + violence against our Arab & Muslim communities, and it makes everyone less safe. It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism.”

The outrage traveled around the world. Pakistan’s Express Tribune reported Sunday that “US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has condemned a political cartoon published by the National Review that portrays her with an exploding pager, calling it racist and Islamophobic.”

The Pakistani paper took care to point out that Tlaib “said the cartoon would incite further hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities.”

Ironically, around the same time, the FBI’s hate crime statistics came out, showing that there is hardly any hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities.

All over the country, we are seeing Jewish students and supporters of Israel denounced, menaced, and physically attacked. There have not been such attacks against Muslims; nor should there be.

Nonetheless, the leftist establishment has gotten into the habit of referring to “antisemitism and Islamophobia” as if they were equivalent, and in the brouhaha over the Tlaib cartoon, we see how charges of “racism” and “Islamophobia” are weaponized against those who oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women.

There is nothing “racist” or “Islamophobic” about Henry Payne’s cartoon. It doesn’t mention Tlaib’s race or her religion. It merely makes fun of her for her unapologetic and open support of the jihad against Israel, which allies her with jihad terror groups including Hizballah.

For Tlaib and others like her, however, charging “racism” and “Islamophobia” is the all-purpose response to any criticism, no matter how mild that criticism may be. And why not? It always works.

The post Cartoonist dares to mock Rashida Tlaib appeared first on World Israel News.

This is how charges of ‘racism’ and ‘Islamophobia’ are weaponized against those who oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women.

By Robert Spencer, Frontpage Magazine

Someone made fun of Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Gaza City), and she and her leftist friends and colleagues are enraged.

Now, rage is their default mode, so this was no surprise, but the whole incident provided an illuminating glimpse into how leftists try to arouse and exploit rage for their own purposes, and really don’t have much of anything they can use to motivate their cadres if they aren’t angry about something.

It all started when Abraham Aiyash, a Democrat (of course) who is currently the majority leader of the Michigan House of Representatives, posted on X a political cartoon lampooning Tlaib.

The cartoon, which was the work of Henry Payne of the Detroit News, first appeared not in the News, but in National Review. It depicts Tlaib sitting at her desk looking over at the smoking ruin of her pager and thinking: “Odd. My pager just exploded.”

Aiyash was, of course, furious. He wrote:

“Shame on the @detroitnews for allowing this racist, xenophobic vile cartoon on their platform. Pay attention to who condemns this. And then recognize the different standard Arab and Muslim politicians are held by.”

Nolan Finley, the Detroit News editorial page editor, moved quickly to distance the paper from Payne’s heinous crime, responding:

“This cartoon did not run on a Detroit News platform. It was in the National Review. It was distributed by a syndicate that we aren’t associated with.”

Later, he tried to distance the News even more from Payne:

“The editorial cartoon depicting Rep. Rashida Tlaib was distributed by @AndrewsMcMeelSyndicate. The @DetroitNews was not involved in its production or distribution and chose not to run it. The cartoonist works for The News in a different role, as an auto critic.”

That wasn’t enough for the rage mob, which called on the News to fire Payne forthwith. As of this writing on Saturday afternoon, Payne is still listed as the News’ “auto columnist,” and described as “the Detroit News auto critic, a syndicated editorial cartoonist, and radio host.”

That could, however, change any minute, for the fury at Payne has only grown. On Friday, defeated Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-Fire Alarm) wrote:

“Anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia must not be allowed to be normalized. Henry Payne and the National Review should apologize immediately to @RashidaTlaib for this offensive comic.”

The mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, Abdullah Hammoud, also posted the cartoon on X and commented:

“Absolutely disgusting. Anti-Arab bigotry & Islamophobia have become normalized in our media. The National Review ran this dangerous cartoon of @RashidaTlaib. This garbage was created by Henry Payne with the @detroitnews. At what point will people call this out?”

The outrage traveled around the world. Tlaib herself denounced the cartoon, and that was newsworthy enough for Pakistan’s Express Tribune to pick up on Sunday:

“US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has condemned a political cartoon published by the National Review that portrays her with an exploding pager, calling it racist and Islamophobic.”

The Express Tribune noted that Tlaib “said the cartoon would incite further hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities.”

What hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities? All over the country, we are seeing Jewish students and supporters of Israel denounced, menaced, and physically attacked.

There have not been such attacks against Muslims; nor should there be.

Nonetheless, the leftist establishment has gotten into the habit of referring to “antisemitism and Islamophobia,” as if they were equivalent, and Tlaib was ready to take up the victim role, responding to Hammoud:

“Thank you, Mayor @AHammoudMI, for speaking up. Our community is already in so much pain right now.”

Then she added the fanciful bit that got quoted as far away as Pakistan: “This racism will incite more hate + violence against our Arab & Muslim communities, and it makes everyone less safe. It’s disgraceful that the media continues to normalize this racism.”

This is how charges of “racism” and “Islamophobia” are weaponized against those who oppose jihad mass murder and Sharia oppression of women.

There is nothing “racist” or “Islamophobic” about this cartoon. It doesn’t mention Tlaib’s race or her religion. It merely makes fun of her for her unapologetic and open support of the jihad against Israel, which allies her with jihad terror groups including Hizballah.

For Tlaib and others like her, however, charging “racism” and “Islamophobia” is the all-purpose response to any criticism, no matter how mild. And why not? It works.

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