Sounds like the guardian wanted to get rid of him for a while. Apparently he has been involved in antisemitism incidents in the past. They don’t need the controversy he brings.
Sounds like the guardian wanted to get rid of him for a while. Apparently he has been involved in antisemitism incidents in the past. They don’t need the controversy he brings.
The description of the comic didn’t sound anti-semetic, unless there’s some anti semetic trope that I’m unaware of. Being against the state of Israel, apartheid, ethno-states and genetic cleansing of Palestinians isn’t anti-semetic. Self surgery with boxing gloves actually seems rather apt imagery.
There’s no mention of past anti-semetism in the article either as far as I can see, something about Tories which I don’t quite understand the reference, nose rings? Is that a trope I don’t understand?
Help me out here.
My understanding is that the cartoon is based on a cartoon of Lyndon B Johnson from decades ago. However, the cartoon uses the common metaphor of taking a “pound of flesh” from something to make it’s point.
That metaphor is attributed the character Shylock from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. Shylock is considered by many to be an offensive stereotype of a Jewish person (I think it is) that is sort of “tolerated” when used in a historical context, but not otherwise. i.e. if you call a Jewish person “Shylock”, expect rightly to be called a racist.
The cartoon applied to LBJ isn’t offensive because, afaik, he isn’t Jewish. But take the character and Netanyahu, smush them together and bam: antisemitism claims.
Also Johnson isn’t operating on himself - he’s just lifting his shirt to show the scar.