Skip to main content

Iran Goes Over the Top - and Engages in Double Standards

"An Iranian paper is holding a contest for cartoons about the Holocaust, to retaliate against the publication of images of the Prophet Muhammad.

Hamshahri says it wants to test the boundaries of free speech, echoing the reasons European papers gave for publishing the caricatures".

So reports the BBC in this latest news item [read it in full].

Whoa! For years the Arab media has systematically villified both Israel and Jews in the most vile and offensive way. There is ample evidence available of cartoons, tv images, videos and articles. Many school books in Arab countries are not purely anti-Israel but downright anti-semitic.

To now be so precious about the cartoons that are said to have caused offence is to engage in double-standards at there very best. Some Arab spokesman talk of freedom of the press being OK but it must be exercised responsibily. Fine! - if it cuts both ways......

On the topic of the the reponse to the cartoons, who better than Richard Neville [twice prosecuted] one-time editor of the satirical magazine Oz to weigh in with his comments on the current controversy. Read his opinion-piece in today's SMH here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Robert Fisk's predictions for the Middle East in 2013

There is no gain-saying that Robert Fisk, fiercely independent and feisty to boot, is the veteran journalist and author covering the Middle East. Who doesn't he know or hasn't he met over the years in reporting from Beirut - where he lives?  In his latest op-ed piece for The Independent he lays out his predictions for the Middle East for 2013. Read the piece in full, here - well worthwhile - but an extract... "Never make predictions in the Middle East. My crystal ball broke long ago. But predicting the region has an honourable pedigree. “An Arab movement, newly-risen, is looming in the distance,” a French traveller to the Gulf and Baghdad wrote in 1883, “and a race hitherto downtrodden will presently claim its due place in the destinies of Islam.” A year earlier, a British diplomat in Jeddah confided that “it is within my knowledge... that the idea of freedom does at present agitate some minds even in Mecca...” So let’s say this for 2013: the “Arab Awakening” (the t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Palestinian children in irons. UK to investigate

Not for the first time does MPS wonder what sort of country it is when Israel so flagrently allows what can only be described as barbaric and inhuman behaviour to be undertaken by, amongst others, its IDF. No one has seemingly challenged Israel's actions. However, perhaps it's gone a bridge too far - as The Independent reports. The Foreign Office revealed last night that it would be challenging the Israelis over their treatment of Palestinian children after a report by a delegation of senior British lawyers revealed unconscionable practices, such as hooding and the use of leg irons. In the first investigation of its kind, a team of nine senior legal figures examined how Palestinians as young as 12 were treated when arrested. Their shocking report Children in Military Custody details claims that youngsters are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, have their wrists bound behind their backs, and are blindfolded and made to kneel or lie face down in military vehi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wow!.....some "visitor" to Ferryland in Newfoundland

Post a Comment
Read more