Dear All,

Last week, when I heard that the Guardian newspaper had sacked its cartoonist Steve Bell over a cartoon on the basis of its being anti-semitic, I was curious as to what merited this as his work is generally quite unforgiving anyway. I thought maybe he’d reinforced the ‘Jewish nose’ stereotype or some such thing, but imagine my surprise when I actually saw the cartoon.

Bell’s cartoon shows Israel’s PM Netanyahu lying down and, while wearing boxing gloves, holding a scalpel to carve the outline of the Gaza strip on his abdomen – as if to excise it. The speech balloon reads, “Residents of Gaza, get out now.” What, you may ask, is the offensive part of this? Bell was told it is because: “Jewish bloke; pound of flesh; anti-Semitic trope.” Apparently, the image could be seen as referencing the moneylender, Shylock, in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice (which is now identified as one of many negative depictions of Jews in English literature).

On being notified of this, Bell published the cartoon on social media and pointed out that his drawing had a historical reference: it alluded to American cartoonist David Levine’s 1966 cartoon of US President Lydon B Johnson. In that year, LBJ had posed for cameras showing a long scar from gall bladder surgery and Levine had then re-drawn this showing the scar in the shape of the map of Vietnam. Bell referenced this quite clearly as ‘After David Levine’. (If only he had omitted the scalpel from the drawing altogether.) And really, if you look at the cartoon it’s more ‘surgical strike’ than ‘pound of flesh.’

It is all so absurd – after all, Bell is a satirist. Satire is sharp and caustic; it is not gentle and sweet and fuzzy. But now satire itself is attacked for political motives: take, for example, another, earlier cartoon by Bell that depicted Boris Johnson, the former PM, with his then home secretary, Priti Patel, both shown with rings in their noses and both looking in a bullish mood. Criticism centred around the allegation that the image was anti-Hindu and that it invoked the words ‘sacred cow’…. There was no logic in these words – Patel was not the only target in the image; Johnson was also shown with a ring in his nose, and the reference was more ‘raging bull’ than ‘sacred cow.’

The weaponisation of anti-Semitism reflects Israel’s overall aggressive stance. Israel now behaves like an out-of-control bully – it insists that everybody must agree with what it says; insists that it can do exactly what it wants, when it wants; and insists that it is above the law and must enjoy complete impunity. The anti-Semitism accusation is a method of silencing dissent and criticism and its enforcement has some really disturbing implications – especially in Britain, a country which views itself as progressive and democratic. Here, the anti-Semitic accusation is used routinely to target and pressure media and academia. Over the last decade, there has been an ongoing campaign of trying to discredit and marginalise any academics and students speaking about the Palestinian issue and criticising Israeli aggression. When the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions against Israel) campaign was at its height, a witch hunt began across US and UK campuses on the basis that the non-violent campaign was actually anti-Semitic and hate-fuelled, posed a threat to Jewish communities and was a strategic threat to Israel.

Universities and departments began to draw up new red lines and define new contractual limitations. Anybody who spoke about the Palestinians or criticised Israel was reprimanded, investigated and terminated. Careers were destroyed, individuals discredited. Campus Palestinian societies began to be treated as some sort of Klu Klux Klan groups. Many of their members were suspended, warned and reprimanded.

Most leading UK universities continue with this policy and in the wake of the October 7 attack and the bombing of Gaza, there has been renewed ‘scrutiny’ possibly as a result of aggressive complaints and lobbying by Israel-linked elements who monitor such comments. Campus groups will often orchestrate outrage and publicise this so much that individuals and organisations are under extreme pressure. An example of this is what has happened recently to two South Asian professors at two London universities.

Both Professor Ashok Kumar of Birbeck University and Professor Mehvish Ahmad of the London School of Economics were accused of ‘supporting’ Hamas on the basis of two different tweets. This is despite the fact that neither one of these tweets mentions either Hamas or Israel.

Prof Kumar’s tweet showed images from the music festival where people were attacked and killed on October 7 with the comment, “Sometimes partying on stolen land next to a concentration camp where a million people are starved has consequences;” Prof Ahmad’s tweet publicised a demonstration in support of Palestinians’ plight saying “Join this demo in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. Decolonisation is not a metaphor. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Meanwhile, at London’s School of Oriental and African Studies, several students were suspended after their participation in a rally held “in solidarity with Gaza.” The university’s stance (in an email responding to the student union) was that the suspension had nothing to do with Palestine but was because protestors “broke safety rules, came out on the main steps and then later rang the fire alarm.” While this may have been the case, it seems unlikely that these are offences which would normally be cause for suspension.

Perhaps in the near future, a mere mention of the word ‘Palestine’ will be cause for suspension, censure, cancellation. Perhaps the mere mention of the word would be cited by Israel as anti-Semitic.

The muzzling of the critical voices and the stifling of debate is going to have a backlash for Israel at some point or another. It is just so ironic that Israelis say, “it’s us or them” and make remarks calling for something akin to a 'final solution'. Another irony is that while the US and the Western media keep going on and on about the danger of Iran and Hezbollah getting involved in the current conflict, what Israel and the US are doing and saying will actually serve to push the Palestinians further push the Palestinians further and further towards Iran and Hezbollah and Hamas. Is this a baiting game as well as a waiting game?

The right to self-defence is a justification others can use too.

Best wishes,

Umber Khairi