The Green Party said it had "hired lawyers" to take legal action over the publication of this cartoon by Peter Brookes on Saturday 2 May in The Times. The Greens believe the cartoon depicts Zack Polanski in anti-Semitic stereotypes.
As it happens, Zack Polanski, leader of the Green Party of England and Wales (GPEW), who is Jewish, has even accused Israel of committing genocide and proposed cutting off diplomatic and trade relations with Israel and imposing tougher sanctions. It has also proposed preventing the US from using British airspace to bomb Palestine and has called for an end to attacks on Iran.
The cartoon depicting Polanski kicking a policeman alludes to statements by the Green leader who questioned whether there was a "real threat" to the Jewish community in the UK or whether it was simply a "perception of insecurity" and, following the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green, he shared a social media post criticising police officers who attended the scene for"repeatedly and violently kicking a mentally ill man in the head" when he was already on the ground. He later apologised for posting this criticism.
According to The Guardian, the Greens believe that:"It is astonishing that, against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitism in the UK, a national newspaper has chosen to publish a cartoon of the country's only Jewish political leader using stereotypes so clearly associated with anti-Semitic portrayals of Jewish people" and that"the words used by both politicians and the media this week, in launching further attacks on Zack following the violent attack on his community, are deeply irresponsible".
Polanski called the cartoon a"vile anti-Semitic caricature". So I kept looking through all the published notes, even in the commentary hells, to find out exactly what these stereotypes were and, no matter how hard I searched, the one possible cause that kept coming up is the shape of the nose, which is supposed, for some, to be a sure sign of the "Nazi" style of depicting Jews in order to dehumanise them. It's a bit of a nose thing.
Be that as it may, these kinds of lawsuit announcements tend to have a lot of repercussions, although in the vast majority of cases they don't even get filed because the point is to amplify the noise at the time. So far, I have not found any notable reactions from the newspaper or the cartoonist, so I understand that they have not paid much attention to the traditional accusations of anti-Semitism.
Due to the avalanche of cases of this type, I am seriously considering opening a special chapter just for them and publishing a monthly summary because it is rare is the day that someone does not appear branding a cartoonist as anti-Semitic.
Humour in trouble, a collection of cases
Cases of cartoonists who have had problems of some importance because of their cartoons or satirical illustrations. There are also some stories of other people who, without being cartoonists, have got into trouble for sharing them.
