NOT THIS POST: The Washington Post has apologized (in full cringe mode) over the cartoon above, which the paper published Wednesday.

But the apology is the mistake, not the publication.

In it, artist Michael Ramirez makes a powerful point about what’s really going on in Gaza: Hamas is using the Palestinian people as human shields while blaming Israel for the result.

Indeed, the terrorists savor every innocent killed as Israel moves to eliminate the terrorist group that slaughtered roughly 1,400 of its civilians, along with mass rapes and the kidnapping of 200-plus hostages it still holds — and is also using as human shields.

Opinion editor David Shipley says the cartoon  “was seen by many readers as racist” — though the drawing is simply, and plainly, a caricature of an actual Hamas spokesman who celebrated the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks across southern Israel.

The paper has pulled the ’toon off its website and is “also publishing a selection of responses to the caricature,” Shipley writes.

This retreat simply encourages those objecting to a message — in this case, Ramirez’s — to cry “racism” so as to censor it, and to intimidate anyone who agrees with Ramirez into shutting up.

“Democracy dies in darkness” is the WaPo’s slogan; we’re saddened to see it surrendering to the dark side.

— The Post Editorial Board