Sunday, August 22, 2010

Conflicting Muslim Responses to the Holocaust

The Ceej, e'er on the lookout for some good news re interfaith relations, posts this story about Muslims giving Holocaust denial the cold shoulder.

Over on Expatica, though, the news isn't quite as warm 'n' fuzzy.
A Dutch appeals court on Thursday fined an Arab organisation in the Netherlands 2,500 euros for causing "unnecessary offence" in publishing a Holocaust-denying cartoon. 
"The Holocaust is a black page in the history of humanity," the appeals court in Arnhem in the eastern Netherlands said in a statement.
"The suggestion that it may have been contrived or exaggerated by victims is extraordinarily offensive for the victims and their surviving relatives, in this case the Jews."
The Dutch leg of the Arab European League (AEL) re-published the cartoon on its website last year, saying it wanted to point out double standards in society.
It was reacting to a decision by Dutch prosecutors not to put far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders on trial for distributing controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed...
You see, had Wilders not been--now, what was that memorable phrase the Ceej employed when it condemned the publication of the Danish Motoons?; oh, yeah--"inexcusably provocative," Dutch Arabs wouldn't have been "provoked" into denial of historical fact. (Anyone else chuckle at that line about the 'toon in question being "extraordinarily offensive" to whom it may concern, "in this case the Jews." In this case? What, as opposed to other, er, "cases"? Kind of a strange way to put it, no?)

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