Moslem protests of Danish cartoons that satirized the Prophet
Mohammed swept across the Middle East and elsewhere in the
world on Monday. Many were violent. There was violence in
Afghanistan where at least five protesters died and more than
a dozen police and protesters were wounded. Protesters turned
out in Turkey, Indonesia, India, Thailand and even New
Zealand, where newspapers recently reprinted the cartoons. A
teenager died in Somalia on Monday when the police set off a
stampede by firing into the air to disperse protesters.
Syrians torched the Danish and Norwegian embassies in
Damascus on Saturday. The Danish Consulate in Lebanon was
also torched. The Beirut consulate building is located in a
Christian neighborhood, and a Maronite church there was also
stoned by the violent protesters. Some Lebanese citizens told
news media that the protesters were not Lebanese Moslems but
Syrians and Iranians.
Reports from Beirut said Hizbullah and/or Syrian intelligence
were behind the attacks on the Danish and Norwegian embassies
in Damascus. An SMS notice sent from an unknown source
claiming, "the Koran is being burned in a public square in
Denmark," was enough to bring an angry mob against the Danish
Embassy. The suspicions are that Hizbullah or the Syrians are
making use of Moslem rage for their own political ends.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Damascus
with Hamas and Hizbullah flags — both terrorist
organizations sponsored by the Syrian and Iranian regimes.
One reporter saw people handing out the flags to the masses.
Nobody in Damascus keeps Hamas flags in their homes. Syrian
forces only intervened to stop the mob when it turned against
the French Embassy, repelling the attackers based on fears of
a French response by the new aircraft carrier, the Charles
de Gaulle.
Thousands of rioters representing Hizbullah set fire to the
Danish consulate in Beirut, located in the Christian
neighborhood of Ashrafiyeh, and then destroyed nearby stores.
The next morning notices saying churches were being burned
were distributed in Christian mountain areas. It seems that
someone wants to renew religious civil war that Lebanon
suffered from in the past.
In Gaza, armed Palestinians being nourished by generous
European aid money to the Palestinian Authority, attacked
European Union offices in Gaza. Palestinians marched through
the streets, storming European buildings and burning German
and Danish flags. Protesters smashed the windows of the
German cultural center and threw stones at the European
Commission building. The leader of Hamas called the cartoons
"an unforgivable insult" that merits punishment by death.
Iraqis rallying by the hundreds demanded an apology from the
European Union.
Pakistan summoned the envoys of nine Western nations in
protest, and Moslem Europeans took to the streets in Denmark
and Britain.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry refused to comment on the
current controversy. One ministry official said that the
"cartoon wars" were not Israel's battle, and that it did not
want to get dragged into it. If Israel would react at all to
the whole controversy, the official said, the Islamic world
would eventually blame Israel for being behind the whole
incident.
The West does not know how to mollify the fury and violence
among Moslems around the world. However, a spokeswoman for
Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief,
called the locations of major protests "very peculiar,"
especially singling out Iran, Syria and the Gaza Strip. These
states have been the objects of particular Western pressure:
Iran over its nuclear weapons development, Syria over its
support of terror in Iraq and Lebanon, and Gaza to suppress
its violent terrorists.
On Sunday the Conference of European Rabbis (CER) condemned
the Danish caricatures depicting Prophet Mohammed. France's
Chief Rabbi Joseph Sitruk also issued a statement condemning
all publications offensive to religious sentiment. Rav Sitruk
said that all publications that are meant to offend people's
religious sentiments should be prohibited.
"I understand the anger of Moslems. And I understand the
anger among religious Moslems at publications like these.
Publishing material that hurts people's religious feelings
should be forbidden in Denmark as in Syria," he added. "Yet
we should in no way tolerate violent responses to these
publications. We the Jewish people have witnessed antisemitic
publications in many countries around the world."
CER Chairman Rabbi Aba Dunner said similarly that "we expect
a similar attitude from Moslems when horrific antisemitic
caricatures are published in Moslem countries. We are
publishing condemnation statements across the world and we
hope we will be treated similarly."
The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten originally
published the 12 cartoons last September, and they were
republished in other European news media in the last week. A
number of European newspapers published the cartoons,
including Norway's Magazinette, France Soir in France,
Germany's Die Welt and Berliner Zeitung and
El Pais in Spain. The editor of France Soir was
fired for publishing the cartoons.
One cartoon depicted the Prophet wearing a turban shaped as a
bomb. The Danish paper said it had asked cartoonists to draw
the pictures because the media was practicing self-censorship
when it came to Moslem issues. Islamic law is said to forbid
all depictions of Mohammed.
People in the streets of Europe are alarmed and governments
are asking the public to remain calm and newspapers to print
gestures to placate insulted Moslems. Suddenly they were
reminded to respect religion. Europe is being targeted by
Moslem rioters, Le Figaro wrote this week.
The anger manifests itself as violence against the West. The
Islamic regime in Iran also seems to want to settle other
accounts with Europe. Hundreds of demonstrators hurled dozens
of firebombs and stormed the Austrian Embassy in Teheran as a
show of retribution for the decision by the International
Atomic Energy Agency, convening in Vienna, to report Iran to
the UN Security Council. An Iranian newspaper announced a
cartoon contest on the Holocaust to goad Europe, which
forbids publishing any Holocaust denial.
In Europe these provocations are being interpreted as a
message from Iran and Syria that they can dispatch mobs to
seek revenge against the West following the recent decision
to refer Iran to the UN Security Council. And this is merely
a taste of Islamic fury if sanctions are imposed against
Iran.
In London and Washington, government officials alleged Syria
and Hizbullah were responsible for the attacks since no
efforts were made to halt the rioters. Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced an economic boycott against
Denmark and recalled his Ambassador.
Arab embassies in Paris offered human rights and Moslem
organizations anonymous funding to hire attorneys to sue the
newspapers that printed the cartoons as well as entities that
defended press freedom. The Arabs are taking advantage of the
fear and confusion in the West to increase their blackmail
power.
The unrest and inflamed sermons at mosques are inflaming a
culture war that the West has been afraid to confront. The
gap between Moslem extremists and Europeans addicted to
indulgent lifestyles is growing.
The violence is an expression of Moslems' general hatred and
frustration towards Europe, since it seems highly unlikely
they are so irate over a few cartoons in a low-circulation
newspaper — cartoons that nobody knew about until the
unrest began. In Europe the cartoons are seen as an excuse to
inflame Moslem sensitivities, which are easy to transform
into a blaze directed against the West, re-igniting the
hostile atmosphere of yesteryear.
Although no London newspaper ran the cartoon, after last
Friday's sermon at the London Central Mosque, demonstrators
marched to the Danish and French embassies, chanting,
"Jihad! Jihad!"
