This cartoon published in The Sunday Times (subscription-only) would be offensive at the best of times. That it has appeared on Holocaust Memorial Day is doubly so.
Penned by Gerald Scarfe (the cartoonist behind Pink Floyd’s The Wall), the caption reads: “Israeli Elections… Will Cementing Peace Continue?”
A hideous looking PM Benjamin Netanyahu caricature builds a wall cemented with blood, crushing Palestinians including women and children.
Israel’s security barrier (of which the vast majority is a fence and not a wall) is meant to protect Israeli civilians against Palestinian terrorism. In any case, the imagery of this cartoon amounts to a blood libel on a day when the millions of victims of the Holocaust are remembered.
In response, The Commentator’s Raheem Kassam states:
In conversation with a friend of mine recently, I was asked, “Do you think in 200 years time, people will have forgotten the Holocaust, or believe that it was a myth?” I naively responded, “No. I believe there are enough good people in the world to ensure that doesn’t happen.” At the time, I would never have thought the editors of the Sunday Times were in amongst those who would seek, in true Der Sturmer fashion, to use Holocaust Memorial Day to publish a blood libel, and knowingly undermine the memory of one of the worst genocides ever.
HonestReporting CEO Joe Hyams said:
Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember the most appalling atrocities carried out in modern history. It should also be a day when the media remembers that Israel’s actions to defend its citizens bear no relation whatsoever to the genocidal crimes of the Nazis. On any day, this cartoon’s imagery is an assault on the real victims of genocide, demeans their suffering and insults their memory. The Sunday Times should be mindful that what started as cartoons in the 1930’s ultimately led to violence and unspeakable tragedy. This is a lesson that The Sunday Times has clearly not absorbed.
How could The Sunday Times stoop so low?
Write to The Sunday Times and demand an apology and retraction – [email protected]
