Z Word readers living in or visiting London should get over to Bloomsbury, where the Political Cartoon Gallery is hosting an exhibition of antisemitic cartoons collected in Joel Kotek’s book, Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media.

Mark Gardner of the Community Security Trust spoke at the launch:

It may seem counter-intuitive that CST, an organisation that fights antisemitism, is promoting a book that probably contains more antisemitic images than any other publication in existence.

Our decision to help publish the book and to jointly hold this exhibition; is specifically in order to combat antisemitism - by educating about the seriousness of the situation that we are now in.

Most of these images demonise and dehumanise Jews. Whether or not you agree that every picture is antisemitic per se is beside the point. We each have different limits for what we regard as antisemitic, and also for what does, or does not, deserve to protected as freedom of speech but be in no doubt that these images are insidiously, psychologically, paving the way for anti-Jewish hatred.

They depict Jews in all the traditional motifs of antisemitism through the ages - as set apart from the rest of humanity, as agents of the devil, all powerful manipulators, warmongers, the killers of prophets and innocents, and, ultimately, as the eternal enemies of all mankind.

To paraphrase Lenin, most of these pictures are calculated to provoke hatred, disgust, contempt. They are calculated not to convince but to destroy, not to correct the adversary’s mistake, but to annihilate his organisation and wipe it off the face of the earth.

Read the rest on Engage. The gallery is located at 32 Store Street, London WC1E 7BS, near Goodge Street underground station.