Lovely -- Iran Holocaust Cartoon Show

[jillian]

Jewish leaders, Paris slam Iran Holocaust cartoon show By Corinne Heller
Thu Aug 17, 12:18 PM ET

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The Israeli government, Jewish groups and the mayor of Paris on Thursday condemned an Iranian exhibition of cartoons on the Nazi Holocaust, accusing Tehran of spreading hatred and trivializing the murder of six million Jews.

Organizers of Iran's International Holocaust Cartoon's Contest said the museum exhibit, which has drawn more than 200 entries, aims to challenge Western taboos about the discussing the Holocaust.

Israeli government spokesman Gideon Meir called on the international community "to express disgust from such an anti-Semitic and inhuman event."

Yosef Lapid, chairman of the council of the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem, said: "The exhibit not only is horrific propaganda that supports Holocaust denial, it also paves the road to justifying genocide of the Jews in Israel."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has drawn international condemnation for dismissing the Holocaust as a "myth." Nazi Germany killed six million European Jews in World War Two.

Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction.

Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe condemned the display in a letter to Iran's ambassador, saying it "intended to mock the tragedy of the (Holocaust) and to trivialize a new anti-Semitic bid under the false pretext of art and freedom of speech."

France is home to western Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities. It is a crime in European countries such as France, Germany and Austria to deny the Holocaust.

"At a time when violence and war should lead everyone toward a willingness for dialogue, appeasement and tolerance, such a step serves, on the contrary, motivations dominated by hatred," Delanoe, a Socialist, said.

Russia's Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations urged Muslims around the world "to reject the blasphemy of political intriguers and say in their very hearts, 'Keep your hands off the memory of the Holocaust's victims."'

Shimon Samuels of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Paris said Iranian's Holocaust cartoon exhibit was part of the "Iranian drive toward its own aggrandizement on the back of the Jews."

Salomon Korn, chairman of the Jewish community in the German city of Frankfurt, said he thought the exhibition was "pathologically crude."

"Ahmadinejad is demanding from the West what he does not allow himself, and of which he perhaps has no idea, namely tolerance," Korn said.

Iran's best-selling newspaper, Hamshahri, launched a competition in February for the best cartoon about the Holocaust in retaliation for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in Danish and other European newspapers.

Those images of the Prophet sparked attacks on European embassies in Muslim nations, including missions in Iran.

Samuels said a member of the Simon Wiesenthal Center submitted two cartoons to Iran's competition, depicting Ahmadinejad as Hitler.

Samuels said the cartoons were sent back.

(Additional reporting by Kerstin Gehmlich in Paris and Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060817/wl_nm/iran_holocaust_reaction_dc_1

 

[Annie]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060817/wl_nm/iran_holocaust_reaction_dc_1

Gee do any of us think we'll see Christians or Jews threatening death? Never mind.