28 July 2006
A Norwegian cartoon, depicting Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert as a Nazi commander indiscriminately shooting Palestinian Arabs in a concentration camp, has elicited an angry response from Israel's ambassador to Norway and a defense of the newspaper's editorial stance by its editor. The cartoon, printed in the July 10 edition of the Oslo daily "Dagbladet" in response to Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip, has become a hot topic of discussion after the ambassador Shomrat filed a complaint with the Norwegian Press Trade Committee, Miryam Shomrat, arguing that the cartoon exceeded the limits of free speech. The paper's acting editor in chief, Lars Helle, has vigorously defended the cartoonist and refused to apologize. "I don't regret that we printed it and we allowed it," said Mr. Helle, who added that he was confident the paper would not be convicted of wrongdoing. This issue goes to the "core of the free speech that we have in the democratic part of the world," he said. Ambassador Shomrat, however, told the "new York Sun" that she thought the cartoon was anti-Semitic. "I have zero tolerance for reference to the Shoah in political cartoons. I think it is an insult to the memory of 6 million victims," she said.
