Germany Says Iran Dragging Israel Into Cartoon Crisis

Reuters:

An Iranian newspaper's call for Holocaust cartoons is an attempt to drag Israel into a conflict between Europe and the Muslim world over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, German government minister said.

"After denying the right of Israel to exist and denying the Holocaust, the people around President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad are trying to escalate the situation," said Deputy Foreign Minister Gernot Erler, the Berliner Zeitung daily reported on Wednesday

"This fills us with deep concern, that a state is using this clash of cultures as a tool to further its own dominance." READ MORE

Iran's best-selling newspaper launched a competition on Tuesday to find the best cartoon about the Holocaust, in retaliation for the publication in Denmark and other European countries of caricatures of the founder of Islam.

Last year Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" and described the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed by the Nazis during World War Two, as a myth.

Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany, punishable with up to five years in prison. Printing cartoons that make light of the Holocaust without denying it happened would not be a crime but would invite legal difficulties for a newspaper in Germany.

Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman for Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) in parliament, also said Iran was trying to widen a conflict between Denmark and the Muslim world to include Israel.

"Once again Iran is trying to drag Israel into the conflict with the motto -- Israel is responsible for everything," he said in a statement. "We should not let Israel be dragged into this."

OTHER AGENDAS?

More broadly, European Union officials and diplomats said they were convinced that much of the violence against European diplomatic missions and citizens over the cartoons was not spontaneous but instigated by governments or political groups.

Some Muslims, while condemning the cartoons, have also voiced fears that radicals are hijacking the protests and distorting the debate over media freedom and religious respect.

The EU officials, who asked not to be named, said attacks on the Danish embassy in Tehran seemed to be a state-orchestrated response to international pressure over Iran's atomic programme.

Those targeting Danish, Norwegian and other foreign missions in Damascus must also have had official blessing, they argued.

"Anyone who knows Syria knows that people don't just go downtown and demonstrate without some official nod or wink," one EU official said, noting that some Lebanese ministers had blamed Syria for the burning of the Danish consulate in Beirut.

Syria is under intense world scrutiny for its alleged role in last year's killing of Lebanese ex-premier Rafik al-Hariri. Stoking Muslim fury could be a way to warn the West of the risks of destabilising the Syrian government, EU officials said.

They also voiced suspicions that attacks on the European Commission mission in Gaza last week were related to internal tensions after Palestinian elections, with different militias vying to show they were active in defence of Muslim interests.

"None of this is to deny that there is genuine anger in many parts of the Islamic world. But some of the violence clearly has not been spontaneous and reflects other agendas," another EU official said.

(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels)