Iran's Culture Ministry yesterday dismissed criticism of its competition of cartoons on the Holocaust and lauded the display as an expression of hatred against oppressors. The Israeli Foreign Ministry, echoing widespread international condemnation, said Teheran had joined the "obscene chorus" of denial.

Iran awarded a Moroccan artist the top prize in an exhibition of cartoons on the Holocaust late on Wednesday, saying it wanted to emphasize that Palestinians were the indirect victims of the Nazi's killing of 6 million Jews in Europe during World War II.

"Palestinians have been victim of a deceptive history by Zionists," Iran's Culture Minister Hossein Saffar Harandi was quoted as saying by the Kayhan conservative daily yesterday.

"The cartoonists expressed their hate against oppressors and their love towards (Palestinian) victims in their works," the culture minister said.

Israel, where many Holocaust survivors immigrated to, expressed its dismay at such hatred.

"The Iranian regime has unfortunately joined the obscene chorus of Holocaust denial," said Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.

He said that till now, only neo-Nazi groups had been denying the existence of the Holocaust. "It is surely a historic tragedy that the leadership of a country has adopted such a hateful agenda."

The exhibition has received international condemnation. During a visit to Iran in September, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed his displeasure, saying: "I think the tragedy of the Holocaust is an undeniable historical fact and we should really accept that fact and teach people what happened in World War II and ensure it is never repeated."

Meant to be a response to the Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Muhammad that sparked rage among Muslims around the world, the exhibit appears inspired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tirades calling for Israel to be destroyed.

Teheran has several times announced plans to host a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the Holocaust, dismissing it as exaggerated.

The winner, Abdollah Derkaoui, received US$12,000 for his work depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A picture of Nazi Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp appears on the wall. The mosque is Islam's third holiest site.

Source: China Daily