Dear Sirs,

I write on behalf of the Jewish Community Council of Victoria, the peak elected representative body of the Jewish community in this state, regarding the Cathy Wilcox cartoon published in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald on 7 January 2026. We are calling for its immediate retraction and a public apology.

The national call for a Royal Commission into antisemitism and Islamic extremism has arisen directly from the murder of fifteen innocent people at a Jewish festival. That act of violence has left the Jewish community, alongside the wider Australian public, grieving, fearful and demanding answers. The call for a Royal Commission reflects a genuine and urgent need to understand how such an attack could occur, and what must be done to prevent similar violence in the future.

Against that backdrop, the cartoon is deeply offensive. It relies on antisemitic tropes to undermine and discredit this call for accountability. By invoking the notion of a coordinated ‘Zionist lobby’, directed by Israeli leadership, it draws on narratives long used to delegitimise Jewish civic participation and portray Jewish concerns as manipulative or conspiratorial. Framing this as political satire does not lessen the harm. It amplifies it.

In doing so, the cartoon trivialises the deaths of innocent people and casts suspicion on those seeking answers in their aftermath. It reduces a moment of national grief and reckoning to insinuation and mockery, and in doing so causes real harm to a community already experiencing acute vulnerability.

The publications bear responsibility for the impact of what they publish. In this instance, that impact has been damaging and distressing. We therefore expect the publications to retract the cartoon and issue a clear public apology.

Yours sincerely,

Philip Zajac