Yad Vashem comment on the Iranian Holocaust cartoon contest

The new Holocaust cartoon contest promoted by the Iranian authorities in response to caricatures published in the French satiric magazine Charlie Hebdo shows once again how the current regime in Iran is thoroughly saturated with antisemitism. Although the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in Charlie Hebdo has nothing whatsoever to do with Jews or the Holocaust, the Iranian regime insists on making a distorted and direct connection between the two. As such they propagate a Nazi-like hatred that blames Jews for everything they did not like about the West and its civilization. They seek to instill the idea that there is a religious war between Judaism and Islam, where in reality there is none. The manipulative, intentional distortion of the Holocaust desecrates the memory of both victims and survivors, and suggests strongly that the Iranian regime has yet to overcome the politics of hate.