Steve Bell sacked by Guardian in antisemitism row over Netanyahu cartoon

> The cartoon, featuring Netanyahu operating on his own stomach, showed a cut in the outline of the Gaza Strip.

> Moneylender Shylock, from Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, is considered to be one of the most notorious Jewish stereotypes in English literature due to his greedy nature.

> In the Bard's famous play, Shylock asks for a pound of Antonio's flesh a loan isn't repaid within three months.

Seems like the right call not to publish it, but not sure I see how the cartoon would have been referring to the “pound of flesh” from that description.

It's an even more tenuous accusation when you get to:

    In the same year, senior Conservative MP Sajid Javid tweeted that Bell's cartoon - depicting former Home Secretary Priti Patel and ex-Prime Minister Boris Johnson as bulls with rings through their noses - was "incredibly offensive".

    Mr Javid said it was "reminiscent of antisemitic cartoons from the last century," adding the Guardian "should know better".

Pratel having been raised Hindu (IIRC) and Johnson having great grandparents all over the spectrum (one jewish great grandmother according to wikipedia).

It all smacks of want to cast shade over The Guardian's cartoons, which is an understandable position but these "reasons" seem pretty thin.

It's very typical, but also really sloppy reporting, that none of the articles I've seen have actually included even a thumbnail of the cartoon he says was the inspiration. It took me one search to find several links to it:

http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/Vietimages/Cartoon...

The reference then is very obvious. One might of course try to imply that the changes were made to intentionally change the context and reference Shylock and that the reference is just a smokescreen, but to me at least it seems contrived and driven by the same willingness to just view everything in the worst possible light when it is convenient that pervade the British press.

Bell has been a thorn in the sides of a lot of people for a long time, so I'm not surprised.

Thanks for the link.

I guess we could just read his mind to find out what his intended interpretation was?

Thank you for the link. Having seen it, I'm surprised he didn't lose his job before now. This is a great lesson in "know your audience".

I'm dislike political cartoons, but IMO one of the key factors is to make the message blindingly obvious. If there's a more nuanced point, it would probably take more than one cartoon panel to convey.

All of the examples on that page have a lot of details that are ambiguous and difficult to parse. All of them depict the "other side" as extremely ugly (even inhuman, in the case of the Patel/Johnson cartoon) in a way that's viscerally uncomfortable for me.

Understanding his last cartoon the way he intended it requires knowledge of a different political cartoon from 57 years ago, made for an audience on the other side of the planet. The 57-year-old cartoon is itself impossible to parse correctly, unless someone is very familiar with American politics from that era. How many people in the entire world that aren't political cartoonists themselves understood that reference when first viewing the cartoon?

For the vanishingly tiny minority that were willing to look up what "after David Levine" meant, how likely would they be to find the original? If they managed to do so, how likely would they be to understand it correctly, and then apply that understanding back to the cartoon that got Bell fired?

The Guardian fired him, not BBC.

> It's the sort of thing you expect to see in black and white documentaries not in your neighborhood.

You've always been able to see those documentaries in color if you look at the right countries.

>> Jewish shops around me have been vandalized (not a hate crime according to the police [1] as opposed to the nazi pug).

This is incorrect. The press claimed it was attacked due to the conflict, but the actual restaurant later released a statement that they believe it was a burglary attempt. Of course, the press didn’t retract their original articles so it was easy to miss unless you follow local news.

If that's the edge for you, you are basically against free speech.

Your free speech probably is closer to what CCP has in mind which is what is allowed by government and acceptable by majority. Anything else is considered hate speech. Germans practiced that in the 1920s to 40s. It didn't end well. French did that in the pre-Napolean era. Same, didn't end well. Chinese practiced for millenia though current government is less vicious than in the past (read what is nine generation punishment in Chinese culture). There is only 1 kind of free speech. Anything that is being censored is basically not free speech but some form of 1984 dystopian implementation. This is why USA is greatest nation on earth for discovering 1st and protected by 2nd. UK has no such thing even though literally origin of USA.

> the edge of free speech

Sometimes, comedy writes itself. It always fascinates me when someone can write something so oxymoronic and not register an issue with it.

Teetering on the edge of free speech...ha...