Standing In Line to Ridicule the Holocaust

At some point during the Danish cartoon controversy, we noted that the Iranian government had announced that it would sponsor a Holocaust cartoon contest. They were going to solicit cartoons about the Holocaust to prove…something, I’m not sure what. Anyway, it’s happened, as the Associated Press reports:

An Iranian newspaper’s contest for Holocaust-related cartoons has drawn some 700 entries from 200 people, with some drawings mocking the Second World War slaughter: One entry shows Jews going into a gas pipeline.
Most contest entrants are Iranian, but six are Americans and a few cartoons have been submitted from as far away as Indonesia and Brazil, according to the Hamshahri newspaper. A few of the drawings have been posted online.
One submission reflects the opinion of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who drew international outrage last year when he said the Holocaust was a myth.
The cartoon, by Iranian Firouzeh Mozafari, shows a circle of nine Jewish men entering and leaving a gas chamber that shows a counter reading “5,999,999,” implying that Jews have inflated the number of Holocaust victims.
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.”
Farid Mortazavi, who is managing the contest for Hamshahri, said he has received about 700 cartoons from some 200 artists. A website run by contest organizers says entries have come in from 35 countries. The newspaper is offering prizes of up to $14,000 Cdn.
“We still expect more American cartoonists to send their caricatures to the contest,” Mortazavi said.
Another American cartoonist depicted the Statue of Liberty with its torch extinguished and its eyes and mouth sealed with metal plates and a sign reading, “Closed until further notice. Bushco Demolitions.”

It’s interesting to see how many entries there were. Apparently the world’s cartoonists don’t much fear that rabbis will issue a fatwa, or that rampaging mobs of Jews will burn down their houses. And here in America, of course, over-the-top attacks on the Bush administration are practically required. One suspects that any editorial cartoonist who didn’t engage in such attacks would be expelled from the fraternity.
So the Iranians’ contest proves what? I guess it proves that there is only one religion that cartoonists are afraid to offend.
By the way, I couldn’t find the web site where these cartoons are being posted with a quick search. The newspaper is Hamshahri. Probably one of our enterprising readers can track down the web site where the cartoons are.
Via Power Line News.
UPDATE: On a related subject–Iran, not cartoons–Joshua Sharf has some pungent comments on a rather bizarre ecumenical initiative in, of all places, Denver.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Frank Simmons of San Francisco emails us to say that the Iranians have a point:

I was sad to see that you just regurgitate the Zionist viewpoint. You are more like the powerlessline. Think for yourselves and maybe you could have something here.
(the 6million # is inflated, why else would there be laws in Europe to forbid to even question it?) Are you afraid of the truth, or the jewish political machine, or both?

One thing about that “Jewish political machine,” they hardly ever behead anyone. We might have to start printing more of the emails we get from liberals. I think it would open a few eyes.
UPDATE: A reader pointed us to this site where the Israel News Agency reproduces some of the cartoons along with photos and other information about the Holocaust. Gateway Pundit has more.

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