By making a statement like this, Yad Vashem is explicitly casting its lot with with the neo-conservative campaign against Iran.
>Yad Vashem said the display in "Iran, a nation that aspires to nuclear
>capabilities, and whose president has made genocidal statements against
>Israel, is a flashing red light signalling danger not only to Israel, but
to
>all enlightened nations".
Much better would have been,
>Yad Vashem said the display in "Iran, whose president has called for Israel
to be eliminated, should be condemned by all enlightened nations."
Or even,
>Yad Vashem said the display in "Iran, whose president has called for Israel
to be eliminated, and which is suspected of pursuing nuclear weapons, should
be condemned by all enlightened nations."
The use of the ambiguous phrase "nuclear program" suggests an deliberate attempt to hitch their wagon to the neo-conservatives. Does anyone know if Yad Vashem has an independent board, or is it directly controlled by the government? I suspect that the US Holocaust Museum would not have made such a statement. I could be wrong - I don't follow this closely - but my sense in the past has been that they are more judicious about their pronouncements, precisely because they don't want Holocaust remembrance to become politicized in this way, since, if one's goal is truly Holocaust remembrance, this undermines the goal. I'm not suggesting everything about the US Holocaust museum is wonderful, or that their work is totally free of this sort of politicization, just that there seems to be a difference here worth noting.
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:04:32 +0500
> From: uvj at vsnl.com
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Iran displays Holocaust cartoons
> To: lbo <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
>
> BBC News
>
> Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 August 2006
>
> Iran displays Holocaust cartoons
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4795709.stm
>
> [The drawings were chosen from entries in a competition]
>
> More than 200 Holocaust cartoons from around the world are on display at a
> museum in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
>
> Organisers of the exhibition say they are testing the West's commitment to
> freedom of speech.
>
> A competition to choose the drawings was announced in February, in
> response
> to caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad published by European newspapers.
>
> Israel's Holocaust authority, Yad Vashem, criticised the exhibition,
> calling
> it a "flashing red light".
>
> The drawings were chosen from nearly 1,200 entries received from various
> countries including the United States, Indonesia and Turkey.
>
> One of the cartoons shows the Statue of Liberty holding a book on the
> Holocaust in one hand and giving a Nazi salute with the other.
>
> Cartoon controversy
>
> The Iran Cartoon Organisation and Hamshahri newspaper are putting on the
> exhibition.
>
> Organiser Masoud Shojai said: "You see they allow the Prophet to be
> insulted. But when we talk about the Holocaust, they consider it so holy
> that they punish people for questioning it."
>
> The publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked protests
> around
> the world earlier this year.
>
> One showed Muhammad, whose image is banned in Islam, as a terrorist
> bomber.
>
> Yad Vashem said the display in "Iran, a nation that aspires to nuclear
> capabilities, and whose president has made genocidal statements against
> Israel, is a flashing red light signalling danger not only to Israel, but
> to
> all enlightened nations".
>
> Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompted international criticism last
> year by saying the Holocaust was a "myth" and that Israel should be "wiped
> off the map".
>
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