Iran daily to sponsor Holocaust cartoons; Israeli News Agency responds with contest of its own

Nazila Fathi in the International Herald Tribune:

A major Iranian newspaper is holding an international competition for cartoons about the Holocaust to retaliate for the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in a Danish newspaper last year.

The daily Hamshahri, which is Iran's largest newspaper and is run by the capital's municipality, said the competition would be co-sponsored by the House of Caricatures, an exhibition hall for cartoons in Tehran.

The newspaper said further information would be announced next week.

The daily made it clear that the contest was being held to see whether freedom of expression extended to mocking Holocaust. It invited non-Iranian cartoonists to enter the contest.

More here.  And this from the Israel News Agency:

In response to Iran's best-selling newspaper announcing a competition to find the best cartoons about the Holocaust, the Israel News Agency launched an SEO - Internet search engine optimization marketing contest to prevent Iran news Websites from reaching top positions in Google.

"When I heard that a newspaper in Iran was now holding a cartoon contest on the Holocaust, I knew that SEO would be the most potent tool in combating it," said Joel Leyden, publisher of the Israel News Agency. "That 12 winners in Iran would have their Holocaust cartoons published and would receive two gold coins (worth about $140 each) as a prize, I donned my SEO Israel Defense Forces uniform, cocked and loaded my keyboard. There is no way that Iran will spit on the graves of over 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust."

The Israel News Agency is asking every SEO advertising marketing professional to create Web pages and optimize the keywords: "Iran Holocaust Cartoon Contest" in order to prevent the Iran newspapers, the enemies of Israel, the Jews, the Christians and Western democracy from attaining a high Google and Google News position. The SEO contestants will wrap these keywords around their comments of how Iran has sponsored Islam suicide bombing terror attacks against innocent men, women and children in Israel. Iran directly funds the activities of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah.

More here.