Why Cucking Never Works: The Case of Steve Bell and the Guardian
In the wake of the prominent German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung dismissing its long-serving cartoonist Dieter Hanitzsch after he published an anti-Zionist cartoon that Israel’s lobby immediately claimed as ‘anti-Semitic’, which I have commented on and in the course of which pointed out that this would likely be used as a wedge by the same to suppress criticism of Israel. (1)
We have now seen the results in the same charge being levelled at the Guardian - the UK’s main left-wing news outlet – over an unpublished anti-Zionist cartoon by the publication in-house cartoonist Steve Bell.
To wit:
‘Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell has denied using "anti-Semitic tropes" after one of his drawings was spiked by the newspaper's editor Katharine Viner.
In two emails sent to journalists in The Guardian's newsroom seen by HuffPost UK, Bell claimed he had been "unfairly traduced and censored".
His cartoon featured Theresa May sitting alongside Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu in front of a fire, in which Palestinian medic Razan al-Najjar is burning. The 21-year-old was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier on June 4.
Bell said: "I cannot for the life of me begin to understand criticism of the cartoon that begins by dragging in 'wood-burning stoves', 'ovens', 'holocaust', or any other nazi-related nonsense. That was the last thing on my mind when I drew it, I had no intention of conflating the issues of the mass murder of European Jews and Gaza.
"The cartoon is sensitive, not tasteless, not disrespectful, and certainly contains no anti-Semitic tropes. It should have been published as it stands, but if you are still obdurate that it should remain unpublished, then I feel a duty to my subject to try and salvage something from this fiasco."
Anti-racism groups caution that depicting Jewish people taking actions that recall the atrocities of the Holocaust is a typically anti-Semitic trope.
HuffPost UK understands Bell last week he had another cartoon spiked which portrayed Theresa May as a Russian journalist lying in pool of blood.’ (2)
Now I have looked at the cartoon in question – which I reproduce below – and I cannot see anything remotely ‘anti-Semitic’ in it and as a self-confessed anti-Semite I should know.
The argument that Bell is using so-called ‘anti-Semitic tropes’ is simply a vague charge of lèse-majesté by the Israel Lobby and the jewish community more broadly – as is demonstrated by the vacuous and unspecific nature of the charges levelled against Bell’s otherwise unremarkable cartoon – (3) which is tantamount to a ‘you aren’t allowed to criticise anything we don’t like’ argument.
As such this means that having successfully gotten Dieter Hanitzsch sacked from the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Israel Lobby is now seeking to get another scalp in the form of Steve Bell’s job at the Guardian so that it can both be rid of annoying and effective opponents in the media and also as a way of intimidating those who would speak out against Israel, jews and Judaism by bluntly declaring - via the precedent set by the attacks on Bell and Hanitzsch - what will happen to those who dare to do so.
That is why cucking doesn’t work: it sets precedents and expectations that then proceed to work against you, which wouldn’t happen if you hadn’t of bowed to jewish pressure in the first place.
References
(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/why-cucking-doesnt-work-the-case-75f
(2) https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2018/06/07/guardian-cartoonist-steve-bell-denies-anti-semitism-claims-after-drawing-spiked-by-editor_a_23453156/
(3) For example: https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6478366/guardian-cartoonist-steve-bell-anti-semitism-accusation/ and https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/guardian-cartoonist-steve-bell-denies-antisemitism-cartoon-1.465204