Dutch Arab League Defies the OM

The Dutch Arab League has left up a cartoon which shows "two Jews inventing the Holocaust" on its website - even though it was ruled illegal by the OM, the Dutch Public Prosecutor.

The OM have now been accused of being afraid of a Muslim backlash if they enforce their decision - because we all know how overzealous they can be when it suits.

From NIS courtesy of Counter Jihad News:

The Arab European League (AEL) says political motives are behind the Public Prosecutor (OM)'s decision not to prosecute the organisation for publishing a controversial cartoon. In order to provoke the OM into taking the AEL to court after all, the Islamic group has republished the cartoon on its website.

On Tuesday, the OM decided that a cartoon showing two Jews 'inventing' the Holocaust is a punishable offence. Nevertheless, the OM decided not to prosecute the AEL, which made and published the cartoon on its website over three years ago.

The condition attached to this dismissal was that the website would not republish the cartoon. But in the meantime, the AEL has published the cartoon on its website a second time.

The AEL is republishing the cartoon in protest against the OM's simultaneous decision, also announced on Tuesday, that cartoons portraying the Islamic prophet Mohammed are permitted. These are the political cartoons that were originally published in a Danish newspaper in 2005.

According to the OM, the 'Danish cartoons' are not punishable because they concern the prophet Mohammed and say nothing about Muslims as a group. "None of the cartoons is offensive towards Muslims or incite hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims. Therefore their publication or distribution is not punishable either", stated the OM.

On the other hand, the AEL cartoon about the 'invented Holocaust' is punishable. "By claiming that they invented the murder of six million Jews, Jews are being insulted as a group", according to OM.

This explanation did not go down well with the AEL. Spokesperson Abdou Bouzerda is especially angry because the Danish cartoons were republished in the Netherlands by anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders.

"Wilders is judged right and may continue to publish cartoons that one and a half billion people perceive as offensive. While we have to remove political cartoons that could be offensive to Jews", Bouzerda sneered.

Bouzerda claims that the OM is not prosecuting the AEL out of fear of Muslims. "The OM merely wished to prevent angry Muslim reactions if it became evident that we were being prosecuted and Wilders was not".

Due to this "hypocrisy", the AEL republished its cartoon. In doing so it implicitly provokes the OM into taking the matter to court. "Let the OM prosecute us by all means; we want a court verdict ".

The OM had in fact initially received the request to take the AEL to court from the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI). Following Tuesday's OM decision not to prosecute the AEL despite its alleged crime, CIDI director Ron Naftaniel is starting an Article 12 procedure, which means he is appealing the OM's decision not to prosecute.

Naftaniel considers it "disgraceful" that the OM took three and a half years to pass judgement on the AEL cartoons. He is also disgruntled that the OM deems another AEL cartoon as legal. This cartoon portrays Adolf Hitler in bed with Anne Frank. "A nightmare for the thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors still alive."