About a week ago, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made some disturbing comments at a conference entitled, "The World Without Zionism". Amongst them were:
"Anybody who recognises Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury, [while] any [Islamic leader] who recognises the Zionist regime means he is acknowledging the surrender and defeat of the Islamic world."
and
"There is no doubt that the new wave [of attacks] in Palestine will wipe off this stigma [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world."
Yet the Islamic world remained mostly silent, with only a lone Palestinian official denouncing the Iranian president's inflammatory tirade.
But now the Muslim silence has been broken. Broken over cartoons. Judith Apter Klinghoffer has written a piece about how Muslim governments have expressed their outrage at caricatures of Mohammed that were published in the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten. And now there are riots.
Rosenhøj Mall has several nights in a row been the scene of the worst riots in Århus for years. "This area belongs to us", the youths proclaim. Sunday evening saw a new arson attack.
Their words sound like a clear declaration of war on the Danish society. Police must stay out. The area belongs to immigrants.
Klinghoffer:
Suddenly, the ever silent Muslims states found their tongues. 11 ambassadors including those from a number of Arab countries, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Bosnia-Hercegovina and Indonesia entered the fray not to calm the excesses of their coreligionists or condemn the threats of violence but to complain about the cartoons and Danish Islamophobia! The Turkish ambassador even seconded the Imam’s sentiments, berating the paper for “abusing Islam in the name of democracy, human rights and freedom of expression.” T he ambassadors wrote a letter to Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen notifying him that they were offended by the caricatures, demanding an official apology from the newspaper and asking for a special audience “to express their concern about what they perceive as anti-Muslim and anti-Islam campaigns in the press and certain far-right political circles.“ The Prime Minister turned down the request for a meeting pointing out that he (unlike Arab tyrants whose papers are full of anti-Semitic propaganda) has no control over the press.
...what do the ever-silent and passive-defensive Muslim countries, Organization of Islamic Conference and the Arab League vociferously condemn? They are condemning the publication of cartoons featuring Muhammad in a Danish paper.
Reading all of this gives me little hope that our government will be able to find a good excuse not to go to war with Iran. Fortunately I manage to find some hope.
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