… no matter what the paper Hamas says, the Palestinian people don’t want the destruction of Israel. They support hard-liners because they think a hard line will get them what they want: control of the West Bank, the Dome of the Rock, and certain other areas.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been conducted online, too, and Newsvine, the social news site still in “private beta” (with 2 million page-views so far, according to one of its founders) is the latest battleground.

Newsvine has been taking steps to set up guidelines and rules it is calling a “Code of Honor.” But it is not clear whether it is up to the task of handling this kind of online lobbying. Mainstream media may be old-fashioned and “one way,” and the blogosphere may be democratic and open, but it is not clear to me whether having virtual battlegrounds that mimic the physical and political ones add any real value to the debate.

The whole rhetorical technique/device of lampooning something is to create a deliberately exaggerated charicature to provoke a response. No one is suggesting they weren’t trying to provoke a response. That’s what cartoons do.

If muslims feel comfortable with the response that we have seen, then people can draw their own conclusions. Many, many people already have. It is not hypocritical to find: 1. the cartoons stupid and even offensive (on the one hand), and 2. the muslim response abhorant. One of the main pillars of western civilization is that you must tolerate people who disagree with you. The conditions for free and open debate must exist.

Not only is there violence and threats of death, but there seem to be ZERO counter demonstrations from muslims supporting free expression. There may be an odd usually anonymous voice here or there out of a billion muslims. One Jordanian editor is now under arrest. I suppose this is a capital offense under islam?

Just because people support the right of someone to express themselves in bad taste, does not mean they necessarily ascribe to those tastes. Tit for tat arguments regarding who draws better cartoons, or more of them, or more often, is not the point.

The point is that a dark ages totalitarian ideology with millions of easily manipulated followers is ready to sow death and destruction upon innocent people because of a few tasteless cartoons. By ‘innocent’ I don’t mean that they are necessarily nice, or that they like you, or that they are ready to submit to you. By innocent I mean they have done nothing to justify the well orchestrated violent response from the Islamic world. Muslim political and religious leaders (if there a difference), as well as the so called moderate muslim in the street, is speaking with one voice and proclaiming that Islam is NOT a tolerant ideology and muslims are not tolerant people.

And muslims wonder why they are looked upon with suspicion?

Islam needs to evolve. Maybe this will get the ball rolling. Probably not. Muslims know that if they raise their voice in protest it may well be lopped off.

From bottom to top.

When the Dixie Chicks publicly spoke out against Bush, there was going to be a lynching.

That’s crap. People stopped listening to their music. Boo-hoo.

it seems to include only Jews on anti-Semitists attacks in Danish society

Perhaps like the President of Iran you doubt this was such a big deal, but the Nordic regions had this lil’ ol’ problem with Nazis in the 30s and 40s. The Nazi Party actually had a significant following there, especially in Norway, but Denmark too. Perhaps the sensitivity relates to that? I couldn’t really say authoritatively.

The Danish constitution says:

I think this is an overly broad and unworkable constitutional article, but the law is the law. It seems to me that any Muslim had an iron-clad court case. They should have taken the newspaper to court. But that’s not what happened is it?

When I spoke of re-iterating the context in which these cartoons were published, I was talking about reality…not conspiracy theories involving figureheads. I was talking about something like this (hyperlink) from the Lebanese Blogger Forum:

“Let me tell you a story… A Danish author was writing a book about the Prophet and founder of Islam, Mohammed. He complained that no one would illustrate his book. A big Danish newspaper challenged anyone to make those illustrations and promised to publish them. That happened on September 30th.

wham… bam… burn the embassies! Acting like terrorists ought to show the world that you’re not.… That makes sense.”

Here we go (from a danish commentator on Abu Tamam’s blog):

[I guess Muslims don’t apply in this category]

It seems not to include Islam and Muslims, but it seems to include only Jews on anti-Semitists attacks in Danish society (several cases during last years). There are most certainly more Muslim Danish citizens than Jew citizens.

nn

nn

Well, the Queen Margaret got what she ordered – a real challenge. If you play with fire you get in a hot situation. The Danish government got only interested in the issue when Muslims started their Danish product boycott. The boycott began fast to hurt Danish economy and reputation. Now they are sorry, ashamed and frightened.”

When the Dixie Chicks publicly spoke out against Bush, there was going to be a lynching. If they were left unguarded, they would have likely been killed.

So, yes, am always happy to reiterate.