A political cartoon in a French-language newspaper depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a vampire has sparked serious accusations of antisemitism and drawn sharp condemnation.
The cartoon appeared in Wednesday's edition of La Presse, a French-language newspaper published in Montreal and considered very influential. It shows Netanyahu with long claws, pointed ears and wearing a long black coat, images reminiscent of Count Orlok, a vampire from the 1922 silent film Nosferatu.
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Caricature of Benjamin Netanyahu in La Presse newspaper
(Photo: Screenshot X platform)
In the cartoon, Netanyahu is standing on a ship above an inscription that reads “Nosfenyahou en route to Rafah.” Politicians, including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Jewish leaders, criticized the cartoon, calling it antisemitic and reminiscent of Nazi propaganda against Jews.
Serge Chapleau, the cartoonist who drew it, dismissed the criticism in an interview with CBC, saying he did not believe it was antisemitic. Nevertheless, by late morning, the cartoon no longer appeared on the La Presse website and the newspaper issued an apology.
Jeremy Levi, mayor of Hempstead, a town in Montreal with a large Jewish population, called the cartoon "extremely offensive."
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"Anyone who is Jewish understands the meaning of this," Levi said of the cartoon. "The problem is that you go back 100 years ago, it started to be done in Eastern Europe and Germany and Poland. Today there is only a level of ignorance where people don't know," he said.
Chapleau, who has drawn political cartoons for La Presse since 1996, said people are thinking too much about the cartoon's meaning.
"It's a cartoon based on an old character Nosferatu, an old vampire who goes and invades another country," Chapleau said. "That's all, it's not worse than that. If you look for cartoons of Netanyahu, you'll see much worse. "It's not antisemitic, it's not that at all."
Early Wednesday afternoon, La Presse posted an apology on its website.
'It was aimed at the Israeli government, not the Jewish people'
Stephanie Garmond, the newspaper's editor-in-chief, said that the cartoon was intended to be a criticism of Netanyahu's policies.
"It was aimed at the Israeli government, not the Jewish people," she said. "It was never our intention to promote antisemitism or harmful stereotypes. On the contrary, La Presse has already loudly condemned the unfortunate increase in antisemitism since the beginning of the war, in Quebec and elsewhere in the world." Garmond said the cartoon had been removed from all La Presse platforms.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Le Presse was right to apologize, but should never have published the cartoon in the first place. "It is unacceptable to bring back such antisemitic rants and insinuations," he said. "It's inappropriate and just the wrong thing to do in these times."
Federal Heritage Minister Pascal St-Onge said the response to Le Presse's cartoon is emblematic of how the situation in the Middle East is causing tensions in Canada, which has joined allies and warns Israel that the ground attack in Rafah will be "catastrophic."
"As Minister of Heritage, I am going to be very careful about the independence of the press," St-Onge said. "Communities feel this conflict very deeply, and it is normal that there are criticisms of such a cartoon."
But Ya'ara Saks, the minister for Mental Health and Addictions, attacked the cartoon. "Political discourse is important in this country, and so is political criticism," she said. "To see this, to see antisemitic crazies using such a national publication, is simply shameful."
The Israeli embassy in Canada responded to the cartoon with a post on the X platform: "Shame on Le Presse for publishing this vile cartoon. Antisemitism in Canada is breaking records."