The umpteenth case of accusations of anti-Semitism over a cartoon. The number of accusations of the alleged use of anti-Semitic tropes in jokes is enough to fill several encyclopaedias.
This time it is the turn of Australian cartoonist David Rowe and the media outlet he works for, the Australian Financial Review (AFR). They are being criticised for this cartoon from 20 March showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu handling US President Donald Trump in the war with Iran. Allegedly, the problem of those complaining is based on the use of Jewish stereotypes, rather than simply criticising the Israeli state.
In the scene, entitled something like"running on empty" (or "no fuel"), oil control", against the backdrop of an oil refinery, Benjamin Netanyahu sits astride a pump that combines elements of the US flag and has Donald Trump's face.
Netanyahu exclaims "Oy Vey" (an expression of Yiddish origin denoting a mixture of anguish, resignation or frustration), which I take to mean something akin to our "Oh my God!" or "What a mess!", while looking at a dipstick like a car's oil dipstick that comes out stained with blood from Trump's head, who shouts"Torah! Torah! Torah! Torah! Or whatever." ( Torah in English), playing on the similarity of the Japanese wartime attack cry"Torah, Torah, Torah". On one building appears the inscription "PEARL HARL.... 2026", a clear allusion to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This cartoon was published shortly after Trump made his little joke about Pearl Harbor with the obvious intention of teasing Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi during a meeting with her in the Oval Office, who didn't know where to stand listening to the buffoon.
Speaking to Sky News television, Alex Ryvchin, co-executive director of the Australian Jewish Community Executive Council, criticised the language used in the cartoon, arguing that it resorted to familiar and damaging clichés.
Ryvchin' s reading of the cartoon shouting "Torah" is that "the Jew" is leading Trump, leading him to disaster, and that the expression "Oy vey" is not from Hebrew, the official language of Israel, but from Yiddish, the language of exiled European Jews, which "mockingly adorns a million neo-Nazi tweets and cartoons".
Ryvchin called the cartoon "hateful" and added that it was a "propaganda piece" that he said used the style of "hardcore anti-Semites", while AFR editor-in-chief James Chessell told Sky News presenter Sharri Markson that he approved of the cartoon and saw no problem with it.
The chairman of the Anti-Defamation Commission (ADC), Dvir Abramovich, criticised the cartoon in a letter to the newspaper's editor. He described the images as much closer to"old anti-Semitic stereotypes than to the usual political satire". Abramovich argued that"the elements depicted together revive classic clichés of Jewish manipulation and control over world leaders and events", and urged the newspaper to reflect on the damaging significance of such images,"especially at a time of heightened anti-Semitism in Australia".
We seem to be making some progress, at least this time, as far as we know, they have not called for the cartoonist's head or threatened to bomb Australia.
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.
