* Update: Some of the cartoons referred to in this dispatch have since been removed by the various websites linked to here.

[Note by Tom Gross]

As an update to yesterday’s dispatch Palestinians attack churches as anti-Pope sentiment grows around world, here is some more reaction to the pope’s comments on Islam in cartoon form:

BENEDICT XVI SHOOTS AND KILLS ON AL-JAZEERA

Last night, one of the main Italian TV news programs, TG5, showed in its evening prime-time edition an animated cartoon which had been put online by al-Jazeera. The cartoon shows former Pope John Paul II taking white doves out of a box where it is written “religious harmony.” His successor, Benedict XVI then fires a rifle, and kills the doves. To see the cartoon, accompanied by music and gunfire click here from Italy.

And here directly from al-Jazeera.

Il Corriere della Sera, reports that the cartoon was created by Shujaat Ali, a Pakistani cartoonist, the recipient of many prizes from his country as well from Japan and Iran. He now works for al-Jazeera. Another of his recent animated cartoons, dedicated to the Israeli-Lebanese crisis, shows a journalist interviewing the Statue of Liberty that has the face of U.S. President George W. Bush, holding a mini-Ehud Olmert setting fire to the Middle East.

A CARTOON FROM AUSTRALIA

This cartoon from “The Australian” newspaper, reproduced here on this Australian blog, has a different viewpoint to that of Shujaat Ali.

It is also available by clicking on number 2 in the “bleak” gallery here.

AND THE POPE WITH A SWASTIKA

The front page of the new edition of the Egyptian weekly Ruz al-Yusuf includes a cartoon of the pope with a swastika round his neck. The cartoon accompanied an article about the heads of the Egyptian Coptic Church attacking the pope’s comments. The cartoon can be seen here.

Other cartoons of the pope made to look like Hitler were found on Islamist websites by the journalist Hamza Boccolini and published by the Italian daily Libero (subscription only). The cartoons have been put online for free by Informazione Corretta and can be seen at the bottom of this page.

AND THE POPE CONNECTED TO A FUSE

The Jordanian website, “mahjoob,” which along with other Arab and European media is monitored specially for this email list/website, has a cartoon of the pope attached to one of the Danish Mohammed cartoons, the one that depicts the prophet with a turban and has a fuse attached. The Jordanian cartoonist connects the pope to the fuse. The speech bubble above the pope says (translated from the Arabic): “This is not my opinion, but a quotation only.” Many of the cartoons on this website are often featured in Arabic-language newspapers, for example the London-based Palestinian daily al-Quds al-Arabi.

The cartoon can be seen here.

For more on the Danish cartoon controversy, see:

* Portraying the prophet from Persian art to South Park, (Feb. 6, 2006)

* “To be or not to be, that is the question,” not just asked by a famous fictional Dane, (Feb. 7, 2006)

* Belgium Muslim leader calls on Arabs to use Danish flag as a substitute for toilet paper, (Feb.6, 2006)

NOT YOUR USUAL MESSAGES BY THE CATHEDRAL

You may also want to watch this demonstration outside Westminster Cathedral in London last Sunday, in which British Muslim extremists call for the execution of the pope: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyMbYlCHXLY&eurl=

DANISH NEWSPAPER REPRINTS IRANIAN HOLOCAUST CARTOONS

Meanwhile, “Information,” a Danish newspaper, has printed six of the anti-Semitic cartoons about the Holocaust, which were commissioned for an Iranian exhibition recently. The cartoons had been on display in Teheran. Editor-in-chief of “Information,” Palle Weis, said he thought the cartoons were “tasteless but predictable.” The newspaper said he wanted to “even out” the Mohammed cartoons. But as I have noted before, the “Mohammed cartoons” were fair comments about people who themselves gloriously invoke Mohammed and Allah to kill civilians, whereas the Holocaust is a historical fact, and to compare the two types of cartoon is itself a form of Holocaust revisionism and anti-Semitism.

GREEK GOVERNMENT INCLUDES IRANIAN HOLOCAUST CARTOONIST

The small remaining Greek Jewish community (Greek Jews suffered particularly harshly during the Holocaust and were all but wiped out) have expressed disbelief after the Greek Culture Ministry last week decided to include an Iranian artist involved in a recent “competition” caricaturing the Nazi Holocaust, as a judge in a contest entitled: “The Cartoon as a Bridge Between Civilizations.”

The inclusion of Massud Shojai, the head of Iran Cartoon, the group that co-sponsored a (Nazi) Holocaust Cartoon contest that demeaned the victims of history’s worst genocide, has left Greek Jews in despair. Greece is a member of the European Union.

“NIGHT OF BUSH (AND BLAIR) CAPTURING”

A new game by al-Qaeda’s media arm GIMF (Global Islamic Media Front) has been announced, according to my sources that monitor terrorist groups. The trailer, which reads “Night of Bush capturing,” (but also shows a picture of Tony Blair) can be downloaded through www.alnusra.net/vb/showthread.php?t=6292.

And the “game” is here: hewar.khayma.com/showthread.php?t=57490

-- Tom Gross