July 28, 2006

More on Cartoon War II

Filed under: Europe, Middle East, Ethics

Israel’s ambassador to Norway, the disagreeable Miryam Shomrat, continues her campaign to stir up outrage over a satirical cartoon in the Oslo tabloid Dagbladet. As I noted in a previous post, she has filed a complaint with the Norwegian Press Trade Committee, claiming that the cartoon — which portrays Ehud Olmert as a smiling Amon Göth from Schindler’s List — exceeds the limits of free speech. Now the ambassador makes her case in the New York Sun:

Ms. Shomrat said that while Dagbladet, a “reputable” paper, has allowed pro-Israel opinion pieces, it has been quite critical of Israel…. She also said that if the cartoon were printed 50 years ago, it would have been fit for Der Stürmer, the weekly Nazi newspaper.

Is it a crime for a European paper to be critical of Israel? Did Der Stürmer come out in 1956? And lastly, who is now making tasteless comparisons?

Despite the obvious similarities, Ms. Shomrat said that because Israel is now fighting a war, her objections were nothing like the complaints many Muslims made after inflammatory cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist were printed in a Danish paper and later syndicated in numerous other papers, including Dagbladet.

Israel’s objection to freedom of expression in another country is nothing like the Muhammed protest because Israel is fighting a war? Since the New York Sun can hardly be suspected of anti-Israel bias, presumably the ambassador is accurately quoted. And it boggles the mind.

Israel used to be adept at propaganda as well as war. What went wrong?

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