The Guardian Fires Its Cartoonist of 40 Years for “Antisemitic” Cartoon


This is supposed to be a Shylock reference

I don’t even understand the cartoon. I’ve read the explanation of what it means and I still do not understand it.

BBC:

Long-serving Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell has been sacked by the newspaper in a row over a drawing he created of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.

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

Bell said the cartoon was spiked after a phone call from the paper suggested it may reference Shakespeare’s Shylock’s “pound of flesh” line.

He said it was inspired by a 60s cartoon of President Lyndon B Johnson.

Writing on X, Bell said he submitted the image earlier this month and “four hours later… I received an ominous phone call from the desk with the strangely cryptic message ‘pound of flesh’…”

Bell said he responded: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” and the reply from the desk was: “Jewish bloke; pound of flesh; antisemitic trope.”

Bell told the BBC that the interpretation by the Guardian “made no sense to me, as there is no reference to that play in my cartoon, which shows Netanyahu, poised to perform a surgical operation on himself while wearing boxing gloves, the catastrophic consequences of which are yet to be seen.

“The image itself was inspired by the late, great David Levine’s cartoon of President Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) showing off his operation scar, which Levine draws in the shape of a map of Vietnam.”

Yep, still don’t get it.

Oh, well.

The guy is a Jew-hater, and that’s all that matters.

He should be in jail.

The guy has a history of making Jews mad