I wonder if there is any controversy at all in Israel or among Holocaust scholars and activists about Yad Vashem making statements like this. If not, there should be. 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. <div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:04:32 +0500 From: <a href="mailto:uvj@vsnl.com">uvj@vsnl.com</a> Subject: [lbo-talk] Iran displays Holocaust cartoons To: lbo <<a href="mailto:lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org">lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org</a>> BBC News Last Updated: Tuesday, 15 August 2006 Iran displays Holocaust cartoons <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4795709.stm">http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4795709.stm</a> [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". </blockquote></div>