Uncategorized
Guardian apologizes for cartoon of outgoing BBC chair criticized as antisemitic
(JTA) — The Guardian deleted and apologized for a cartoon of outgoing BBC Chairman Richard Sharp widely criticized for channeling multiple antisemitic tropes.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews has requested a meeting with the Guardian’s editor over the cartoon. Meanwhile, the cartoonist, Martin Rowson, issued a lengthy statement in which he said, “The cartoon was a failure and on many levels: I offended the wrong people.”
On Friday, Sharp, a former banker who is Jewish, announced he was resigning in the wake of a scandal after just over two years in his BBC role. Rowson, a prominent political cartoonist, drew a dark caricature of Sharp holding a box with the label of Goldman Sachs, his former employer. Inside the box were a squid and a head with an elongated nose.
To many who viewed it, the imagery offered echoes of historical antisemitic caricatures, including those published by the Nazis, as well as references to contemporary antisemitic tropes.
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. pic.twitter.com/1QHfjGW6Ok
— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) April 29, 2023
“All the component parts were there: the large nose, the lips, the Fagin-like sneer, and, of course, what appears to be money. It’s a racialised depiction of a Jew,” Dave Rich, head of policy at the Community Security Trust, which advocates for British Jews and works with police on Jewish security issues, wrote Monday in a Guardian op-ed.
Rich noted that squids and other tentacled monsters often represent the antisemitic trope that Jews control the world. (George Soros, the Jewish billionaire criticized harshly on the right for his support of liberal causes, has often been depicted as an octopus or tentacled monster.)
Stephen Pollard, an editor-at-large of Britain’s Jewish Chronicle, tweeted that he found it “genuinely shocking that not a single person looked at this and said, no, we can’t run this.”
The Guardian removed the cartoon on Saturday. “We understand the concerns that have been raised,” the newspaper said in a statement shortly after taking down the image. “This cartoon does not meet our editorial standards, and we have decided to remove it from our website. The Guardian apologises to Mr Sharp, to the Jewish community and to anyone offended.”
In a lengthy statement, Rowson said Sharp’s Jewishness “never crossed my mind as I drew him” but said that “the cartoon was a failure on many levels.” Rowson has drawn criticism before for his depiction of Jewish figures.
Sharp, 67, is a Conservative Party ally and was formerly the boss of current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Goldman Sachs. His resignation follows an investigation that found Sharp had not properly disclosed his role in helping Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister at the time, secure a loan worth close to $1 million. He also told Johnson of his plan to apply to the BBC position before he applied for it, barrister Adam Heppinstall wrote in his report.
—
The post Guardian apologizes for cartoon of outgoing BBC chair criticized as antisemitic appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Israel’s Netanyahu Hopes to ‘Taper’ Israel Off US Military Aid in Next Decade
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview published on Friday that he hopes to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.
Netanyahu has said Israel should not be reliant on foreign military aid but has stopped short of declaring a firm timeline for when Israel would be fully independent from Washington.
“I want to taper off the military within the next 10 years,” Netanyahu told The Economist. Asked if that meant a tapering “down to zero,” he said: “Yes.”
Netanyahu said he told President Donald Trump during a recent visit that Israel “very deeply” appreciates “the military aid that America has given us over the years, but here too we’ve come of age and we’ve developed incredible capacities.”
In December, Netanyahu said Israel would spend 350 billion shekels ($110 billion) on developing an independent arms industry to reduce dependency on other countries.
In 2016, the US and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.
Israeli defense exports rose 13 percent last year, with major contracts signed for Israeli defense technology including its advanced multi-layered aerial defense systems.
US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Israel supporter and close ally of Trump, said on X that “we need not wait ten years” to begin scaling back military aid to Israel.
“The billions in taxpayer dollars that would be saved by expediting the termination of military aid to Israel will and should be plowed back into the US military,” Graham said. “I will be presenting a proposal to Israel and the Trump administration to dramatically expedite the timetable.”
Uncategorized
In Rare Messages from Iran, Protesters ask West for Help, Speak of ‘Very High’ Death Toll
Protests in Tehran. Photo: Iran Photo from social media used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law, via i24 News
i24 News – Speaking to Western media from beyond the nationwide internet blackout imposed by the Islamic regime, Iranian protesters said they needed support amid a brutal crackdown.
“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tajrish Arg area [a neighborhood in Tehran],” said a protester in Tehran speaking to the Guardian on the condition of anonymity. He added that “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
Another activist in Tehran spoke of witnessing security forces firing live ammunition at protesters resulting in a “very high” number killed.
On Friday, TIME magazine cited a Tehran doctor speaking on condition of anonymity that just six hospitals in the capital recorded at least 217 killed protesters, “most by live ammunition.”
Speaking to Reuters on Saturday, Setare Ghorbani, a French-Iranian national living in the suburbs of Paris, said that she became ill from worry for her friends inside Iran. She read out one of her friends’ last messages before losing contact: “I saw two government agents and they grabbed people, they fought so much, and I don’t know if they died or not.”
Uncategorized
Report: US Increasingly Regards Iran Protests as Having Potential to Overthrow Regime
United States President Donald J Trump in White House in Washington, DC, USA, on Thursday, December 18, 2025. Photo: Aaron Schwartz via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – The assessment in Washington of the strength and scope of the Iran protests has shifted after Thursday’s turnout, with US officials now inclined to grant the possibility that this could be a game changer, Axios reported on Friday.
“The protests are serious, and we will continue to monitor them,” an unnamed senior US official was quoted as saying in the report.
Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after the Islamic regime blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as videos circulating on social media showed buildings ablaze in anti-government protests raging across the country.
US President Donald Trump warned the Ayatollahs of a strong response if security forces escalate violence against protesters.
“We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” Trump told reporters when asked about the unrest in Iran.
The latest reported death toll is at 51 protesters, including nine children.