Guardian plunged into fresh turmoil over Israel cartoon row

AT the Guardian, they’ve fired cartoonist Steve Bell. His drawing of Benjamin Netanyahu was deemed anti-Semitic and Bell, 72, who has served the paper for more than 40 years, winning awards, is no more.

The image depicted the Israeli prime minister preparing to cut open his own stomach with a scalpel. On his stomach was outlined a map of Gaza. The caption said: “Residents of Gaza, get out now.” The paper’s taste monitors said it was referring to a “pound of flesh”, the terrible demand from the Jewish Shylock in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

Bell insists it’s a reference to the famous Sixties cartoon by David Levine, characterising US president Lyndon B Johnson with a Vietnam-shaped scar on his torso during the Vietnam war. To make his point, Bell inserted the words “After David Levine” above the credit.