The Guardian has deleted and apologized for a Martin Rowson cartoon of outgoing BBC Chairman Richard Sharp after the image was accused of evoking anti-Semitic tropes.
The British broadsheet newspaper removed the cartoon from its website on Saturday following a social media backlash, in which figures from the Jewish community voiced their shock.
Sharp resigned as the BBC’s Chairman on Friday after he failed to properly declare his role in facilitating an £800,000 ($1M) loan guarantee for former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Rowson’s illustration pictured a grinning caricature of Sharp, who is Jewish. He has an enlarged nose and is carrying a Goldman Sachs office box, apparently stuffed with gold and a squid.
The Goldman Sachs box is a reference to Sharp’s former employer, which was famously described by Rolling Stone as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money.”
Squids also double as a “common anti-Semitic motif,” according to Dave Rich, an author who specializes in anti-Semitism. They have been used to depict the conspiracy theory that powerful Jewish forces have their tentacles wrapped around parts of society they seek to control.
“You might argue that outsized facial features and tentacles are common to other topics too, so it’s just a cartoon thing,” Rich said. “Except where something has a long and familiar anti-Semitic history, it takes on a different meaning when you apply it to Jews.”
Others voiced their concern. Stephen Pollard, the Editor-at-Large at The Jewish Chronicle, tweeted that it was “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.”
Tracy-Ann Oberman, the Doctor Who and Friday Night Dinner actress, said she did a “double-take” when she first looked at the cartoon. Bill Neely, the former Chief Global Correspondent at NBC News, added: “Enough racist dog-whistling, even in cartoons!”
The Guardian took down the cartoon on Saturday afternoon UK time. In a statement on Twitter, it said: “We understand the concerns that have been raised. 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.”
Rowson also apologized, saying the illustration was a result of “carelessness and thoughtlessness.” He added: “Many people are understandably very upset. I genuinely apologise, unconditionally.”