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British newspapers antisemitic cartoons of Zack Polanski (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 3 months ago by insubstantialpageant@sopuli.xyz to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

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[-] FishFace@piefed.social 91 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Side view for more comparison:

Top right: clearest case IMO. nose clearly bears no resemblance to his actual nose, whereas large hooked noses are the most common physical anti-semitic stereotype.

Top left: huge lips is another classic Nazi stereotype. Big ears arguably also, but he does have pretty big ears. The drooping eyes are a more subtle stereotype, but given that his actual eyes are narrow, not drooping, that's pretty suspicious IMO. Contrast top-right, which caricatures his real eyes.

Bottom left: fucking cursed, but I can't see anything anti-semitic

Bottom right: unhinged, but again not anti-semitic that I can see. There have been some depictions of jews as snakes, hence having forked tongues, but they're not super common that I can see so it's a bit of a stretch.

[-] onthesolivine@fedia.io 32 points 3 months ago

for the bottom right: the tongue is not forked on the actual ghost, they added that intentionally

[-] FishFace@piefed.social 17 points 3 months ago

OK but saying a politician is a snake or devil of some kind isn't unusual, so unless we can find some anti-semitic trope it's based on, I don't see it.

Ironically, the most common example I know if is Farage as depicted by Martin Rowson!

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[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The four cartoon pics straight up look like they were drawn by A. Wyatt Mann.

Edit: THREE cartoons and a PHOTO MANIPULATION, thank you for correcting fuckin pedant, feels like I’m back on Reddit thanks

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[-] mirshafie@europe.pub 71 points 3 months ago

What the actual fuck. Nevermind the antisemitism for a second, why are they even bashing politicians based on appearance in the first place? British media is unhinged.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 56 points 3 months ago

It's a standard thing they do to anybody vaguely left wing.

If your election promise isn't to go visit all the billionaire media owners and personally suck them off, you're not going anywhere in the UK.

[-] mirshafie@europe.pub 14 points 3 months ago

Yeah if you published something like that in Sweden you'd get pitchforks shoved up your ass.

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[-] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 7 points 3 months ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Miliband_bacon_sandwich_photograph

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[-] Saapas@piefed.zip 58 points 3 months ago

Photo of the guy for comparison

[-] BruceAlrighty@lemmy.nz 52 points 3 months ago

With teeth like that how could he be anything but British?

[-] Peppycito@sh.itjust.works 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Why is teeth shaming okay? Try to stop being a classist asshole.

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 30 points 3 months ago

I didn't really associate the stereotype of bad teeth with lower class British people. AFAIK the stereotype comes from even rich British aristocrats supposedly having bad dental care.

That said, you are right that applying that stereotype to specific people without first checking if they're upper class is more likely to hit lower class people, especially with how culture has shifted since the stereotype was first formed.

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[-] BruceAlrighty@lemmy.nz 11 points 3 months ago

We don’t associate this with class, we think even your rich have fucked up teeth.

[-] CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You know MAGA face? That's kind of how British people see American teeth: incredibly fake. It's a lot of pain, discomfort, and money to conform to a an unnatural standard solely for apperance.

British teeth aren't rotting and decaying, they just haven't spent years forcibly rearranging the bones in their face.

This does result in classisim in America, because poor families can't afford to rearrange their face bones, and not having cosmetically "perfect" teeth is looked down on.

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[-] Danarchy@lemmy.nz 37 points 3 months ago

Slimer is not Jewish tho for one thing ectocooler was NOT kosher and also when he was eating books in the library those were vellum manuscripts which as you know can only be eaten by Jewish ghosts under certain very specific

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[-] AbsolutelyNotAVelociraptor@piefed.social 36 points 3 months ago

Because when they talk about "anti-semitism" they are actually talking about anti-ZIONISM. Since they are a vassal state of USrael.

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[-] Deceptichum@quokk.au 20 points 3 months ago

Damn this is 100% antisemititic coded.

[-] Gonzako@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago

The media is truly scared of politicians that can't be bought out

[-] CovfefeKills@lemmy.world 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

But are these anti-jewish depictions or are they caricatures? Pretty sure those anti-jewish depictions were caricatures in the first place so hmmm. Is there any proof that this isn't a common way to depict politicians in the UK? Because it feels like typical caricatures.

[-] pyre@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

I'll start by saying I'm not Jewish or a expert in Jewish caricature history so grain of salt:

I'd say top left gets a pass. top right is literally the greedy merchant meme and it barely looks like him. even if it did look like him, you should still be careful not to invoke the Nazi depictions.

bottom right would normally have the highest benefit of the doubt, except Slimer has a very distinct large tongue and they couldn't help but give him a forked tongue.

Bottom left doesn't look like him at all. So it would get a pass but it feels like they focused so much on his nose that they forgot to make it resemble him. So that's also suspect but eh, whatever.

Top right and bottom right are def antisemitic imo. they definitely knew what they were doing, and if you think there's plausible deniability, that was part of the calculation.

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[-] sanbdra@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago

Whatever someone’s politics are, these caricatures are gross and way over the line. Criticism doesn’t need to lean on antisemitic imagery.

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[-] trashboypro 14 points 3 months ago

All of them are owned by a Jewish Zionist family by the way.

[-] flamingos@feddit.uk 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The Telegraph isn't.

Edit: also, I couldn't find any accounts of Murdoch being Jewish?

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[-] BigMacHole@thelemmy.club 11 points 3 months ago

OP is SO STUPID! NONE of these Cartoons showed someone PROTECTING Children from Bombs or PUSHING away Dogs that are RAPING Children! THOSE would be Anti Semetic!

-The BBC and Keir Starmer!

[-] Starduster75@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Here we see those whose ancestors were not cooked in an oven in living memory explaining how this isn't antisemitic, and how maybe people are too sensitive. Thanks for the perspective.

[-] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 11 points 3 months ago

Honestly, I'm failing to see the antisemitism. They're exaggerating his facial features, which is standard practice in editorial cartoons. Unless I'm missing something?

[-] mathemachristian 30 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

He's jewish and the feature they're exaggerating is the nose. There are the type of people that have been crying foul over an italian newspaper printing an image of an iof soldier unedited, saying it's antisemitic

https://www.europesays.com/italy/6360/

[-] unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth 8 points 3 months ago

I don't know the story about the Italian newspaper and the IDF soldier, so I can't judge that.

But I do have to be fair and say the nose is one of the many features they exaggerate (and the nose is very often a feature exaggerated in editorial cartoons, whether the person is Jewish or not). They also exaggerate the ears, his smile, and the gap in his teeth.

[-] BruceAlrighty@lemmy.nz 19 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_nose

It’s a well known antisemitic stereotype.

[-] turdas@suppo.fi 13 points 3 months ago

Exaggerated noses are a trope in caricatures regardless of ethnicity. But more importantly, the guy actually does have a bigger than average nose and big ears. What are the caricaturists supposed to do, not exaggerate his features? That's the point of caricatures.

[-] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago

Look at how wide Polanski's nose is between his eyes, where it transitions into the brow. Now look how narrow his nose is between the eyes in the cartoons, and how there is a dent at his brow that just isn't there IRL.

The cartoons aren't exaggerating Polanski's features, they are drawing an antisemitic "Jew nose".

[-] like@feddit.uk 8 points 3 months ago

The ears and teeth are probably fair game but his nose is normal and unremarkable. The nose in the first three is 100% hook nosed merchant jewish stereotype. The slimer one doesn't seem nearly as bad as the others.

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[-] Kwiila@slrpnk.net 24 points 3 months ago

They aren't exaggerating. They're modifying to fit the "cunning greedy" antisemitic trope face. Big nose is fine, they made his hooked. Tooth gap is fine, they made him look like he's been holding out on the dentist to chew gold. Long, flat side-pointy grin is fine. They made him look like a nervous Grinch contemplating the suffering of others with glee.

The difference is so stark one wonders if you were saying this in good faith, in contrast to the presented dirtbag devil's advocate (there's no reason regardless to give them a benefit of the doubt nor defend them given what their position and the points they're making, even if the art style were borderline).

[-] FishFace@piefed.social 9 points 3 months ago

Top right is the clearest example, it gives him a massive hooked nose. His nose is mostly straight. In contrast, every single Nazi poster depicted jews with, you guessed it, massive hooked noses.

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[-] Sunshine@piefed.ca 10 points 3 months ago

The rich are afraid of chad Polanski

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 9 points 3 months ago

Surprised they haven't drawn him with a rat's tail at this point.

[-] SunshineJogger@feddit.org 7 points 3 months ago

I lack reference. I see caricatures. How do they differ to be specifically antisemitic? Is there a specific detail that makes them that?

[-] flying_sheep@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Yes, it's extremely obvious and disgusting, especially the top two: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Merchant

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[-] answersplease77@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

Zionism does not belong to Judaism

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this post was submitted on 08 May 2026

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