“Senior people at [9News, the papers’ parent company] have some very serious questions to answer.”
Many notable figures have backed the campaign for the public inquiry, as well as the families of those who died in the attack.
Alex Ryvchin, the CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, wrote: “The Olympic athletes, the captains of industry, our top jurists, the families of the dead and the majority of ordinary Australians who favour a royal commission into a terrorist slaughter of Jews at a family fair at a beach are all just mindless drones too stupid to realise they’re doing the bidding of the Libs and the Murdoch press.
“But the enlightened cartoonist alone sees the truth. We were slaughtered because of Israel and any deviation from this belief makes you a stooge of the Zionists.”
David Ossip, the president of the New South Wales (NSW) Board of Jewish Deputies, said: “Particularly after Bondi, how is the board of 9News allowing their publications to become a platform for the promotion of vile anti-Semitic tropes?”
Wilcox has previously said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald: “While I don’t have the same obligation as a journalist to be ‘factual’ – to have all the names and figures to hand – my cartoons need to be founded in truth.
“It might be what I think lies beneath the political spin, or stretching someone’s proposition to its logical extreme to expose an absurdity, but if it doesn’t ring true, it probably fails as a cartoon.”
Since the cartoon was published, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has since announced a royal commission will take place, a move welcomed by Jewish leaders.
Wilcox and 9News have both been contacted for comment.