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UK Police Urged to Take Action Against Cartoonist Over Antisemitic ‘Blood Libel’ Depiction of Netanyahu
British cartoonist Bob Moran’s antisemitic depiction of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanyahu. Image: X/Twitter
A British cartoonist has been reported to the police and the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) over a viscerally antisemitic depiction of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he shared on X/Twitter over the weekend.
The cartoon by artist Bob Moran shows Netanyahu wearing a deadened expression as he consumes the flesh of Palestinian children at a table covered with blood. Alongside him, dressed in butler’s uniforms and serving him the meal, are US President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who studiously ignore the children’s corpses against a background of devastated buildings in Gaza. One word — “Kosher” — is positioned at the top of the image.
Several respondents pointed to Moran’s invocation of classic antisemitic tropes, such as the medieval blood libel, which falsely held that Jews use the blood of Christian children for their religious rituals, and unaccountable power and influence over foreign governments, as demonstrated by the servile postures in the representations of Biden and Sunak.
“This cartoon…combines three antisemitic tropes of Christian origin,” commented Saul Zadka, a Bible scholar based in Tel Aviv. “Control the world, enslaving non-Jews to do their bidding. They try to supplant the true lord, Jesus…Kill and eat babies and innocents, as they once did to Jesus…Are paragons of hypocrisy, focusing on ‘pharisaic’ ritual purity while rejecting morality, rejecting Jesus.”
Zadka then added: “Moran knew what he was doing, he wants to be martyred, crucified. He wants to be a victim. Christians have almost completely left all this behind, but it’s kept alive by the far left.”
Other social media users merely expressed disgust. “I am truly shocked Bob. This is an antisemitic hate trope. Awful,” one post read.
Among those pledging to report Moran to the police and the CPS was Laura Dodsworth, an author and journalist who contributes to several British media outlets.
“This cartoon is indistinguishable in character and style from the Nazis vile antisemitic propaganda,” Dodsworth wrote. “One specific Nazi counterpart showed a Jew eating children. Nazi-style slurs against Jews have no place in modern Britain.”
However, Moran doubled down on his cartoon, angrily denying that it trafficked in antisemitic tropes and even denying that Netanyahu belongs to the Jewish people.
“By the way, as far as I’m concerned, there are no Jews in that cartoon,” he posted. “If you think the man in the middle is a Jew, you have no understanding of the Jewish faith. Or any faith. Or basic morality.”
A former contributor to The Guardian and Telegraph news outlets, Moran is currently unemployed. He was fired from the Telegraph in 2021 after he used his Twitter feed to attack a doctor who recommended wearing protective masks during the COVID-19 pandemic, telling his followers that she “deserves to be verbally abused.”
The current spat around Moran is the latest in a series of controversies concerning antisemitic images in the British press.
In April 2023, The Guardian was forced to apologize after it published a cartoon of Richard Sharp, the outgoing Jewish chairman of the BBC, showing him with a hooked nose and a sinister grin while holding a box labeled with the name of the Goldman Sachs investment bank, where he previously worked.
In October that year, the same paper announced that it was firing veteran contributor Steve Bell over a cartoon that showed Netanyahu preparing to cut his abdomen in the shape of the Gaza Strip with a scalpel. Editors at The Guardian feared that Bell’s cartoon evoked the “pound of flesh” demanded by the Jewish character Shylock in William Shakespeare’s play “The Merchant of Venice.”
The post UK Police Urged to Take Action Against Cartoonist Over Antisemitic ‘Blood Libel’ Depiction of Netanyahu first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Security Warning to Israelis Vacationing Abroad Ahead of holidays
A passenger arrives to a terminal at Ben Gurion international airport before Israel bans international flights, January 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – Ahead of the Jewish High Holidays, Israel’s National Security Council (NSC) published the latest threat assessment to Israelis abroad from terrorist groups to the public on Sunday, in order to increase the Israeli public’s awareness of the existing terrorist threats around the world and encourage individuals to take preventive action accordingly.
The NSC specified that the warning is an up-to-date reflection of the main trends in the activities of terrorist groups around the world and their impact on the level of threat posed to Israelis abroad during these times, but the travel warnings and restrictions themselves are not new.
“As the Gaza war continues and in parallel with the increasing threat of terrorism, the National Security Headquarters stated it has recognized a trend of worsening and increasing violent antisemitic incidents and escalating steps by anti-Israel groups, to the point of physically harming Israelis and Jews abroad. This is in light of, among other things, the anti-Israel narrative and the negative media campaign by pro-Palestinian elements — a trend that may encourage and motivate extremist elements to carry out terrorist activities against Israelis or Jews abroad,” the statement read.
“Therefore, the National Security Bureau is reinforcing its recommendation to the Israeli public to act with responsibility during this time when traveling abroad, to check the status of the National Security Bureau’s travel warnings (before purchasing tickets to the destination,) and to act in accordance with the travel warning recommendations and the level of risk in the country they are visiting,” it listed, adding that, as illustrated in the past year, these warnings are well-founded and reflect a tangible and valid threat potential.
The statement also emphasized the risk of sharing content on social media networks indicating current or past service in the Israeli security forces, as these posts increase the risk of being marked by various parties as a target. “Therefore, the National Security Council recommends that you do not upload to social networks, in any way, content that indicates service in the security forces, operational activity, or similar content, as well as real-time locations.”
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Israel Intensifies Gaza City Bombing as Rubio Arrives
Displaced Palestinians, fleeing northern Gaza due to an Israeli military operation, move southward after Israeli forces ordered residents of Gaza City to evacuate to the south, in the central Gaza Strip September 14, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Israeli forces destroyed at least 30 residential buildings in Gaza City and forced thousands of people from their homes, Palestinian officials said, as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived on Sunday to discuss the future of the conflict.
Israel has said it plans to seize the city, where about a million Palestinians have been sheltering, as part of its declared aim of eliminating the terrorist group Hamas, and has intensified attacks on what it has called Hamas’ last bastion.
The group’s political leadership, which has engaged in on-and-off negotiations on a possible ceasefire and hostage release deal, was targeted by Israel in an airstrike in Doha on Tuesday in an attack that drew widespread condemnation.
Qatar will host an emergency Arab-Islamic summit on Monday to discuss the next moves. Rubio said Washington wanted to talk about how to free the 48 hostages – of whom 20 are believed to be still alive – still held by Hamas in Gaza and rebuild the coastal strip.
“What’s happened, has happened,” he said. “We’re gonna meet with them (the Israeli leadership). We’re gonna talk about what the future holds,” Rubio said before heading to Israel where he will stay until Tuesday.
ABRAHAM ACCORDS AT RISK
He was expected to visit the Western Wall Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem on Sunday with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hold talks with him during the visit.
US officials described Tuesday’s strike on the territory of a close US ally as a unilateral escalation that did not serve American or Israeli interests. Rubio and US President Donald Trump both met Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Friday.
Netanyahu signed an agreement on Thursday to push ahead with a settlement expansion plan that would cut across West Bank land that the Palestinians seek for a state – a move the United Arab Emirates warned would undermine the US-brokered Abraham accords that normalized UAE relations with Israel.
Israel, which blocked all food from entering Gaza for 11 weeks earlier this year, has been allowing more aid into the enclave since late July to prevent further food shortages, though the United Nations says far more is needed.
It says it wants civilians to leave Gaza City before it sends more ground forces in. Tens of thousands of people are estimated to have left but hundreds of thousands remain in the area. Hamas has called on people not to leave.
Israeli army forces have been operating inside at least four eastern suburbs for weeks, turning most of at least three of them into wastelands. It is closing in on the center and the western areas of the territory, where most of the displaced people are taking shelter.
Many are reluctant to leave, saying there is not enough space or safety in the south, where Israel has told them to go to what it has designated as a humanitarian zone.
Some say they cannot afford to leave while others say they were hoping the Arab leaders meeting on Monday in Qatar would pressure Israel to scrap its planned offensive.
“The bombardment intensified everywhere and we took down the tents, more than twenty families, we do not know where to go,” said Musbah Al-Kafarna, displaced in Gaza City.
Israel said it had completed five waves of air strikes on Gaza City over the past week, targeting more than 500 sites, including Hamas reconnaissance and sniper sites, buildings containing tunnel openings and weapons depots.
Local officials, who do not distinguish between militant and civilian casualties, say at least 40 people were killed by Israeli fire across the enclave, a least 28 in Gaza City alone.
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Turkey Warns of Escalation as Israel Expands Strikes Beyond Gaza
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
i24 News – An Israeli strike targeting Hamas officials in Qatar has sparked unease among several Middle Eastern countries that host leaders of the group, with Turkey among the most alarmed.
Officials in Ankara are increasingly worried about how far Israel might go in pursuing those it holds responsible for the October 7 attacks.
Israel’s prime minister effectively acknowledged that the Qatar operation failed to eliminate the Hamas leadership, while stressing the broader point the strike was meant to make: “They enjoy no immunity,” the government said.
On X, Prime Minister Netanyahu went further, writing that “the elimination of Hamas leaders would put an end to the war.”
A senior Turkish official, speaking on condition of anonymity, summed up Ankara’s reaction: “The attack in Qatar showed that the Israeli government is ready to do anything.”
Legally and diplomatically, Turkey occupies a delicate position. As a NATO member, any military operation or targeted killing on its soil could inflame tensions within the alliance and challenge mutual security commitments.
Analysts caution, however, that Israel could opt for covert measures, operations carried out without public acknowledgement, a prospect that has increased anxiety in governments across the region.
Israeli officials remain defiant. In an interview with Ynet, Minister Ze’ev Elkin said: “As long as we have not stopped them, we will pursue them everywhere in the world and settle our accounts with them.” The episode underscores growing fears that efforts to hunt Hamas figures beyond Gaza could widen regional friction and complicate diplomatic relationships.