16 August 2006
In Tehran, an exhibition of more than 200 cartoons about the Shoah opened on Tuesday, meant to be the Iranian regime's response to the outrage in the Muslim over caricatures of the prophet Mohammed 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 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called the Holocaust a "myth" and said that Israel should be destroyed. A jury selected the cartoons from around 1200 entries. Visitors are greeted by a poster and the word "Holocust" in huge letters, with no explanation offered for the misspelling. The poster also depicts a World War II German helmet emblazoned with the Jewish Star of David, equating the Nazis with "the Zionists". According to AFP, on Tuesday the museum was packed with art students clutching invitations from the organizers, and also with ordinary people who had heard about the exhibition from television or read about it in Tehran's newspapers. The contest was jointly organized by Iran Cartoon, the country's caricature association, and the nation's largest newspaper "Hamshahri", which is published by Tehran's conservative municipality. Avner Shalev, director of Israel's Holocaust memorial institution Yad Vashem, said in a statement that “The alarming silence of the world indicates that the West has not yet understood that what is taking place is an attack on Western values and civilization. History has demonstrated that silence in the face of evil statements, begets evil actions. Iran has said the cartoon exhibit is a ‘test of western tolerance’. The West must stand up, and say clearly: ‘This we will not tolerate’".
Read about the WJC's compaign for international condemnation of President Ahmadinejad