Israel demands UN condemn Iran's Holocaust-themed cartoon contest
Ron Prosor wrote a letter over the weekend to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global delegates urging them to publicly censure the contest, which is scheduled to take place this coming April.
By JPOST.COM STAFFAn anti-Semitic cartoon displayed at a contest in Iran(photo credit: Courtesy)
Israel’s top representative to the United Nations is demanding that the world body condemn the Iranian government for hosting a contest featuring Holocaust-themed cartoons.Ron Prosor wrote a letter over the weekend to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and global delegates urging them to publicly censure the contest, which is scheduled to take place this coming April.The contest organizers said the event is a response to the massacre of journalists at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo last month. The magazine was targeted due to controversial cartoons it had published depicting Islam’s prophet, Mohammed, in humorous situations.The organizers argued that the event is in line with Western values that preserve humans’ right to freedom of expression.The contest winners will receive awards, while one cartoon will be chosen for exhibition at a museum featuring Palestinian works of art in Tehran.A similar contest was held in 2006, when Iranians submitted caricatures presenting the Holocaust in a satirical light.Prosor reminded Ban that the “if the UN wishes to remain loyal to its founding principles and values in which it believes, it is incumbent upon it to speak loudly against anti-Semitism.”“This contest legitimizes Holocaust denial and encourages Holocaust deniers to continue their incitement,” Prosor said. “It ridicules one of the darkest events in human history, and it cheapens the death of millions of Jews who were murdered. The horrors of the Holocaust are still fresh in the collective memory.”“The cartoon exhibition runs in contravention to the international community’s decision to perpetuate the memory of the Holocaust and to internalize its lessons,” the envoy wrote.
