A controversial caricature associating President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with the Ku Klux Klan that was published by national Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN) is being described as anti-Semitic by commentators.

The caricature depicts Trump and Netanyahu being carried by hand in a litter by several people, one of whom is wearing a white sheet identified with the American white supremacist organization, the KKK. The cartoon also depicts a Haredi man and an Israeli flag in addition to a text bubble containing the word, 'Finally!'

According to the Swedish news site the Local, journalist Annika H. Rothstein argued that the cartoon is overtly anti-Semitic, a comment with which writer Rebecca Weidmo Uvell concurred when she tweeted: "How can you publish clearly anti-Semitic propaganda? Jews carrying Trump together with the KKK?"

The Local said that the Stockholm-based independent liberal DN answered Uvell by stating that Netanyahu “celebrated” Trump’s victory despite his controversial remarks throughout his campaign and despite his alleged support for the KKK.

In a tweet, Israel's ambassador to Sweden, Isaac Bachman, stated that the caricaturist "is as ignorant of Israeli realities as he is consumed with animosity against its people. It is not the first time that he has published terrible cartoons on the subject of Israel – images which inscribe themselves in the tradition of a very particular iconography of infamy, with a scent of anti-Semitism."

The newspaper’s editor-in-chief Peter Wolodarski, who is the son of Polish Jews who moved to Sweden in the 1960s, on Monday tweeted a statement saying that publishing the cartoon was a ‘’mistake.’’

"Over the years we have published many cartoons in DN that don’t necessarily coincide with the newspaper’s stance. That is the way it should be," the statement said.

It continued : "The problem with Sunday’s cartoon is that it is open to other interpretations than those intended. For that reason it shouldn’t have been published, even if there is a legitimate political criticism of Trump and Netanyahu at the root,’’ he added.

The statement insisted though that the cartoon was not anti-Semitic.