It’s 2026, and in the English seaside resort of Margate, Kent, a group of keffiyeh-wearing, so-called “art-lovers” queue to enter a gallery displaying Matthew Collings’ latest work.
Inside the “Drawings Against Genocide” exhibition are around 100 drawings of antisemitic blood libels against Jews, Israel, and the US. Several drawings portray Jews as bloodthirsty, demonic figures standing on top of skulls, alongside phrases such as “we love death”. Other pieces deny the October 7th Hamas atrocities; others repeat Nazi imagery, while some graphic items depict Jews as ‘baby-eaters’, echoing age-old blood libel myths that were used to incite hatred and violence against Jews.
The imagery is reminiscent of the medieval period or the 1930s, before the Holocaust. If any lessons are to be learned from those dark eras of Jew-hatred, it is that such grotesque lies and propaganda against Jews have historically fuelled more antisemitism and incited violence against Jews. Have we learned any lessons of ‘never again’?
This is why the police’s decision to take no action is astonishing. Jewish journalist Zoe Strimpel was by chance in Margate at the time of the exhibition and visited the gallery out of curiosity. She described it as an “insane fever dream” and says she was treated aggressively by the artist when she challenged him. According to Zoe, his reaction equated Israel with Nazi Germany – this is a deliberate inversion of the Holocaust that turns the victims of genocide into its perpetrators, and is arguably in breach of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism.
Update on David Collings exhibit at Margate’s Joseph Wales gallery.
Kent police sergeant just called.
He told me: no action to be taken.
The pictures (a few below) are in his view ‘criticism of the Israeli state’.
He said ‘because some Israelis happen to be Jews it doesn’t mean… pic.twitter.com/3Svd2qGAtH— Zoe Strimpel (@realzoestrimpel) March 22, 2026
Police told Zoe that no action will be taken because the pictures, in their view, are ‘criticism of the Israeli state’. They added that ‘because some Israelis happen to be Jews, it doesn’t mean it’s antisemitic’.
Criticism has also been levelled against Thanet Council, a Labour-led council that initially promoted the exhibition before removing it.
Antisemitism constantly evolves and adapts. Today it commonly appears through the demonisation of Israel. When institutions fail to condemn it, they blur the lines and risk legitimising it.
