Among the many ignorant things arising out of the Mohammed cartoon controversy is the claim emanating from many quarters in the Muslim world that if the target of the cartoons had been important to “the Jews,” European governments would have cracked down on the individuals involved. There are many levels to this ignorance (e.g., those pushing this line can’t seem to resist adding a little Holocaust denial into their spiels, and they of course completely ignore the many grossly offensive cartoons that appear in the Arab media), but here is one illustration. In 2003, an English newspaper published the following cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian child:
The cartoon invoked two of the most heinous and longstanding themes in European anti-Semitism: Jews lusting after the blood of non-Jewish children, and Jews as demonic beasts (the cartoon being based on the Goya painting below[the Goya painting is of Saturn devouring one of his children, but Saturn is portrayed as looking like a demon, and alluding to that painting in depicting Sharon brought to many minds the “Jew as demon” theme present for centuries in European art])
The cartoonist may not have been aware of how his cartoon picked up on anti-Semitic iconography. But he soon found out, and was completely unapologetic about it. And how did the the rest of the British press react? Well, the UK’s Political Cartoon Society awarded it first prize in its annual competition for best cartoon, with full knowledge of the anti-Semitic subtext. The UK government failed to arrest the author, the newspaper, or the director of the Cartoon Society, or even denounce them. So much for the mythical power of “the Jews.”
UPDATE: Nevertheless, I agree with Andrew Sullivan that the Europeans “would be in a stronger position to defend press freedom if they practised it more often,” though I’m not sure I agree with all of his specific examples. And Sullivan links to a Gateway Pundit post that suggests that some of the furor is a result of additional, much more offensive cartoons inventing by the Danish Muslim group that is stirring the controversy.
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