The current Iranian leadership shows it’s just as bad as former Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Illustrative. Photo Courtesy of UN Photo/Marco Castro
The top Israeli legislator is infuriated that Iran is holding another contest for Holocaust cartoons—and he’s urging the head of the United Nations to speak out against it. Two weeks before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, speaker of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) Yuli-Yoel Edelstein wrote UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon asking the UN leader to “exert your moral authority through public condemnation of the Iranian policy by addressing this matter directly with Iran as well.”
The Israeli legislator also made it clear that the contest exposes current Iranian President Hassan Rouhani as not being moderate but simply a continuation of the extremism under former-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “There are no words strong enough to describe the contempt and profound disdain of the State of Israel, of the Israeli people and many others the world over, for Iran`s insistent Holocaust denial, continued under Rouhani`s regime despite its false façade of tolerance toward the Iranian as well as World Jewry,” Edelstein wrote in the letter, which was published on the Knesset website.
”The current President of Iran does not differ from his notorious predecessor, Ahmadinejad, and like him does not even attempt to conceal Iran`s intent to eliminate the State of Israel. Iran`s resumed development of nuclear capabilities that will allow it to fulfill this threat is further proof of their ultimate goal.”
The contest, the third in recent years according to the Knesset website, was announced in December according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The Iranian news source, citing a report in the Persian service of MNA, said the winner of the contest would receive $50,000.
The secretary Tehran International Cartoon Biennial, Masud Shojai-Tabatabai, was quoted in the IRNA report as calling the bloodshed in Iraq, Yemen, and Syria “contemporary Holocausts”, comparing the modern conflicts in which Iran has played a role in the violence to the genocidal murder of six million Jews.
Shojai-Tabatabai said that the point of the contest is not to “approve or deny the Holocaust” but to question the taboo-nature of how it is discussed, apparently by commenting on mass murder with cartoons.
He claimed that persons from 50 countries would participate in the contest, scheduled for June of this year.
Edlestein wasn’t the only Israeli official to condemn the contest. Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said on Twitter that Iran is offering a cash prize for “for the best Antisemitic cartoon – this act represents the pure evil of the Iranian regime.”
Danon also called for the UN Secretary-General to speak against the contest. “Keeping silent is not an option,” tweeted Danon.
(By Joshua Spurlock, www.themideastupdate.com, January 13, 2016)