Aug. 25, 2006, 2:05AM
Cartoon exhibit in Iran mocks the Holocaust
The display is intended to show Western hypocrisy over Muhammad parody controversy
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN New York Times
TEHRAN, IRAN - The title of the show is "Holocaust International Cartoon Contest," or "Holocust," as the show's organizers spell the word in promotional material. But the content has little to do with the events of World War II and Nazi Germany.
There is instead a drawing of a Jew with a large nose, a nose so large it obscures his entire head. Across his chest is the word Holocaust.
Another drawing shows a vampire wearing a big Star of David drinking the blood of Palestinians.
A third shows Ariel Sharon dressed in a Nazi uniform, emblazoned not with swastikas but with the Star of David.
The cartoons are among more than 200 on display in the Palestinian Contemporary Art Museum in central Tehran in a show that opened this month and is to run until the middle of September. The exhibition is intended to expose what some here see as Western hypocrisy for invoking freedom of expression regarding the publication of cartoons that lampooned the Prophet Muhammad while condemning President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran for questioning the Holocaust.
The cartoons of Muhammad, first published in September 2005 in a Danish newspaper, were widely condemned by Muslims as blasphemous. They prompted violent riots in many countries.
The cartoons in the Iranian exhibit draw on images both ancient and contemporary, from the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to Israeli tanks running over Palestinian children. Each picture is carefully matted and placed in a soft wood frame, hung with great care and illuminated by gentle lighting.
"It is not that we are against a specific religion," said the show's curator, Seyed Massoud Shojaei, offering a distinction that visitors to the show are certain to question. "We are against repression by the Israelis."
In February, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri said it would challenge Western concepts of freedom of expression by exploring one of the West's taboos and challenging accounts of the Holocaust.
The provocative theme may attract the attention of the West. But it has gone little noticed here. Over a three-day period the gallery was virtually empty. A few visitors stopped by, mostly art students who said they had visited to examine artistic techniques. Many said they were happy to take away a free poster: a photograph showing three military helmets piled up, two with swastikas on the crown, a third with the Star of David.