Our New Iranian Allies Hold Cartoon Contest To Celebrate Holocaust Denial

Iran is once again convening its annual Holocaust Cartoon Contest aimed at mocking and undermining the mass genocide of over six million Jews.

The contest is sponsored by the theocratic state. Iranian officials will award $12,000 to the top cartoonist. The cartoons will be featured on the country’s fifth most-circulated newspaper, Hamshari, which roughly translates to “fellow countryman.” The paper’s editors argued that the contest is a direct reaction to newspapers in the West that blasphemed Mohammad.

According to Islamic law, it’s forbidden to draw a likeness of the 7th century religious figure. Iran’s governing clerics don’t take this law lightly. In fact, the Islamic Republic’s founding mullah, Ayatollah Khomeini infamously issued a fatwa calling for the death of British author Salman Rushdie after the Nobel Prize laureate dared to put pen to paper and critically examine the social implications of Islam in a work of fiction.

The contest immediately drew the ire of officials in Israel.

“It denies the Holocaust, it mocks the Holocaust and it is also preparing another Holocaust,” stated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his weekly cabinet meeting. “I think that every country in the world must stand up and fully condemn this.”

Iran hosts Holocaust-denial cartoon contest while preparing another Holocaust. Shameful. Don’t stay quiet about it. pic.twitter.com/Ol9ojfz4Js

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) May 15, 2016

Calling on the United States and other nations of conscience to oppose vile displays of anti-Semitism wherever they may be found, Netanyahu made a direct plea to US Secretary of State John Kerry to take an unequivocal stand against the Islamic Republic’s Holocaust-mocking display.

I think that every country in the world must stand up and fully condemn this. This is what I told US Secretary of State @JohnKerry yesterday

— PM of Israel (@IsraeliPM) May 15, 2016

Shockingly, the United Nations even joined the chorus of condemnation after it caught wind of the contest.

“Such an initiative, which aims at a mockery of the genocide of the Jewish people, a tragic page of humanity’s history, can only foster hatred and incite to violence, racism and anger,” declared Irina Bokova, director general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). “This contest goes against the universal values of tolerance and respect, and runs counter to the action led by UNESCO to promote Holocaust education, to fight anti-Semitism and denial.”

When the UN is speaking out against Jew-hatred, you know it’s bad. This is the same international body that employs anti-Semitic tropes, including blood libels, to single out Israel as a pariah state, while turning a blind-eye to the tremendous atrocities committed by China, Russia, and Syria (until very recently).

The US State Department, astoundingly, was more “diplomatic” with its language than the United Nations. The United States is concerned that the contest could “be used as a platform for Holocaust denial and revisionism and egregiously anti-Semitic speech, as it has in the past,” said State Department spokesman Mark Toner. “Such offensive speech should be condemned by the authorities and civil society leaders rather than encouraged. We denounce any Holocaust denial and trivialization as inflammatory and abhorrent. It is insulting to the memory of the millions of people who died in the Holocaust.”

Since securing the nuclear deal with Iran, Obama administration officials have been tepid about openly criticizing the Islamic Republic, opting instead to tread lightly and equivocate.