The extreme reaction to the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in the European press has led to death threats, rioting and targeting of Danish and other European embassies and institutions throughout the Muslim world. At the same time, some Muslim and Arab newspapers and Web sites have ratcheted up their publication of cartoons with virulently anti-Semitic and anti-Israel themes:
 

• The Web site of the Arab-European League has published several stridently anti-Jewish cartoons – including one showing the Holocaust diarist Anne Frank in bed with Hitler – supposedly in an attempt to show Europeans what can happen when the freedom of the press in their societies is taken too far.
  
• A newspaper in Bahrain printed a cartoon with Danish cheese shaped like a Star of David in an attempt to blame the controversy on a so-called "Zionist penetration" in Denmark.
  
• The Hamshahri newspaper, a large circulation daily in Tehran, announced a deliberately inflammatory contest to find and publish the 12 "best" cartoons about the Holocaust.

Anti-Semitism in the Muslim and Arab press is hardly a new phenomenon. In newspapers throughout the Muslim and Arab world, Jews are routinely depicted in editorial cartoons as controlling, manipulative killers who are working to undermine the Islamic world and to kill Arabs. The caricatures show Jews as Nazi-like, hooked nosed and clad in stereotypical black hats and beards.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Israel incitement is rampant in the Arab and Muslim media and at a seemingly all-time high throughout the Arab and Muslim world. A whole range of anti-Jewish commentary and depictions in the Egyptian, Palestinian, Saudi and other media in the region - the deicide charge, the blood libel accusation, denial of the Holocaust, and justification of the Holocaust - have gone unanswered by Arab and Muslim religious, political and community leaders.

The past few months have been particularly crucial in the Middle East given the intensification of terror attacks against Israeli civilians, the Saudi Peace Initiative and the IDF operation "Defensive Shield." As in the past, criticism of Israeli policy is infused with comparisons between Israelis and Nazis and blatant anti-Semitism.

Andy Abrams

Related Links

http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/ArabCartoons.htm
http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/arab/qatar_cartoons.asp
http://www.arabeuropean.org/newsdetail.php?ID=95
http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2003/11/evolution_of_an.html