Calls for Guardian editor to resign

BY DAVID SAFFER

The Guardian’s editor-in-chief Katherine Viner is under pressure from Jewish groups to step down after the newspaper published an antisemitic cartoon last Friday.

Martin Rowson’s now-deleted cartoon, drawn by Richard Sharp, who last week resigned as BBC chairman, was slated by various organisations for evoking antisemitic tropes.

Campaign Against Antisemitism observed that Sharp, who is Jewish, is portrayed with a ‘large nose and gruesome features commonly seen in Nazi propaganda about Jews’ on its website.

Sharp is carrying a box appearing to read “Goldman Sachs and includes a puppet of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and a squid. The cartoon also features a pig vomiting blood.

Sharp, who worked at Goldman Sachs, was described in a Rolling Stone article as a “vampire squid”.

Ronson has apologised for the cartoon.

Gideon Falter, CAA Chief Executive, said the incident was a “resignation offence”.

He noted: “Today, whilst Jews observed the Sabbath and were unable to respond, the Guardian saw fit to publish a depiction of a Jew that would not have looked out of place on the pages of Der Stürmer. Though the cartoon has now been deleted, and the cartoonist has apologetically declared that the catalogue of anti-Jewish imagery, from bags of gold and a reference to banking, to a tentacled animal, to an outsized nose, and a pig apparently vomiting blood were all a mistake, it was waved through by editors.”

Falter added: “The newspaper has become known in the Jewish community for its platforming of antisemitism deniers, incitement during the Corbyn years, and occasional relapses into raw medieval anti-Jewish imagery of the kind published today. Under her editorship, The Guardian has given a veneer of genteel legitimacy to antisemitism and helped to fuel hatred against Jews.”

CAA noted that The Guardian published an inflammatory cartoon in 2020 that featured Labour Leader Keir Starmer presenting the head of former leader Jeremy Corbyn on a platter in a pose reminiscent of the Caravaggio painting ‘Salome with the Head of Saint John the Baptist’. This was a depiction of the New Testament event of King Herod having Jesus’ mentor, John the Baptist, beheaded at the request of his Jewish stepdaughter Salome.

The Board of Deputies has called for an urgent meeting with Viner on Twitter following the “shocking” cartoon in the paper which contained antisemitic tropes.

“This is far from the first time that the paper has crossed the line in terms of highly questionable content connected to the Jewish community,” they noted.

Action Against discrimination called for Viner to be sacked.

Jonathan Metliss, AAD chairman, said:

“So it goes on. The Guardian is happy to continue its record of antisemitism with the despicably antisemitic cartoon of the outgoing BBC chair. This follows on from the publication of the appalling Diane Abbott letter in the Observer last month containing unacceptable comments on “Jewish people” and regular anti-Israel vitriol emanating from The Guardian and Observer sister newspapers owned by Guardian Media Group.

“The Rowson cartoon is unacceptably antisemitic and offensive and is reminiscent of the offensive graffiti mural whose artist was originally supported by Jeremy Corbyn, showing Jewish bankers playing a game of monopoly with their tabletop resting on the bowed naked backs of several workers.

“If the same cartoonist had drawn a black politician in a similar form it would obviously be racist. Notwithstanding the swift withdrawal of the cartoon and apologies from both Rowson and the Guardian, AAD calls for the Guardian editor to be sacked immediately and for appropriate action to be taken against Rowson for the anti-semitic content of his cartoon.”

The National Jewish Assembly said the cartoon was “blatantly antisemitic” and the latest in a string of the newspaper’s “entrenched biases and flirtations with antisemitism” in various cartoons, articles and editorials.

The NJA recalled a cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as the puppet master of William Hague and Tony Blair in 2012, another exonerating Jeremy Corbyn over Labour antisemitism and characterising Rabbi Jonathan Sacks as a racist in 2018.

A spokesman said: “When a publication with a reputation for progressive values, and supposedly upholding “anti-racism,” repeatedly flirts with antisemitism, it sends a message that antisemitism is somehow less important than other forms of prejudice.

This is not just morally repugnant. It's also dangerous. Antisemitism is on the rise across Europe and the UK is no exception to this trend, with attacks on Jews increasing in frequency and severity. The Guardian and other left-leaning media outlets need to take concrete steps to root out antisemitism from their publications and media outlets, and hold individuals accountable when they engage in antisemitic behaviour.”

NJA called on The Guardian to appoint a dedicated ombudsman to ensure antisemitic content is not published and engage with the Jewish community.

Cartoonist Ronson reportedly said: “Satirists, even though largely licenced to speak the unspeakable in liberal democracies, are no more immune to ******g things up than anyone else, which is what I did here…I know Richard Sharp is Jewish; actually, while we’re collecting networks of cronyism, I was at school with him, though I doubt he remembers me. His Jewishness never crossed my mind as I drew him as it’s wholly irrelevant to the story or his actions, and it played no conscious role in how I twisted his features according to the standard cartooning playbook.”

In a statement, a Guardian spokesperson said: “We understand the concerns that have been raised. This cartoon does not meet our editorial standards, and we have decided to remove it from our website. The Guardian apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended.”