Saturday, February 4, 2006
Arab Cartoons Trash 9/11, Holocaust
Muslims all over the world are outraged over a series of cartoons that have appeared in European newspapers in recent months that feature the prophet Mohammed in ways that suggest he condones terrorism.
Al Jazeera reports, for instance:
"Up to 300 Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta on Friday. Shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Greatest], they smashed lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag."
These same outraged folks, however, have yet to express a peep of protest over cartoons that routinely appear in the Arab press, which poke fun at the 9/11 attacks and the Holocaust.
Mideast media watchdog Tom Gross has collected on his Web site a few of the cartoons that keep some of these sensitive souls in stitches.
For Tom Gross's Web site and cartoons (Click Here)
One knee-slapper that ran Qatar's Al-Watan newspaper nine months after the 9/11 attacks shows former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon watching as an Israeli plane crashes into the World Trade Center. The Arabic words alongside the Twin Towers are "The Peace."
Then there's the cartoon that appeared in the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustur in October 2003, which depicted the railroad tracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The punchline? Israeli flags have replaced the swastikas flying above the death camp - with a caption that reads: "Gaza Strip or the Israeli Annihilation Camp.”
And for those who can't appreciate the humor in that tableau, there's always the cartoon that ran in Saudi Arabia's Arab News in April 2002, which shows Prime Minister Sharon wielding a swastika-shaped axe to chop up Palestinian children.
As Mr. Gross notes: Most print media in the Arab world are under the full or partial control of the ruling regimes.
Muslims all over the world are outraged over a series of cartoons that have appeared in European newspapers in recent months that feature the prophet Mohammed in ways that suggest he condones terrorism.
Al Jazeera reports, for instance:
"Up to 300 Indonesian Muslims went on a rampage in the lobby of a building housing the Danish embassy in Jakarta on Friday. Shouting 'Allahu Akbar' [God is Greatest], they smashed lamps with bamboo sticks, threw chairs, lobbed rotten eggs and tomatoes and tore up a Danish flag."
These same outraged folks, however, have yet to express a peep of protest over cartoons that routinely appear in the Arab press, which poke fun at the 9/11 attacks and the Holocaust.
Mideast media watchdog Tom Gross has collected on his Web site a few of the cartoons that keep some of these sensitive souls in stitches.
For Tom Gross's Web site and cartoons (Click Here)
One knee-slapper that ran Qatar's Al-Watan newspaper nine months after the 9/11 attacks shows former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon watching as an Israeli plane crashes into the World Trade Center. The Arabic words alongside the Twin Towers are "The Peace."
Then there's the cartoon that appeared in the Jordanian newspaper Ad-Dustur in October 2003, which depicted the railroad tracks to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The punchline? Israeli flags have replaced the swastikas flying above the death camp - with a caption that reads: "Gaza Strip or the Israeli Annihilation Camp.”
And for those who can't appreciate the humor in that tableau, there's always the cartoon that ran in Saudi Arabia's Arab News in April 2002, which shows Prime Minister Sharon wielding a swastika-shaped axe to chop up Palestinian children.
As Mr. Gross notes: Most print media in the Arab world are under the full or partial control of the ruling regimes.
