New Iranian Holocaust cartoons website

On August 5, 2010, news articles reported that a new website presenting anti-Semitic Holocaust cartoons was launched in Iran. The site, which is called holocartoons, is a simple Flash presentation operating in Persian, English and Arabic, and already has a page in Wikipedia.

The site is actually a 54-page book in which visitors can browse, and is “Dedicated to all those who were killed under the pretext of the Holocaust”.

In the preface, the authors set forth the book’s purpose:

“This book tends to denounce the conspicuous lie of the ‘planned murder of 6 million Jews during the Second World War’ allegedly called’ Holocaust'”.

The authors argue that the Holocaust lie justified the occupation of Palestine by the Zionists and many other crimes over the years, by trying to differentiate between the Jews (‘good’) and Zionists (‘bad’):

“However, the faithful Moses followers are our brothers, prophet Moses is our prophet’s brother and a great prophet. With us, the Zionists are different from the true followers of Moses and in this book they have been dealt with differently and the book refers to the Zionists’ lies whose shameful performances have ruined the real appearance of the true Jews”.

With a firm statement that;

           “The Zionists ruined Palestine under The Great Lie of ‘Holocaust'”.

The book tries to describe graphically (literally) the Jewish history which it divides into three periods: before, during and after the Holocaust. It does so by creating a baseless story: Hitler decided to suffocate six million Jews but there were only 5.4 of them in Europe, so he invited the rest of the 600 thousand to the continent. They were optimistic and indeed migrated to Europe within days (p. 11); The German soldiers did not have to carry gas masks while removing the Jews’ bodies out of the gas chambers; afterward it transpired that the Germans developed a special version of the Zyklon B gas, which did not hurt their soldiers (p. 16); The evacuation of the bodies broke the Jews’ hearts because when the allies arrived in Germany, they found no traces of Jews’ bodies whether suffocated or burnt (pp. 18-19); And so on.

All this, along with many cartoons with familiar anti-Semitic characteristics of Jews dressed like ultra-Orthodox for the most part, with long noses (p. 4), hypocrites (pp. 6, 18), criminals (pp. 9, 47), who use the Holocaust as a diplomatic and military pretext as a state and an occupying power (pp. 11-17, 19-20, 22-24, 27, 39-43, 46, 48-51); manipulators (pp. 3, 29-30, 33, 52, 54), greedy (pp. 5, 8, 21, 35, 37), controlling the West (pp. 7, 36) and beyond (pp. 34, 44) for their selfish needs.

The book was written by Borzo Bitaraf, who is responsible for the text, and Maziar Bijani, who is responsible for the cartoons. The latter published works on various issues, including Iran’s housing problem, the events after the presidential election (while criticizing the reformist elements), the current issues in the country and more.

In addition, the website is identified and connected with Khakriz cultural Institute, which published an article about the new website and its goals. Later on, another article (almost identical) included a few pages frm this site. The book’s pages in their entirety can be found in a dedicated video clip on YouTube.

The new website attracted a variety of reactions including from Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Authority, which sees it as yet another link in the chain of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism by the Iranian authorities, with reference to the themes expressed in the text and cartoons on the website.

Indeed, this website is a direct continuation of the ongoing and lasting Holocaust denial campaign by the Iranian government in the form of international contest held in Iran on February 6, 2006 for cartoons on the Holocaust; the international Holocaust conference in Iran (“International Conference to Review the Global Vision of the Holocaust”) which took place on December 11 the same year; and a variety of expressions of the Iranian president’s Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism along with denial of Israel’s right to exist as a state.

However, unlike the 16 winning cartoons in the contest, which portrayed various political aspects, creating a direct linkage between the Holocaust and Israeli control over Palestinian territories and its relationship with the population, the current cartoons tend to engage in more classical aspects of anti-Semitism. They look more like an attempt, even childish, to attract attention and hit sensitive spots in Israeli and Jewish public life, among other things through the use of a swastika inside a Star of David as arrows to move back and forth in this book, an abbreviated reference to the Holocaust as “Holo”, a caricature of a Hitler’s mustache painted as a Star of David, and more.

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