A leading Jewish organization sounded alarm bells over the opening in Tehran of a Holocaust cartoon contest.
Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem-based Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, urged the rest of the world to react firmly.
"The current exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran, Iran, a nation that aspires to nuclear capabilities, and whose president has made genocidal statements against Israel, is a flashing red light signaling danger not only to Israel, but to all enlightened nations," it said in a statement.
"History has demonstrated that silence in the face of evil statements, begets evil actions," Yad Vashem added.
The Iranian organizer said the fair was a response to the publication in scores of western newspapers earlier this year of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad which were first published in a Danish newspaper.
Some of the cartoons depicted Muhammad as a terrorist and were deemed offensive by Muslims, sparking a global outcry that marked a new low in relations between the Muslim world and the West.
More than 1,100 Holocaust cartoons from 60 different countries were submitted to the Tehran contest. The winner will be awarded a prize of USD 12,000.