From my blog.

What sort of country revels in murder and oppression but cries to high heavens about cartoons?

Saudi Arabia? Check. Syria? Check. Libya? Check. Iran? Check.

Israel? Check:

Norway ‘Nazi cartoon’ irks Israel

Israel’s ambassador to Norway has complained to press regulators about a cartoon showing Israeli PM Ehud Olmert as a Nazi concentration camp commander.

Miryam Shomrat told the BBC the caricature in Oslo’s Dagbladet newspaper went beyond free speech.

Ms Shomrat said it would be open to prosecution in some European countries.

Dagbladet’s editor said the caricature was “within the bounds of freedom of expression,” according to Norway’s NRK state broadcaster.

Ms Shomrat made the official complaint to the Norwegian Press Trade Committee following the publication of the cartoon on 10 July.

In an interview with the BBC’s Europe Today, she said however that her protest could not be compared to the outcry in the Muslim world over the publication in a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Lars Helle, Dagbladet’s acting editor-in-chief, said the newspaper was taking the complaint seriously.

“But I do not fear that Dagbladet will be found guilty,” Mr Helle told the NRK.

The cartoon shows Mr Olmert standing on a balcony in a prison camp.

He is holding a sniper’s rifle and a dead man is seen lying on the ground.

The drawing clearly alluded to the Hollywood film Schindler’s List, in which a sadistic Nazi commander shoots Jewish prisoners for fun, according to Dagbladet.

Here is the doodle in question, which Brit Hume at FAUXNews cites as proof of “a real strain of anti-Semitism in European opinion”:

The allusion to Schindler’s List is clear. Now here’s another list:

   1. Anwar Isma’el Atallah, 12 years old
   2. Saleh Sleman Al Jemasi, 16 years old
   3. Ruwan Fareed Hajjaj, 5 years old
   4. Khalid Nidal Abed Al Karim Wahbeh, 1 year old
   5. Mahfouth Farid Nasseer, 15 years old
   6. Ahmad Ghaleb Abu Amshah, 16 years old
   7. Ahmed Fathi Odah Shabat, 16 years old
   8. Waleed Mahmoud Al Zinati, 12 years old
   9. Salah Adeen Hammad Abu Maktuma, 17 years old
  10. Ibrahim Ali Khatoush, 15 years old
  11. Mahmoud Muhammad Al Asar, 15 years old
  12. Ibrahim Ali Al Nabaheen, 15 years old
  13. Ahmad Abdil Mina’m Abu Hajaj, 16 years old
  14. Nasrallah Nabil Abu Selmieh, 5 years old
  15. Aya Nabil Abu Selmieh, 7 years old
  16. Iman Nabil Abu Selmieh, 11 years old
  17. Yahya Nabil Abu Selmieh, 9 years old
  18. Huda Nabil Abu Selmieh, 13 years old
  19. Basma Nabil Abu Selmieh, 15 years old
  20. Sumaia Nabil Abu Selmieh, 16 years old
  21. Raji Omar Deif Alla, 16 years old
  22. Muhanna Sa’ed Mesleh, 16 years old
  23. Ahmad Rawhee Abdo, 13 years old
  24. Ali Kamil Al Najar, 13 years old
  25. Fadwa Faisel al ‘Urouqi, 13 years old
  26. Mohammad Awad Muhra, 17 years old
  27. Khitam Muhammad Tayeh, 11 years old
  28. Nadee Habib Al Ataar, 11 years old
  29. Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 13 years old
  30. Bashir Abdullah Awad Abu Thaher, 12 years old
  31. Sabrine Naser Habib, 3 years old

The above are children killed by the IDF in Gaza alone since June 26, according to Defence for Children International.

Two questions come to mind: 1. How far off is the cartoon in light of this list? 2. To the extent that it misses the mark, which is more unacceptable? The cartoon, or the list?

Though the Secretariat of the Norwegian Press Trade Committee has already recommended that the complaint be rejected, Ms. Shomrat continues her campaign to stir up outrage over the cartoon. Here is the ambassador making her case in the New York Sun:

Ms. Shomrat said that while Dagbladet, a “reputable” paper, has allowed pro-Israel opinion pieces, it has been quite critical of Israel…. She also said that if the cartoon were printed 50 years ago, it would have been fit for Der Stürmer, the weekly Nazi newspaper.

Is it a crime for a European paper to be critical of Israel? Did Der Stürmer come out in 1956? And lastly, who is now making tasteless comparisons?

Despite the obvious similarities, Ms. Shomrat said that because Israel is now fighting a war, her objections were nothing like the complaints many Muslims made after inflammatory cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist were printed in a Danish paper and later syndicated in numerous other papers, including Dagbladet.

Israel’s objection to freedom of expression in another country is nothing like the Muhammed protest because Israel is fighting a war? Since the New York Sun can hardly be suspected of anti-Israel bias, presumably the ambassador is accurately quoted. And it boggles the mind.

Israel used to be adept at propaganda as well as war. What went wrong?

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