The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a cool animated film of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery
ByThe Associated Press
October 19, 2023, 8:01 AM
FILE – Steve Bell, a veteran cartoonist with Britian’s Guardian newspaper, talks to the Associated Press on the release 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 cool animated film of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery. The Guardian mentioned “the decision has been made not to renew Steve Bell’s contract.” (AP Photo/Alastair Grant, File)
The Associated Press
LONDON — The Guardian newspaper has fired longtime editorial cartoonist Steve Bell after refusing to run a cool animated film of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that critics mentioned drew on antisemitic imagery.
“The decision has been made not to renew Steve Bell’s contract,” the Guardian mentioned.
“Steve Bell’s cartoons have been an important part of the Guardian over the past 40 years — we thank him and wish him all the best,” writer Guardian News and Media mentioned in a observation despatched to The Associated Press on Thursday.
Bell has contributed to The Guardian since 1983. Several of his masses of cartoons through the years were accused of together with anti-Jewish stereotypes. The newest caricature, posted through Bell on social media, presentations Netanyahu maintaining a scalpel and getting ready to chop a Gaza-shaped incision in his stomach, with the caption “Residents of Gaza, get out now.”
It is categorized “after David Levine” and remembers a Vietnam War-era caricature depicting U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson pointing at a Vietnam-shaped scar. American illustrator Levine drew inspiration from a photograph of Johnson appearing journalists his scar from gall-bladder surgical operation.
Bell mentioned he have been accused of evoking the “pound of flesh” demanded through the Jewish personality Shylock in Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice.”
He advised trade newspaper the Press Gazette that “The Merchant of Venice” had “nothing to do with the cartoon.”
“I don’t promote harmful antisemitic stereotypes. … Never have I done such a thing, I would not dream of doing such a thing,” the e-newsletter quoted him as pronouncing.
Britain has a protracted custom of cartoons appearing politicians in exaggerated and gruesome shape. Bell has created some of probably the most indelible caricatures of fresh British leaders, portraying former Prime Minister John Major dressed in underpants over his trousers, Tony Blair with a demonic outsized eye and David Cameron with a condom over his head.
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