Hoisted by their own petard

Journalista links to a BBC report about the acquital of the AEL for publishing Holocaust cartoons:

A Dutch court has acquitted an Arab cultural group of hate crime for publishing a cartoon on its website questioning the Holocaust.

The Dutch arm of the Arab European League said it had wanted to highlight what it said was double standards.

It published the cartoon last year after a decision by Dutch prosecutors not to put MP Geert Wilders on trial for distributing cartoons of Muhammad.

What these dry facts miss is the pure irony of the verdict. The AEL (Arabic European League) had, as the report says, published cartoons to make clear the double standard in Dutch law and society regarding the way in which Jewish and Muslim sentiments are treated. The idea being that nobody cares if the prophet Muhammed is insulted or whether or not this insults and hurts Dutch Muslims, while even mild criticism of Israel is seen as anti-semitism and cartoons about the Holocaust are entirely taboo. Under Dutch law insulting a specific group of people can be a criminal offence and although its enforcement is sporadic, people have been convicted under it, the most famous example being that of evangelical preachers being convicted of exciting hatred against homosexual people.

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The AEL fully expected to be convicted and hence score a propaganda victory; what they didn’t expect is to hear their own arguments for publishing the offending cartoons being given as the reason why they weren’t offensive/insulting under the law. The AEL from the first insisted that the publication was meant to “expose double standards” and not insult anybody and the judge took them at their word…