From a World Politics Watch Exclusive, 09 Nov 2006, by Bridget Johnson ...
It's been no secret that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad aims to turn anti-Semitism into an art form. And it was no surprise -- though still sickening -- when Iran launched a Holocaust cartoon contest in response to Muhammad caricatures published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
As some angry Muslims torched Danish embassies and demanded the heads of the Danish cartoonists, Iran sought to turn the tables on the "intolerant" West with the Holocaust contest, challenging the West to stomach religious offense with the mocking of six million Jewish deaths. (Deaths which, according to Ahmadinejad, are part of some elaborately constructed myth to support the establishment and continuance of the Jewish state.)
...Moroccan cartoonist Abdellah Derkaoui won a first-place prize of $12,000 for mocking the "alleged historical event" -- as was written in the official contest rules -- with a cartoon depicting an image of Auschwitz on a barrier being constructed by an Israeli crane through Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock in the background.Some interpreted the winning cartoon as a comparison of Israel's wall-building to the Nazis killing Jews in concentration camps. Some suggested that Derkaoui violated a theme of Holocaust denial by showing the tracks leading to the infamous Auschwitz gate in the first place. Others stated that the cartoon meant that the Holocaust was being used to shield Israelis from allegations of Palestinian human-rights abuses.My first reaction and interpretation of the cartoon was as a threat: If Israelis dare encroach upon the Dome of the Rock and keep Jerusalem, they will be sealing a Holocaust-like fate.
"The cynical motivation behind the cartoon 'contest' was underscored by the fact that the winning entry incorporates the Auschwitz death camp," said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "So even as they deny the Holocaust, Iran's propaganda machine uses the imagery of the Shoah to demonize the Jewish state."
....another contest entry submitted by Derkaoui and displayed in an online gallery shows an open book emblazoned with a picture of Holocaust victims -- with an Israeli soldier wielding an ax dripping blood over a pile of Arab bodies behind the book....
...Actually, we will continue (the contest) until the destruction of Israel," exhibit curator Masoud Shojai was quoted as saying by wire agencies.
What's especially notable is not so much that Iran encourages anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial, but that so many cartoonists around the world jumped on the bandwagon, including self-designated American progressives Mike Flugennock, an editor of DC Indymedia, and David Baldinger, cartoonist for the communist publication People's Weekly World. More than 1,100 entries from 62 countries were received, and 204 finalists were put on display. Large numbers of entrants were seen from Brazil, China, Cuba, India and Russia, in addition to the entrants from traditional Muslim countries.
One of the second-place cartoons -- by a French artist identified only as A-Chard -- shows a cutout of a gas chamber tipped to the ground, with "myth of the gas chambers" written on the bottom. "Who put it on the ground?" asks a Hasidic Jew. "Faurisson," responds a rabbi, apparently referring to Robert Faurisson, a literature professor at the University of Lyon and Holocaust denier.
The third-place cartoon by Iranian Shahram Rezai shows Israeli soldiers grinning as they lay blood-stained paper dolls in an open grave. An honorable mention by Maziyar Bizhani of Iran shows a swastika-shaped building with an entrance at the end of one arm reading "Holocaust museum."
Another honored cartoon by Omar-Adnan-Salem-Al-Abdallat of Jordan showed chickens burned because of bird flu concerns and the surviving ones demanding a country of their own like Israel.
Among other entrants, Sriramoju Ganesh of India showed a Star of David-headed beast with huge fangs eating people. Yasin Alkhalil of Syria depicted a wickedly grinning rabbi with a butcher knife looking in the mirror and seeing a reflection of Hitler. Galym Boranbayev of Kasakhstan drew two Arabs hanging by the neck from a Hasidic Jew's locks. Mehmet Kahramav of Turkey drew an Arab impaled by a Star of David. A cartoon of an ax by Alireza Nosrati of Iran showed a tiny area on the back bloodied, bearing a swastika, while the large blade in the front was dripping with tons of blood and bore a Star of David. Slobodan Trifkovic of Serbia showed the swastika being reformed into a Star of David.
.....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."
And the cartoon contest shows that such justification is not just the domain of Iran and its mad mullahs, but an international propaganda effort that would make the Nazis proud, masquerading as legitimate Middle East discourse.
Bridget Johnson is a columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News. She blogs at GOP Vixen.
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