Gerald Scarfe’s cartoon in the UK’s Sunday Times depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu using blood to build a wall that includes the bodies of Palestinians. The image, published on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, infuriated the Anti-Defamation League, which charged that the “blatantly anti-Semitic theme” is “a modern day evocation of the ancient ‘blood libel’ charge leveled at Jews.” The World Zionist Organization-Israel said it violated “all lines of decency and morality.” The Murdoch-owned paper initially defended the drawing, telling The Guardian that ”It is aimed squarely at Mr Netanyahu and his policies, not at Israel, let alone at Jewish people. It appeared yesterday because Mr Netanyahu won the Israeli election last week.” But News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch sees things differently. In a tweet today he says that “Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon.”


Scarfe is a brilliant illustrator and cartoonist, and this piece makes an extremely valid point, publication date be damned.
Absolutely true.
When ethnic cleansing under a military occupation that literally destroys the homes of an effectively imprisoned civilian population is your stated policy — a continuing policy condemned even by the typically compliant enabler that is the United States — then you better accept that people are going to view those who enact and/or embrace that policy with justified scorn.
And expressing that scorn is to merely face the ugly truth unflinchingly.
Racist and xenophobic. And I assume so are you
I wonder how many riots this will incite around the globe. Zero would be my best guess.
Cartoon was hugely offensive – ‘grotesque’ is an apt word. Nice to see Murdoch doing and saying something good for once! Oh, and ‘beamish13,’ your comment (‘publication date be damned’) is at best ignorant, at worst hateful and deranged. Take your pick.
I’ll gladly take “deranged”. If believing in Palestinian statehood and an end to Netanyahu’s policy of apartheid makes me crazy, give me the straightjacket now.
The cartoon is offensive to almost anyone who is not an extremist on these issues (on the Saudi payroll, a terrorist, a misguided idiot etc.). Mr. Murdoch, at least has the sense to see this, so although I am liberal, I give him points.
When is he going to apologize for the grotesque offensive Fox News?
Israel, much like the U.S., is obsessed with perpetuating an image of beneficence and progressive beliefs, when its policies are ideologically grounded in an obsessive need for militaristic dominance.
Do you think he would apologize if he was not trying to effect his spin-off of the publishing company?
I happily kick Rupert Murdoch and even more so when he’s down, but kudos where it’s due. Gerald Scarfe is hardcore but with this one he went way, way over the line.
AKA “defense”.
It’s not as simple an equation as you’d like to present. The blood libel subtext us offensive.
I don’t understand how the cartoon of a political problem in Israel is anti-Semitic to all Jews?
I’m assuming you haven’t seen the cartoon, Cameron, and maybe you are not familiar with Gerlad Scarfe’s style either. Basically, it makes very liberal and graphic use of what is known as the Blood Libel, which dates back to the Medieval period when Jews were accused of murdering young Christian children, preferably virgin girls, to make bread, or in religious rites. Scarfe depicts Netanyahu as a crazed monster building a wall to keep out the Palestinians, using their bodies for bricks and their blood for mortar.