Screenshot of homepage article, The Australian, Monday 12 January 2026 Image: "Grass roots" cartoon by Cathy Wilcox. Headline: I was editor of The Age. This cartoon is worse than anything Leunig ever drew A long time ago I refused to publish a Leunig cartoon suggesting an equivalence between Israelis and Nazis. What kind of editor thought this was okay? By MICHAEL GAWENDA

Two panel black & white cartoon by Michael Leunig, 2002. One panel is headed "Auschwitz 1942", and shows the infamous "Work Brings Freedom" slogan over the gateway; the other panel is headed "Israel 2002" with a "War Brings Peace" slogan over the gateway. Both panels feature Leunig's 'everyman' - a solitary, world-weary, bent-over character. Both wear the Star of David on the back of their jackets; one is carrying his meagre possessions on a stick over his shoulder, like a hobo; the other is carrying a weapon, like a conscripted Israeli soldier. They stand before the gateway as if representing the Jewish people's historical suffering - from the horrors of Nazi death camps in 1942 to a inevitable "forever war" in 2002 Israel. The 2002 panel is even more poignant today, with Israel attempting to enforce the conscription of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men into its military, a highly contentious issue that has led to widespread protests and a political crisis, and which ends a decades-old exemption for religious seminary students.

Michael Gawenda must have looked at the #WilcoxCartoon through the same hateful Israeli-Zionist lens he used when he rejected the #LeunigCartoon in 2002. 😑

#SanctionIsrael #AusPol