Yesterday, @EtanSmallman highlighted a disturbing book cover of a Spanish edition of Owen Jones' book 'The Establishment' which bares a shocking resemblance to a Nazi-era poster. 1/14 https://twitter.com/EtanSmallman/status/1266059376223289345?s=20

Rather than express dismay at the choice of his Spanish publisher, apologise for the error in judgement and work to get it changed, Owen characteristically doubled-down and gaslit Jews and allies outraged by it. 2/14

Accusing us of faux outrage. Gaslighting us... 3/14

Bringing up unrelated issues in order to paint us as hysterical extremists. Centring himself as the victim. 4/14

He was then caught liking a tweet defending him that alleged 90% of Jews and anti-racists' complaints of antisemitism are made up by an 'antisemitism industry' now trying to smear Owen Jones. 5/14

When called on it by @MildIrritant he then claims to have done so mistakenly having accidentally hit like instead of block. This from a man who is famous for blocking half of Twitter (including a huge proportion of Jews for some reason). Is OJ listening to us now? 6/14

Even if we are to believe his laughable excuse, he is still nonetheless defending the choice of book cover image. So let's see more about this artist. 7/14

The illustration comes from early 20th-century Italian caricaturist Gabriele Galantara. Galantara (Gala) was a popular socialist cartoonist who was published widely in Europe. His latter years were however notable for his flirtation with fascist and racist caricature. 8/14

Although Jews weren't a major part of his output, the few times he did caricature us, were quite something. This courtesy of Joel Kotek’s ‘Cartoons and Extremism: Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western Media’ (2009). 9/14

OJ's book cover illustrator also had this horrifically antisemitic cartoon published in a French anarchist publication L'Assiette au Beurre. 10/14

According to an in-depth study of Galantara by Italian academic Emanuela Morganti, his use of racist imagery and themes was no accident. His output in his later years was characterised by fascist and colonial sympathies and racial animus. 11/14

http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/ephraim/Humor-E-Journals/IntStudiesHumour/Vol2016-2/Articles/Morganti,Committed-Pencil-of-the-Caricaturist-Galantara.pdf

Crucially, she points out that this came about not as some aberration from his earlier socialist views, but rather as a progression from the simplistic characterisation of 'the other' with the same palette of grotesque inhuman personifications they traded in. 12/14

This sympathy for fascism and colonialism is also evidenced by Galantara's racist depiction of Ethiopians resisting Italian occupation. 13/14

Owen Jones can pretend that his book cover is a nod to tradition. And we can now see just what that tradition entailed. For Owen to defend this is yet another example of his shameless hypocrisy and double-standards, and his long and shameful record of apologia for racism. /ENDS

"One of the oldest cliches in the book" - Owen Jones.

Etan found that the picture agency that Jones' publisher used had tagged the image with 'antisemitism'. https://twitter.com/EtanSmallman/status/1266351405889212416?s=20