posted August 14, 2006 06:38 PM            

Iran launches cartoon exhibition on Holocaust
Mon Aug 14 2006 11:40:15 ET

An exhibition of more than 200 cartoons about the Holocaust opened Monday as Iran's response to last year's Muslim outrage over a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.

The display, showing 204 entries from Iran and abroad, was strongly influenced by the views of Iran's hard-line president, Mahoud Ahmadinejad, who drew widespread condemnation last year for calling the Holocaust a "myth" and saying Israel should be destroyed.

One cartoon by Indonesian Tony Thomdean shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the Holocaust in its left hand and giving a Nazi-style salute with the other.

Masoud Shojai, director of the host Caricature House, said a jury looked through 1,200 entries received after the contest was announced in February by the co-sponsor, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri.

posted August 14, 2006 07:32 PM              

Did you know that a frenchmen wrote a book "proving" that the attack on the WTC didn't really happen ??? Did you realize that it didn't really happen?? Apparently it was on France's best seller list for 6 months too.

Hypocracy, stupidity, dishonesty, and arrogance.

posted August 14, 2006 07:51 PM            

I guess Rainblow was right, we ARE all under a mass mind control LOL....

posted August 14, 2006 11:08 PM              

quote:

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Did you know that a frenchmen wrote a book "proving" that the attack on the WTC didn't really happen ???

Hypocracy, stupidity, dishonesty, and arrogance.--lioneye68

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quote:

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What is WRONG with people?--pidaua

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French lap up Pentagon crash 'fraud'
Tuesday, 2 April, 2002

A book which argues that American Airlines flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon on 11 September has become an immediate bestseller in France.

Thierry Meyssan's book L'Effroyable Imposture (The Appalling Fraud) alleges the attack on the building, which houses the US defence department, was staged by none other than the American Government.

"No plane crashed into the Pentagon," he said in a recent interview on France 2 television. "I believe the government is lying."

But Mr Meyssan's provocative theories have proved irresistible to the French public.

"Copies have been flying off shelves," a saleswoman at Fnac bookshop in central Paris. "It's a phenomenon," said another.

Reports say the book's original run of 20,000 copies sold out within two hours of going on sale.

Fnac says its 2,500 copies sold in 10 days, compared with blockbuster novels which sell maybe 1,500 in a month.

posted August 15, 2006 12:52 AM              

I haven't seen the cartoons but there are a few on the link below.

But I do see their point...

The point of the cartoons according to them is to test the "Western media" and see if they would print them.

quote:

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"We staged this fair to explore the limits of freedom Westerners believe in," Masoud Shojai, head of the country's "Iran Cartoon" association and the fair organizer, said. He added that around 1,100 cartoons were submitted by participants from more than 60 countries and that more than 200 are on show.

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Furor over caricatures of Prophet Muhammad inspired contest, display

(Don't agree with retaliating or testing others like this...yet I don't believe it is hate inspired, just like I dont think the Muhammed pbuh cartoons were inspired by hate, but they were politically motivated)

posted August 15, 2006 01:29 AM              

Read what one of the cartoonists, David Baldinger, said..

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I am, in fact, the David Baldinger who is listed as an entrant into the Iranian cartoon contest. Unfortunately, while I am sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinian people and am appalled at their treatment by Israel, I didn’t actually send cartoons specifically for the contest or even address the subject of the contest. I made my concerns known to the administrators of the contest and they assured me that it was not their intention to ridicule the Holocaust. I think it is interesting that the US media has taken the position that anyone who draws anything on this subject is anti-Semitic or hates the Jewish people. That just isn’t so.

It has been implied that I somehow am fraternizing with the enemy by having friends in Iran. The last time I checked, Iran is not the enemy. Politicians and government figures may like battling each other for position and power but the rest of us are just trying to survive. That goes for all people. Knowing individuals in a particular country doesn’t imply full agreement with their government. Americans need to grow up and realize that things are not neatly categorized in black and white.

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http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2006/03/14/iranian-holocaust-cartoon- contest-draws-6-americans/

posted August 15, 2006 01:39 AM              

quote:

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American cartoonist Mike Flugennock's cartoon asks: 'What has Ariel Sharon learned from the Holocaust?' It shows bulldozers razing Palestinian homes and an Israeli soldier pointing a gun at a Palestinian protester's head, above Flugennock's answer to his own question: 'Humiliation, tyranny, brutality and murder.'

... Flugennock, of Washington, D.C., insisted his entry is not anti-Semitic but legitimate political criticism _ because it criticizes not the Jewish people or their religion but Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

'It specifically addresses policies of the Israeli state with regard to its behavior in Palestine, and their similarities to the strategies employed by the Nazi regime in Warsaw and elsewhere,' he said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

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posted August 15, 2006 02:09 AM              

Now that the shoe is on Israel's foot it is a whole different matter. It's anti-semetic.

I don't agree or condone any of it as it only adds fuel to the fire but it does not surprise me that the media is labeling it as anti-semetic because that is the very same as playing the race card. It is used to intimidate people into silence who see both sides of the conflict and show any sympathy whatsoever for the Muslim or Arabic people. Palestinians in particular.

Did anyone here see the interview on "60 Minutes" with the head of Iran and Mike Wallace interviewing him on Sunday? We were out so we taped it on our cable channel's DVR and I haven't seen it as yet but I thought that was neat because they had allowed the head of Israel to give a speech in the media here. I like the fairness of it all for a change.

posted August 15, 2006 02:19 AM              

you can watch it on cbs's website...

posted August 15, 2006 01:00 PM              

Mohammad is the prophet of one of the world's major religions. He is a man who lived 1300 or so years ago, but the impact he had on people while here is enormous. Some of his followers have perverted his word to justify indiscrimate murder of innocent people. So far, all of this is true, right? So, somebody penned a cartoon dipicting Mohammad as some sort of death-monger, as a social commentary to this phenomemon, this perverting of the prophet's words to justify indiscrimate murder.

The artist's comment was well founded, and based on reality, not opinion. And what was the cry heard around the Muslem world in response to this cartoon? What was deemed the only appropriate punishment for this artist? Death, of course - a testimony to the truth found within that cartoon.

The Holocaust was a horrifying time that saw 6 million innocent people murdered, for their ethnicity alone. It was a demonstration of the abject horrors mankind is capeable of inflicting on itself, and if all we can take away from that demonstration is the lesson "never again", then so be it.

To make light of the Holocaust is offensive to all of mankind, not just to Jews. To fail to see the lesson, the only valueable pearl to come from that time, is utterly ignorant and blind.

These two situations are not morally equivalent. One addresses a social situation in a true, though satirical way, the other dismisses and disrespects a profoundly tragic lesson of the human experience.

posted August 15, 2006 01:13 PM            

As far as I'm concerned, bring it on Iran. And take note at how we don't riot and burn **** down when you make fun of any element of the West.

I just hope in response some papers rerun the Mohammed cartoons. They prolly won't because of the sick double standard where it's ok to riot and burn when a Muslim's sensibilities are offended, but we in the West are expected to react a bit more civilized to such things. But if any Western news source is going to reprint any of these cartoons making fun of the Holocaust, I expect to see the cartoons that prompted the whole mess (those of Mohammed) printed right along side.

posted August 15, 2006 01:19 PM              

However, I think a moral equivalent would be a cartoon showing Jesus smoking crack or something.

posted August 15, 2006 03:27 PM              

"Islam is terrorism" - Although not fair to the moderate Muslems, there are obvious reasons that one may feel this way. The daily news around the world is where most of the reasons are found.

"Holocaust is Fabulous" - This expresses a sentiment that the death of 6 million Jews was a great thing.

Again, not even close to being parallel arguements, so the point of this cartoon is moot.

Re: the 2nd cartoon...

There could be some truth in this. The Jews were nearly exterminated in the Holocaust, but they survived - albiet very hardened by the reality that many would like to see them become extinct. They're not going to allow that to happen to them ever again. Nor should it. And here the fundamentalist are going around declaring that they intend to wipe Israel off the map. Don't ya think the Jewish people may be just a tad sensitive to that kind of talk? And people wonder why they fight like they do. Seems to be a no-brainer to me....