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

Extract from The Sydney Morning Herald editorial, published January 11, 2026 "As royal commissioner Virginia Bell begins her inquiry, we will have more uncomfortable conversations about what constitutes free speech. The seeds of that debate have been sown in the past week, with the withdrawal of a host of eminent writers from Adelaide Writers’ Week following the festival’s removal of controversial Palestinian writer Randa Abdel-Fattah from the program." https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/wilcox-cartoon-was-divisive-and-we-apologise-for-the-hurt-it-has-caused-20260111-p5nt6s.html

In its apology, the SMH panders to the intolerance and hate spewed by critics of the #WilcoxCartoon by avoiding any mention of the fact that Randa Abdel-Fattah is, first and foremost, an Australian, by calling her a "controversial Palestinian writer".

Shameful 'othering' by a media outlet.

#AusPol

A Cathy Wilcox cartoon

Screw the apology from the SMH for this cartoon

#CathyWilcox #WilcoxCartoon #auspol