Holocaust Cartoons

I had never been particularly interested in seeing the cartoons about the holocaust that Iran commissioned as a reaction to the Danish Muslim cartoons brouhaha. However, now that a Danish newspaper has published them and there’s no doubt going to be a fuss all over again I thought I’d have a look. A search with Google took me to a page produced by the Israel News Agency in which they publish the Iran cartoons in tacky juxtaposition with photos from the holocaust. The cartoons seem thoughtful, I didn’t find them offensive. The bullying and dishonest text pasted over the cartoons by the INA, however, is as revolting in its own way as their misappropriation of those tragic photographs.

Watching Michael Radford’s 2004 film of The Merchant of Venice a couple of days ago had made me feel a bit more sympathetic towards the Israeli government. It’s a heavy-handed film and I didn’t think much of it but Shylock’s dilemma at the end of the play highlighted for me the difficulty of Israel’s position in its current war with Lebanon. Portia tells him that he is legally entitled to take his pound of flesh but that if he takes more or less than a pound, even if he’s off by a fraction, or if he spills any blood in the process then he will be killed. I can see how Israel might feel that this is what is expected of them in their response to the aggression of Hezbollah. They are allowed to react but if they go too far, as indeed they did, or if they spill any innocent blood, as inevitably happened, then they are suddenly very unpopular.

The first information center of Iranian Cartoons on web