Being anti-Semitic and skeet shooting

Gerald Scarfe is a brilliant cartoonist, his irony and bite always seemed beyond reproach.

Gerald Scarfe is a brilliant cartoonist. His drawings appear in the New Yorker, London's Sunday Times and he is known for his visuals in Pink Floyd's 1979 album, The Wall. He has an indomitable style — kinetic line work that bites. He depicts Margaret Thatcher as a bloody battle-axe and Richard Nixon's jowls as hanging, loose tape-recording reels. My favourite — a cartoon of Tony Blair and George W Bush titled "In a Terrible Hole". The drawing shows Blair pulling himself out from Bush's rear — illustrating the special relationship enjoyed between Blair and Bush. The cartoons are scathingly inspiring. His irony and bite always seemed beyond reproach. Up until now that is.

Last week, the Sunday Times published a cartoon by Scarfe showing Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paving a brick wall with the blood and bodies of Palestinians, titled "Israeli elections — will cementing peace continue?" The European Jewish Congress and the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemned the cartoon. Scarfe was accused of being an anti-Semite. He countered that the cartoon was directed at Netanyahu's election win and his hardline policies. Rupert Murdoch, the newspaper's proprietor, apologised for the cartoon by saying, "Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe a major apology for this grotesque, offensive cartoon."Murdoch should note that Scarfe has been working at the Sunday Times, as a political cartoonist, since 1967.

But the criticism of Scarfe continued. The Board of Deputies of British Jews stated the cartoon was "shockingly reminiscent of the blood libel imagery more usually found in parts of the virulently anti-Semitic Arab press". This was followed up by the Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, who said the cartoon "caused immense pain to the Jewish community in the UK and around the world. Whatever the intention, the danger of such images is that they reinforce a great slander of our time: that Jews, victims of the Holocaust, are now perpetrators of a similar crime against the Palestinians." Finally, Israel's UK ambassador Daniel Taub remarked, "the image of Israel's security barrier, which is saving the lives of both Jews and Arabs from suicide bombers, being built from Palestinian blood and bodies is baseless and outrageous."

In the past, I also have drawn cartoons critical of Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people and have been accused of being anti-Semitic. My drawings were not an attack on the Jewish faith. These were, rather, critical comments about the policies of the Israeli government. In my opinion, this does not warrant accusations of being an anti-Semite. I am now forced to carry a disclaimer where I say, I believe the state of Israel has every right to exist but I also am fully aware of the injustices the Palestinian people have had to bear. Scarfe issued his own disclaimer. He released a statement on his website stating he has never been anti-Semitic. He goes on to say, "The Sunday Times has given me the freedom of speech over the last 46 years to criticise world leaders for what I see as their wrongdoings. This drawing was a criticism of Netanyahu and not of the Jewish people: there was no slight whatsoever intended against them."

Scarfe is in good company. President Barack Obama, last month, was challenged in an interview with The New Republic and was asked, "Have you ever fired a gun?" He responded, "Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time." The right wing media immediately mocked him and so the White House released a photo of President Obama skeet shooting, rifle smoking, pointed in the air. It's peculiar that the White House felt it needed to prove that the president could shoot — not unlike releasing Obama's long form birth certificate. But as with the birthers, the photograph of President Obama skeet shooting is just a disclaimer and will never satisfy the sceptical.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2013.