Turnbull blasts SMH editor-in-chief over anti-Semitic cartoon

The cartoon, which ran in The Sydney Morning Herald on July 26, shows a Jew with a hooked nose casually destroying Gaza while ­reclining on a chair.

The image, created by illustrator Glen Le Lievre, was complete with a Star of David and also ran on The Age’s website and has not been taken down from online.

Mr Turnbull told Goodsir the cartoon had a disturbing simil­arity with a long and deplorable tradition of anti-Semitic carica­tures. It is understood that Mr Turnbull said the cartoon had caused great offence to many of his constituents and that it went well beyond the criticism of Israeli policy in the column by Mike Carlton which the cartoon illustrated.

The phone call, made in Mr Turnbull’s capacity as federal member for Wentworth in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, which has a large Jewish population, came as the Herald was flooded with complaints from readers about the cartoon and coverage on the conflict in the Middle East.

Prominent Australians have stopped buying Fairfax Media’s The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age over their bias against ­Israel in the Middle East conflict.

One of Australia’s leading immu­nologists, highly regarded professor Ron Penny, and his wife, Naomi, said they stopped their subscription last week after a life spent reading The Sydney Morning Herald.

“We’ve been married 54 years and we’ve had the Herald on our kitchen table all those years, and before that my parents bought it,” Ms Penny said. “It’s 75 years of receiving The Sydney Morning Herald daily six days a week.

“After reading the Mike Carlton article and seeing that cartoon, we decided that whatever happens we cannot possibly subscribe to a publication that could print anything as totally ignorant and ­odious as that.

“Thank god we can live without that horrible publication.”

Professor Penny said as soon as they had cancelled the Herald, they immediately subscribed to The Australian. We’re very pleased that your source exists, otherwise where would we have the opportunity to be comfortable that we’re reading information that is unbiased and not as disgusting as at Fairfax and the ABC?’’ he said.

Former Fairfax board director and businessman Jonathan Pinshaw has also cancelled the Herald subscription he had held for more than 30 years.

He wrote to Fairfax as a subscriber explaining that his reason for cancelling was the unrelenting bias against Israel. The Australian understands he quit his subscription because of the tone and bias in Fairfax’s coverage on the Gaza conflict generally, not the cartoon specifically.

Melbourne business leader and Pratt Foundation chief executive Sam Lipski had already cancelled his subscription to The Age, eight years ago, but he said yesterday: “It is of course utterly disgusting and the worst kind of anti-Semitic ­cartoon.”

While Mr Turnbull declined to comment, Senator Brandis, who is a strong supporter of free speech, said, in his view, coverage in Fairfax newspapers had been “overtly anti-Semitic”.

“I thought the cartoon was ­deplorable,” he said.

“I think that critics of Israel’s foreign policy of course have every right to express their views. But I would have thought that a responsible media organisation would have a very good look at itself when it publishes cartoons (of) the kind we haven’t seen since Germany in the 1930s.

Asked if the cartoon amounted to racial vilification and could encourage or incites others to hate Jewish people, Senator Brandis said: It certainly constitutes a racia­l form of stereotyping.

“I think The Sydney Morning Herald and Fairfax Media in general ought to be very careful about the almost overtly anti-Semitic tone some of their commentary, including their editorial cartoon, have adopted.

Fairfax and Goodsir declined torespond to numerous questions from The Australian. However, today’s edition of the Herald contains an editorial unreservedly apologising for this lapse, and the distress that has been caused

Members of the community have lodged separate complaints with the Australian Press Council and under 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which Senator Brandis has argued should be ­repealed. A senior member of the community said an official course of action was still being determined. “The organised community is still getting legal advice and looking closely at its options,” he said. Possibilities include state-based complaints in both NSW and Victoria under section 20C of the Racial Discrimination Act, which relates to the inciting of racial hatred.