Over the weekend the Times of London printed a cartoon depicting the recently re-elected Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu laying a brick wall with the blood of injured and/or dead Palestinians. Owner Rupert Murdoch's apology today seemed to acknowledge that the cartoon was as graphic as many descriptions suggested:

.@thesundaytimes publishes anti-Semitic cartoon showing Netanyahu building a brick wall with blood of Palestinians: twitter.com/BibiFeed/statu…

— The Bibi Report (@BibiFeed) January 28, 2013

The author of the comic, Gerald Scarfe, works as a satirical cartoonist at the Times, where he landed after working at The New Yorker for two decades. But in his Twitter apology this morning, Rupert Murdoch (the CEO of the News Corporation, which owns the Times of London) made clear that Scarfe doesn't represent the views of his newspaper:

Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon.

— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) January 28, 2013

This isn't the first time Murdoch has apologized for an offensive cartoon. In 2009, the New York Post — another News Corp. property — published a comic directly comparing President Obama to a monkey that had just been shot by a police officer. Five days later, Murdoch said:

We made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

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J.K. Trotter