Shocking antisemitism from cartoonist

[Tristan]

… and this time it isn’t Steve Bell.

Bob Moran posted this to Twitter yesterday and has doubled down since. Clearly doesn’t understand the problem.

[calmooney]

It's horribly antisemitic but I don't think he's worked for the Guardian since 2011 and he then worked for the Telegraph for 10 years.

[bob sterman]

It's horribly antisemitic but I don't think he's worked for the Guardian since 2011 and he then worked for the Telegraph for 10 years.

Appalling cartoon.

But to add - not only was Moran sacked by the Telegraph but he's now a regular on GB News (and similar platforms) as an anti-vaxxer / anti-masker.

[Woodchopper]

Yes, clearly anti-Semitic. I wonder whether Twitter's moderators will do anything?

[Gfamily]

It's horribly antisemitic but I don't think he's worked for the Guardian since 2011 and he then worked for the Telegraph for 10 years.

Given this, the thread heading is a f.cking disgrace and should be changed. Also flagged to the Mods

[Tristan]

It's horribly antisemitic but I don't think he's worked for the Guardian since 2011 and he then worked for the Telegraph for 10 years.

Given this, the thread heading is a f.cking disgrace and should be changed. Also flagged to the Mods

Glad to see you've got your priorities right about what's a disgrace. FFS.

Fine, former Guardian cartoonist. I mean, the Guardian were still printing Steve Bell till late last year so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes.

[Gfamily]

It's horribly antisemitic but I don't think he's worked for the Guardian since 2011 and he then worked for the Telegraph for 10 years.

Given this, the thread heading is a f.cking disgrace and should be changed. Also flagged to the Mods

Glad to see you've got your priorities right about what's a disgrace. FFS.

Fine, former Guardian cartoonist. I mean, the Guardian were still printing Steve Bell till late last year so I'm not sure how much of a difference that makes.

Getting the right target for your ire seems to be a problem.

[lpm]

Yes, clearly anti-Semitic. I wonder whether Twitter's moderators will do anything?

They will, they are prompt to act on this sort of thing.

They will flag it to Elon Musk.

Who will retweet it.

[Tristan]

He’s doubling down:

“By the way, as far as I'm concerned, there are no Jews in that cartoon.
If you think the man in the middle is a Jew, you have no understanding of the Jewish faith. Or any faith. Or basic morality.”

https://x.com/bobscartoons/status/17491 ... iksLglQFYQ

What a load of horse sh.t!

[bob sterman]

He's been antisemitic for quite some time...

https://twitter.com/bobscartoons/status ... 2380350480

[Sciolus]

Apart from the obvious, what pisses me off about this sort of thing is that whenever anyone criticises the Israeli government or state, Israel always claims that the criticism is antisemitic, and this sort of sh.t feeds into that sort of sh.t.

[IvanV]

Apart from the obvious, what pisses me off about this sort of thing is that whenever anyone criticises the Israeli government or state, Israel always claims that the criticism is antisemitic, and this sort of sh.t feeds into that sort of sh.t.

When it's not about Israel, we don't have usually much difficulty in telling the difference between "that person did something wrong" and "that [racial slur] did something wrong". The former is a reasonable criticism and the latter is an unacceptable racist slur. It doesn't matter how bad the wrong thing is, or how bad you think it is. Plainly there can be borderline cases - is this a racist slur? And there can also be inadvertencies, because some racist slurs are complex and not everyone knows enough to realise that you mustn't say that. Or some feature in a drawing is inadvertent. I did think that one of the Steve Bell cartoons that got cancelled might be an inadvertency. But he had form, unfortunately, and so he wasn't going to get the benefit of the doubt. But it seems very unlikely that the cartoonist here is unaware that a clear and unambiguous baby-eating reference is a racist slur in this context.

The additional complexity, as you say, is that some partisan people will accuse things of being antisemitic, when in fact it is a reasonable opinion couched in reasonable terms. That's unfortunate, but you can get away with that. If we generalise it, then we see it is a common mode of behaviour among many among people who are passionate about some belief of theirs, to assert that it's completely unacceptable to argue for the alternative. We see such harsh debates in the political and religious debate all the time.

Then on the other hand, some partisans in the other direction, who are particularly angry about what the Israeli government has been up to, fall into racist slurs. And they think that the wrong thing is so bad, that they fail to see the racist slur they made while expressing it. And I think that may be why some in the Labour party, for example, have fallen into anti-semitism, while finding it hard to accept that is what they are doing. And since racism is not acceptable, it isn't the counterpart of the above. It's just unacceptable.

[Al Capone Junior]

I can't see anything useful coming out of this cartoon. It'll only get everyone pissed off even worse, for a wide variety of reasons.

If you want to express what a jerk netan-f.cking-yahoo is, and many ppl do think he's a jerk, once again, this is let's just say a 'less than optimal ' way to do so.

Now if you just want to pour nitro-f.cking-glycerin by the tanker ship full on an already raging 4-alarm dumpster fire of a situation... Mission accomplished.

[bob sterman]

I can't see anything useful coming out of this cartoon. It'll only get everyone pissed off even worse, for a wide variety of reasons.

If you want to express what a jerk netan-f.cking-yahoo is, and many ppl do think he's a jerk, once again, this is let's just say a 'less than optimal ' way to do so.

Now if you just want to pour nitro-f.cking-glycerin by the tanker ship full on an already raging 4-alarm dumpster fire of a situation... Mission accomplished.

He's getting a lot of praise for this specific cartoon all over social media among the alt-right, anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers etc for being the "real deal" and having the courage to speak the "truth".

It's extremely worrying that he is infecting this crowd of conspiracy minded delusional folk with what is essentially virulent racism.

There's no point in even discussing the whole issue of how to legitimately criticise Netanyahu and Israel - in the context of discussions about this cartoon. It's just pure racist antisemitic hate material.

[TopBadger]

Yeah - its antisemitic.

Thing is - you wouldn't necessarily know that unless you know about Blood Libel (which was something I'd never heard of until EACL posted on the topic in the old place, and have only ever seen mentioned by him and pretty much no one else).

To folks viewing this cartoon without that knowledge, it's likely just a grotesque visual critique of a politician taking military action against Palestinians resulting in dead kids (which is happening) and they simply won't see the antisemitism. Which leads to the point already made...

Apart from the obvious, what pisses me off about this sort of thing is that whenever anyone criticises the Israeli government or state, Israel always claims that the criticism is antisemitic, and this sort of sh.t feeds into that sort of sh.t.

Quite.

So, whilst it's unfortunate, it seems to me that sometimes calls of antisemitism are not obvious and in such cases the person calling antisemitism should also take the time to explain why it's antisemitic... because its often not apparent to a lot of people looking in on the discussion.

[bob sterman]

Yeah - its antisemitic.

Thing is - you wouldn't necessarily know that unless you know about Blood Libel (which was something I'd never heard of until EACL posted on the topic in the old place, and have only ever seen mentioned by him and pretty much no one else).

To folks viewing this cartoon without that knowledge, it's likely just a grotesque visual critique of a politician taking military action against Palestinians resulting in dead kids (which is happening) and they simply won't see the antisemitism. Which leads to the point already made...

This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?

So, whilst it's unfortunate, it seems to me that sometimes calls of antisemitism are not obvious and in such cases the person calling antisemitism should also take the time to explain why it's antisemitic... because its often not apparent to a lot of people looking in on the discussion.

In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.

How about rather than asking potential victims of quite extreme racism to explain why it's racist - you have a read here - or visit a Holocaust museum.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ ... lood-libel

[TopBadger]

This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?
...
In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.

That's kind of my point Bob... You don't know what you don't know, and it may be the case that quite a lot of people don't know about the eating babies slur. Certainly I didn't until I read about it on BadScience (sometime in my early 30's?).

It seems reasonable to me that UK nationals under 70 aren't going to know details about German propaganda from over 60 years ago but maybe I'm the aberration here. I don't know. Sure, I learned about the holocaust at school, I know Nazi's utterly mis-portrayed Jews... but the specifics of baby eating didn't come up in those lessons. And that's a pretty important detail in terms of changing the cartoon from a grotesque criticism into being antisemitic.

So, if a concern is that a lot of people who see this cartoon can't see the antisemitism within it, then maybe that's why.

[Imrael]

This is shocking. While the name ("blood libel") might not be widely known - surely it is widely known that antisemitic tropes about Jews doing awful things such as eating babies were an integral part of Nazi propoganda during the holocaust?
...
In the cartoon he's not just killing kids - he's eating babies. This is not some esoteric subtle form of antisemitism.

That's kind of my point Bob... You don't know what you don't know, and it may be the case that quite a lot of people don't know about the eating babies slur. Certainly I didn't until I read about it on BadScience (sometime in my early 30's?).

It seems reasonable to me that UK nationals under 70 aren't going to know details about German propaganda from over 60 years ago but maybe I'm the aberration here. I don't know. Sure, I learned about the holocaust at school, I know Nazi's utterly mis-portrayed Jews... but the specifics of baby eating didn't come up in those lessons. And that's a pretty important detail in terms of changing the cartoon from a grotesque criticism into being antisemitic.

So, if a concern is that a lot of people who see this cartoon can't see the antisemitism within it, then maybe that's why.

More or less agreeing with Topbadger - it was only the presence of the "Kosher" caption that made me think about specifically anti-semitic elements. At first glance I'd focussed on the presence of Biden (I guess) and Sunak as helpers. And like Topbadger, as a person in mid-60's with standard British education and an interest in history I wasnt aware of the blood libel until the last few years. Having said that, seems likely that the cartoonist did know what he was doing. And yeah, associating this with the Guardian seems very thin.

[headshot]

That goblet in the table also appears to be a Kiddush cup, which is an important part of Shabbat (and other holiday) meals. Usually a family heirloom. So the links to Judaism and antisemitism aren’t in any way accidental in this cartoon.

[bob sterman]

I'll say again - this is not subtle esosteric antisemitism - it's antisemitism in its most virulent and obvious form.

It's straight off the front page of the Nazi paper Der Stürmer. I'm not going to reproduce the image here - you can scroll down this page to see it..

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/ ... lood-libel

The whole issue was focused on on accusing Jews of ritual murder and drinking the blood of babies.

I'm shocked that some apparently educated people are not aware of the history here. These are not minor historical details.

[TopBadger]

What is obvious to you might not be to others. I'm shocked that you're shocked by that.

[Grumble]

When I think of propaganda about eating babies the first thing in my mind is the British stories about German troops in WW1 in Belgium.

[Bewildered]

Sorry but Top Badger is right here. When I saw this thread I couldn’t spot the blood libel things. I also saw the “kosher” tag as making it antisemitic, but from the posts I felt sure there must be more than that. I didn’t dare post just asking what it was honestly, so I googled it and found a Jewish chronicle article explaining about the blood libel thing. I also found out about blood libel from that post on the old place but I didn’t remember what it was at this point, at least not well enough to understand the cartoon.

To be clear I am *not* saying this could be inadvertent (and I don’t think badger was either), as when you know the details it looks too specific to be an accident. But people reading it and not spotting the anti-semiticism is perfectly understandable and I think Bob’s inability to understand this is because you can’t unknow things and you can’t remove the perspective of things that are to you a big deal and obvious.

However I do think the fact many won’t notice it and then might get suckered into defending it when it’s called out is the aim of putting anti-semitic symbolism in there but then denying it is anti-semiticsim. So maybe you should not be so surprised if you think about it that way.

[Bewildered]

I also couldn’t tell that one of the people was meant to be Biden, and still don’t think it looks anything like him, but in the context of the overt message it does make sense for it to be him and sunak The JC article just stated it was Biden.

[kerrya1]

What is obvious to you might not be to others. I'm shocked that you're shocked by that.

I have to agree with Topbadger here, I was aware of Blood Libel but not from anything I was taught at school or from documentaries about the Holocaust or the rise of the the nazi party. The demonization of the Jewish people is always mentioned, but seems to be limited to the less extreme forms. I only found out about it in relation to more recent examples of it being used by anti-semitic groups.

Similarly with things like the Kiddush cup and even the word Kosher - would people not quite familiar with Judaism and Jewish ritual really recognise either of those?

I absolutely recognise the anti-semitism of this cartoon but I can also understand how others might see a less anti-semitic interpretation of Netanyahu being wined and dined by the UK & US while babies are killed - which is also utterly horrific but not quite in the same way.