The ultra-left newspaper Haaretz has never shied from attacks on the Jewish state, whether by justifying rock attacks on infants , calling the IDF "war criminals ," or outright calling for an intifada , but on Thursday the radical paper may have reached a new low. The paper posted a cartoon by Amos Biderman, which ostensibly illustrated tensions between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the US administration, after a senior member of that administration called Netanyahu " chickens**t " on Tuesday. How did Haaretz frame those tensions? In a drawing showing Netanyahu in the pilot seat of a plane labelled "Israel" careening into the World Trade Center, in an offensive image equating Netanyahu with Al Qaeda terrorists, and reminiscent of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories blaming Israel for the attack. Joe Hyams, CEO of Honest Reporting , slammed the cartoon, saying "w hile Amos Biderman has clearly lost all sense of decency, why did Haaretz feel it necessary to publish this cartoon?" " Haaretz deserves all of the criticism it is now receiving and owes an apology for this breathtaking lack of editorial judgment," added Hyams. Haaretz is partly owned by M. DuMont Schauberg, a German publishing house with a Nazi past. An additional owner is Russian-Israeli businessman Leonid Nevzlin, the Schocken family owns a majority of the shares. Leftist MKs took a similar tack as Haaretz , blaming Netanyahu for the crass insult coming from the American administration. Former Israeli ambassadors to America have said in response to the recent "chickens**t" flap that it constitutes an unprecedented crisis in relations between the two countries.
