I came across this story via Yahoo!News which smacks of the type of reactionary thinking I rarely come across outside a classroom filled with 12 year olds.
Hamshahri, a prominent Iranian newspaper, is sponsoring a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust in response to the recent publication of cartoons depicting Muhammad in a Danish newspaper.
The paper asks:
Does the West extend freedom of expression to the crimes committed by the United States and Israel, or an event such as the Holocaust? Or is its freedom only for insulting religious sanctities?” Hamshahri wrote, referring to the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
This is a very childish response and, I think, unecessary. How many publications have satirized Judaism or Christianity in the past? I submit that via cartoon, editorial, or inflamatory statement, the free press has often satirized and/or denounced these religions. How often have these events spawned the kind of violent protests that we are seeing around the Muslim world right now?
Muslims are right to be offended by the cartoons, but there are more productive methods to voice their outrage. This Holocaust cartoon exercise will backfire on them. And even if it did provide the kind of response they are trying to provoke, it in no way justifies the needless vandalism and death that has taken place over the past few days.