The UK’s Guardian newspaper has fired its cartoonist of 40 years Steve Bell for drawing an apparently anti-semitic image showing Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu carving the shape of Gaza Strip out of his own body.
Critics reportedly felt the image was a reference to Shakespeare’s character Shylock, a Jewish moneylender who demanded his “pound of flesh”, which Bell denied.
“The cartoon is specifically about Benjamin Netanyahu’s disastrous policy failure which has led directly to the hideous recent atrocities around Gaza, and about his proposed response that he had announced, using his actual words addressing the citizens of Gaza,” Bell explained.
In the picture, the Israeli prime minister wears boxing gloves and holds a scalpel over his exposed belly, readying a cut in the shape of Gaza, with the caption: ‘Residents of Gaza, get out now.’
Critics have taken this to be a reference to Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice who demands a ‘pound of flesh’ from someone who cannot pay him back.
Mr Bell has defended the image and decried accusations that he used anti-Semitic tropes – although it is not the first time he has faced these claims.