A cartoon published in the Sydney Morning Herald that linked the Jewish faith with the Israeli rocket attacks on Gaza has breached the Australian Press Council’s standards of practice.



The cartoon by Glen Le Lievre was published in July 2014 alongside a Saturday column by veteran writer Mike Carlton.

The reaction to the cartoon and the column resulted in Carlton’s sudden resignation.

Six months later, the press council has ruled that the cartoon caused greater offence to readers than was justifiable in the public interest and the paper published the adjudication on Saturday.

The cartoon depicted “an elderly man with a large nose, wearing the distinctively Jewish head covering called a kippah or yarmulke, and sitting in an armchair emblazoned with the Star of David”, the council said. “He was pointing a TV remote control device at an exploding cityscape, implied to be Gaza.”

“A linkage with Israeli nationality might have been justifiable in the public interest, despite being likely to cause offence,” the ruling said. “But the same cannot be said of the implied linkage with the Jewish faith that arose from inclusion of the kippah and the Star of David.”

The newspaper told the council after complaints were made against the cartoon that in hindsight it agreed that it had placed gratuitous emphasis on the Jewishness of its subject “and in doing so had inappropriately emphasised religious persuasion rather than Israeli nationality, thereby causing offence”.

The newspaper said in its defence that it had published a 650-word apology a week later.

In the wake of the furore extra layers of approval have been added and the editor-in-chief and news director had attended seminars with the Jewish Board of Deputies, who had complained about the cartoon and the column.

The paper stood by the column but insisted Carlton apologise to readers he had offended in emails.

Carlton told Guardian Australia at the time that he believed he had been suspended because of the language he used with readers but also because of a vigorous campaign to undermine him by News Corp.

The Australian had reported that some readers who wrote to complain about his views on the conflict in Gaza received emails telling them to “fuck off”.

“The images from Gaza are searing, a gallery of death and horror,” Carlton had written. “A dishevelled Palestinian man cries out in agony, his blood-soaked little brother dead in his arms.”

After the column Carlton received a torrent of abuse on Twitter and in emails from people who were angered by his views.

The council made a point of congratulating the Herald on its response to complaints and in an apparent reference to its critics at News Corp Australia said “the council commends this approach to other publications”.

Under the APC’s general principles, newspapers who are members “should balance the public interest with the sensibilities of their readers, particularly when the material, such as photographs, could reasonably be expected to cause offence” and that publications should not place any gratuitous emphasis on race, religion or nationality.