Jewish leaders slam SMH cartoon as “Jew-hatred”

Jewish community leaders have condemned a cartoon published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age as antisemitic, with one victim of the Bondi terror attack calling it “unadulterated Jew-hatred”.

The cartoon by Cathy Wilcox, titled “Grass Roots”, appeared on the opinion pages on Wednesday and depicted various groups calling for a royal commission into the Bondi massacre.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was shown beating a drum, with political figures including John Howard, Sussan Ley and Jacinta Price marching to its beat.

Arsen Ostrovsky, a lobbyist and lawyer who was shot in the head during the December 14 attack, said it was hard to see the drawing “as anything but an unadulterated form of Jew-hatred”.

Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler said the cartoon could have been published in Der Stürmer, a pro-Nazi German newspaper that called for the extermination of Jews as early as 1933.

“Senior people at Nine have some very serious questions to answer,” he said.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies president David Ossip asked, “Particularly after Bondi, how is the board of Nine allowing their publications to become a platform for the promotion of vile antisemitic tropes?”

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said Wilcox’s message to the 15 victims of the massacre was that they “were slaughtered because of Israel and any deviation from this belief makes one a stooge of the Zionists”.

The right leaning Australian Jewish Association posted on X that 15 people, including a 10-year-old girl, were murdered at Bondi Beach in an antisemitic terrorist attack.

“The Jewish community and so many other Australians are calling for an inquiry. The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age runs this cartoon mocking people for speaking up and apparently implying Benjamin Netanyahu is behind it all.”

Liberal Senator Sarah Henderson called the cartoon “deeply offensive” and demanded an apology from both newspapers.

Her Coalition colleague Senator Leah Blythe said the cartoon reflected “this creep of antisemitism into our institutions”.

“I certainly stand with Senator Henderson in calling that cartoon out for what it is and it is antisemitic and I don’t think that has any place in Australia,” Senator Blythe said.

Reportedly, neither Wilcox nor Nine’s group executive editor Luke McIlveen have responded to requests for comment.

The journalists’ union president Michael Balk declined to comment.

The cartoon was published next to a letter describing antisemitism as “the most lethal form of prejudice”.