The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery
ByThe Related Press
October 19, 2023, 8:01 AM
FILE – Steve Bell, a veteran cartoonist with Britian’s Guardian newspaper, talks to the Related Press on the launch of an exhibition of cartoons depicting President Bush in London, England, Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006. The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery. The Guardian mentioned “the choice has been made to not renew Steve Bell’s contract.” (AP Picture/Alastair Grant, File)
The Related Press
LONDON — The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a caricature of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery.
“The choice has been made to not renew Steve Bell’s contract,” the Guardian mentioned.
“Steve Bell’s cartoons have been an essential a part of the Guardian over the previous 40 years — we thank him and need him all the perfect,” writer Guardian Information and Media mentioned in a press release despatched to The Related Press on Thursday.
Bell has contributed to The Guardian since 1983. A number of of his lots of of cartoons over time have been accused of together with anti-Jewish stereotypes. The most recent cartoon, posted by Bell on social media, reveals Netanyahu holding a scalpel and making ready to chop a Gaza-shaped incision in his stomach, with the caption “Residents of Gaza, get out now.”
It’s labeled “after David Levine” and remembers a Vietnam Warfare-era cartoon depicting U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson pointing at a Vietnam-shaped scar. American illustrator Levine drew inspiration from a photograph of Johnson displaying reporters his scar from gall-bladder surgical procedure.
Bell mentioned he had been accused of evoking the “pound of flesh” demanded by the Jewish character Shylock in Shakespeare’s play “The Service provider of Venice.”
He informed trade newspaper the Press Gazette that “The Service provider of Venice” had “nothing to do with the cartoon.”
“I don’t promote dangerous antisemitic stereotypes. … By no means have I completed such a factor, I might not dream of doing such a factor,” the publication quoted him as saying.
Britain has a protracted custom of cartoons displaying politicians in exaggerated and grotesque kind. Bell has created a number of the most indelible caricatures of current British leaders, portraying former Prime Minister John Main sporting underpants over his trousers, Tony Blair with a demonic outsized eye and David Cameron with a condom over his head.
