As WWII and the Holocaust have receded from public memory, it has become progressively easier to pass off words and images that might once have been readily recognised as antisemitic as something else.
All human beings harbour prejudices of one kind or another. Yet anyone with self-awareness understands that prejudice is an insult to the truth, and so, for the most part, we keep our prejudices in check. They remain latent, but they do not go away. In times of social distress and heightened anxiety, they come to the fore.
We are living through such times now. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recrudescence of antisemitism in Western societies in recent years, most conspicuously after Hamas initiated its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Since the horrors of the Nazi era, antisemitism has been stamped indelibly with the stigma of evil, but in our own time, concerted efforts are being made to give antisemitism a makeover by clothing it in the language of justice, peace and human rights. This is like putting lipstick on a pig.
No matter how vociferously they deny it, those who deploy classical antisemitic tropes as a means of conveying political messages are engaging in antisemitism. Their subjective intentions, actual or professed, are irrelevant. Words and images in any given context have a life of their own and can be judged accordingly.
A case in point was the cartoon headed “Running on Empty: Oil Check”, which appeared in the Australian Financial Review on March 21.
Image of David Rowe cartoon published by the Australian Financial Review on 21 March 2026.
The cartoon depicted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu riding a missile in the form of US President Donald Trump and conducting an oil check on it, with the caption reading: “Running on empty. Oil check.” Overall, the cartoon’s message was that the US-Israel war against the Iranian regime is faltering because of the regime’s disruption of oil supplies and the threat of petroleum shortages. If that was all there was to the cartoon, it would have made a telling point and been unobjectionable.
Regrettably, there was much more to the cartoon of a less innocent nature.
The words “OY VEY” appeared next to the image of the Israeli prime minister. “Oy vey” is a Yiddish expression that simply conveys dismay or exasperation. Neo-Nazis and other antisemites have frequently used this same Yiddish expression to belittle Jewish identity and emotion and to stoke anti-Jewish contempt.
There was more than a hint of that in the cartoon. The expression “Oy vey” is not Hebrew, the language of Israel. The cartoon, therefore, not only depicted Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister but also essentialised him as a Jew.
Another feature of the cartoon was a speech bubble from the Trump figure reading: “Torah! Torah! Torah! Or whatever.” Superficially, this is an allusion to the code words “Tora, Tora, Tora!” used by Japanese fighter pilots to confirm their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, a parallel referenced by the US president at a recent media conference with the Japanese prime minister.
However, the Hebrew word Torah means “teaching” and bears no relationship to the Japanese word “Tora”, which means tiger. Referring to the Torah in this context was a gratuitous form of mockery of the most sacred text of Judaism, which is also holy to Christians and Muslims.
A third feature of the cartoon was the “oil” being drawn from the Trump-shaped missile and fuelling its journey. The oil was depicted as red, the colour of blood, not oil. This reprises a classic trope known as the blood libel. Since medieval times, it has been used to accuse Jews collectively of wantonly shedding innocent blood, as a means of fanning hatred against Jews and providing a pretext for shedding innocent Jewish blood.
To their credit, the editorial team at The Australian Financial Review has now recognised that the cartoon exceeded the bounds of political commentary and transgressed into anti-Jewish stereotyping. One can accept that this would not have been immediately apparent to them. Few people are deeply familiar with the history of the Jewish people and of antisemitism.
This, perhaps, is the single most important lesson to be drawn from the scrutiny which the cartoon attracted. As World War II and the Holocaust have receded from public memory, it has become progressively easier to pass off words and images that might once have been readily recognised as antisemitic as something else.
In unstable times, when ignorance is being exploited to isolate, demonise, silence and disempower Jews, either individually or as a community, education might not be a complete answer to prejudice, but it surely has to be a central part of the answer.
AFR editor’s note:
The Australian Financial Review received a number of complaints about a cartoon by David Rowe published on March 21. The drawing depicts the prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, expressing consternation over US President Donald Trump’s Pearl Harbour comments in the midst of the Middle East conflict.
While there is room for a range of interpretations, we have listened to feedback from our readers and accept that certain language and imagery used in the cartoon caused offence. The Financial Review apologises for that.
The clear intent of the cartoon was to use the Pearl Harbour remarks to portray Trump as an unguided missile and to suggest the war in the Middle East was not progressing as envisaged by the US or Israel. The Financial Review believes it is not unreasonable to portray Trump/Netanyahu as a united force, given that they are allies in the Iran war with similar objectives.
Antisemitism is becoming harder to recognise in the West
Antisemitism is becoming harder to recognise in the West
Commentary by co-CEO Peter Wertheim, originally published in the Australian Financial Review on 7 April 2026.
As WWII and the Holocaust have receded from public memory, it has become progressively easier to pass off words and images that might once have been readily recognised as antisemitic as something else.
All human beings harbour prejudices of one kind or another. Yet anyone with self-awareness understands that prejudice is an insult to the truth, and so, for the most part, we keep our prejudices in check. They remain latent, but they do not go away. In times of social distress and heightened anxiety, they come to the fore.
We are living through such times now. Nowhere is this more evident than in the recrudescence of antisemitism in Western societies in recent years, most conspicuously after Hamas initiated its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.
Since the horrors of the Nazi era, antisemitism has been stamped indelibly with the stigma of evil, but in our own time, concerted efforts are being made to give antisemitism a makeover by clothing it in the language of justice, peace and human rights. This is like putting lipstick on a pig.
No matter how vociferously they deny it, those who deploy classical antisemitic tropes as a means of conveying political messages are engaging in antisemitism. Their subjective intentions, actual or professed, are irrelevant. Words and images in any given context have a life of their own and can be judged accordingly.
A case in point was the cartoon headed “Running on Empty: Oil Check”, which appeared in the Australian Financial Review on March 21.
The cartoon depicted Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu riding a missile in the form of US President Donald Trump and conducting an oil check on it, with the caption reading: “Running on empty. Oil check.” Overall, the cartoon’s message was that the US-Israel war against the Iranian regime is faltering because of the regime’s disruption of oil supplies and the threat of petroleum shortages. If that was all there was to the cartoon, it would have made a telling point and been unobjectionable.
Regrettably, there was much more to the cartoon of a less innocent nature.
The words “OY VEY” appeared next to the image of the Israeli prime minister. “Oy vey” is a Yiddish expression that simply conveys dismay or exasperation. Neo-Nazis and other antisemites have frequently used this same Yiddish expression to belittle Jewish identity and emotion and to stoke anti-Jewish contempt.
There was more than a hint of that in the cartoon. The expression “Oy vey” is not Hebrew, the language of Israel. The cartoon, therefore, not only depicted Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister but also essentialised him as a Jew.
Another feature of the cartoon was a speech bubble from the Trump figure reading: “Torah! Torah! Torah! Or whatever.” Superficially, this is an allusion to the code words “Tora, Tora, Tora!” used by Japanese fighter pilots to confirm their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941, a parallel referenced by the US president at a recent media conference with the Japanese prime minister.
However, the Hebrew word Torah means “teaching” and bears no relationship to the Japanese word “Tora”, which means tiger. Referring to the Torah in this context was a gratuitous form of mockery of the most sacred text of Judaism, which is also holy to Christians and Muslims.
A third feature of the cartoon was the “oil” being drawn from the Trump-shaped missile and fuelling its journey. The oil was depicted as red, the colour of blood, not oil. This reprises a classic trope known as the blood libel. Since medieval times, it has been used to accuse Jews collectively of wantonly shedding innocent blood, as a means of fanning hatred against Jews and providing a pretext for shedding innocent Jewish blood.
To their credit, the editorial team at The Australian Financial Review has now recognised that the cartoon exceeded the bounds of political commentary and transgressed into anti-Jewish stereotyping. One can accept that this would not have been immediately apparent to them. Few people are deeply familiar with the history of the Jewish people and of antisemitism.
This, perhaps, is the single most important lesson to be drawn from the scrutiny which the cartoon attracted. As World War II and the Holocaust have receded from public memory, it has become progressively easier to pass off words and images that might once have been readily recognised as antisemitic as something else.
In unstable times, when ignorance is being exploited to isolate, demonise, silence and disempower Jews, either individually or as a community, education might not be a complete answer to prejudice, but it surely has to be a central part of the answer.
AFR editor’s note:
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