Guardian forced to issue grovelling apology for shocking anti-Semitic cartoon - 'Revoltingly racist!'
The anti-Semitic Guardian cartoon has now been removed from its website
The Guardian
The Guardian has been forced to issue a humiliating apology after publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon attacking outgoing BBC chairman Richard Sharp.
The newspaper admitted the shocking caricature - which was published in Saturday's edition and on its website, before being removed - had failed to meet its editorial standards.
It added: "The Guardian apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended."
The cartoon - by Martin Rowson - depicted Mr Sharp, who is Jewish, as a grinning, big-nosed, puppeteer banker, walking past a bloodied pig's head carrying a box stuffed with gold and a squid.
The squid is a reference to Mr Sharp's former employer, Goldman Sachs, once described by Rolling Stone as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.” But it is also a well-recognised anti-Semitic trope.
Author Dave Rich, an expert in anti-Semitism, said images of squid have often been used to depict the conspiracy theory that 'Jewish forces' have their tentacles wrapped around society and power.
Mr Sharp was Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's boss at Goldman Sachs. The Prime Minister is shown as a puppet in the cartoon.
He said: "The depiction of Richard Sharp in today's Guardian cartoon falls squarely into an antisemitic tradition of depicting Jews with outsized, grotesque features, often in conjunction with money and power. It's appalling
The racist cartoon has appalled Britain's Jewish community
The Guardian
"A squid or octopus is also a common antisemitic motif, used to depict a supposed Jewish conspiracy with its tentacles wrapped around whatever parts of society the Jews supposedly control. Especially money. Are those gold coins in the box with Sharp's squid?
"You might argue that outsized facial features and tentacles are common to other topics too, so it's just a cartoon thing. Except where something has a long and familiar antisemitic history, it takes on a different meaning when you apply it to Jews."
He added: "To put it another way: you might draw Boris Johnson as a gorilla and nobody would mind. But if you drew a black politician that way, it would be racist. Same principle applies here.
"Is it possible that a cartoonist as experienced as Martin Rowson is unaware of these common antisemitic traditions? Or perhaps this just another case of assumptions about Jews, money and power that are so familiar, people don't notice them.
"These assumptions have been built into our world for centuries. They are so familiar that they pass many people by."
The Guardian has apologised for publishing the anti-Semitic cartoon
Guardian
Cartoonist Rowson also issued an apology, conceding his “carelessness and thoughtlessness.”
He added: “Many people are understandably very upset. I genuinely apologise, unconditionally.”
The Guardian did not say whether Rowson, or any other editorial staff, would face an investigation.
Mr Sharp resigned as BBC Chairman on Friday following a probe into his role in facilitating an £800,000 loan guarantee for Boris Johnson.
Stephen Pollard, the former Editor of the Jewish Chronicle, said: "It takes a lot to shock me. And I am well aware of the Guardian's and especially Rowson's form.
"But I still find it genuinely shocking that not a single person looked at this and said, no, we can't run this. To me that's the real issue."
Historian Dr Philip Kiszely added: "I’ve been around a long time and seen more than my fair share of nastiness; I’m not easily shocked.
"But the Left’s anti-Semitism never fails to leave me speechless. It’s maniacal. Revolting."
Richard Sharp resigned as Chairman of the BBC on Friday
DCMS
Last week Diane Abbott was suspended from the Labour Party for claiming white Jewish, Irish and Traveller people do not suffer from racism.
In a letter to the Observer, the Guardian's sister paper, she argued that while white people could suffer from 'prejudice' they were not 'all their lives subject to racism', inferring only black people could suffer racist abuse.
The Guardian's latest apology comes a month to the day after its owner was forced to apologise for the newspaper's historical links to the slave trade.
The Scott Trust admitted the paper's Mancunian founder John Edward Taylor - and other businessmen who helped fund its creation - had profited handsomely from slavery.
Mr Taylor was the the journalist and cotton merchant who started the newspaper's forerunner, The Manchester Guardian in 1821.
The trust said at least £10m would now be dedicated to "descendant communities linked to the Guardian's 19th Century founders".
It issues a statement which read: "The Scott Trust and Guardian apologise unreservedly for their roles in this crime against humanity."
It said it expected to "invest more than £10m" during a decade of restorative justice.