Outrage Over Danish Cartoons is Not "Hypocritical"

Here is a must-read by Charles Krauthammer:

As much of the Islamic world erupts in a studied frenzy over the Danish Muhammad cartoons, there are voices of reason being heard on both sides. Some Islamic leaders and organizations, while endorsing the demonstrators' sense of grievance and sharing their outrage, speak out against using violence as a vehicle of expression. Their Western counterparts -- intellectuals, including most of the major newspapers in the United States -- are similarly balanced: While, of course, endorsing the principle of free expression, they criticize the Danish newspaper for abusing that right by publishing offensive cartoons, and they declare themselves opposed, in the name of religious sensitivity, to doing the same.

God save us from the voices of reason.

What passes for moderation in the Islamic community -- "I share your rage but don't torch that embassy" -- is nothing of the sort. It is simply a cynical way to endorse the goals of the mob without endorsing its means. It is fraudulent because, while pretending to uphold the principle of religious sensitivity, it is interested only in this instance of religious insensitivity.

Have any of these "moderates" ever protested the grotesque caricatures of Christians and, most especially, Jews that are broadcast throughout the Middle East on a daily basis? The sermons on Palestinian TV that refer to Jews as the sons of pigs and monkeys? The Syrian prime-time TV series that shows rabbis slaughtering a gentile boy to ritually consume his blood? The 41-part (!) series on Egyptian TV based on that anti-Semitic czarist forgery (and inspiration of the Nazis), "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," showing the Jews to be engaged in a century-old conspiracy to control the world?

Why is there not a single suggestion from the "moderates" for a general agreement not to publish cartoons insensitive to all religions? Wouldn't that seem to make sense? The reason is that anti-Semitism is fundamental to the Islamists. For example, Hamas, universally accepted in the Arab world, has a section of its charter devoted to the "Protocols" forgery. This controversy has nothing to do with fairness or sensitivity. It has to do with the insistence of Islamists on the principle of the primacy of Islam, and a second-class status (dhimmi) for others. We do not understand this because the West cannot conceive that anyone could openly espouse inequality as a principle.

For example, Muslim law (sharia) has universally insisted on inequality for non-Muslims in every facet of society as a specific technique of humiliation and assertion of Muslim primacy. See this must-read for details: The Unreported Legal Abuse of Non-Muslims in Islam.

Many commentators have pointed out the "hypocrisy" of this protest. The best of the "people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" observations has been this one by Tom Gross: Drawing a Line Under Hypocrisy. Unfortunately, it is wrong. Hypocrisy means to espouse a principle and then not follow it. We are just not listening to the demands. Islamists do not seek religious sensitivity; they demand the primacy of Islam. That's what the "V" symbol represents in this picture.

Muslim cartoon protestors are not hypocritical, hypersensitive or ignorant, as is nearly universally believed in the West. If it were, the solution would be to act with extra sensitivity and also publicize Western tolerance of Islam. Enormous numbers of apologies have been proferred so far, including a new one from a Norwegian newspaper. The greatest example of this approach so far was the Danish cartoonist who donated money from the sale of his cartoon to Muslims as a way of proving he means them no harm.

Here is a piece that makes this case explicitly:

Threats to kidnap European diplomats and the armed takeover of the EU offices in Gaza are foolish and self-defeating. Those EU offices have disbursed over $3 billion to the Palestinians, and are one of the few life-support systems they have. If a poll were taken among Europeans today, there would probably be a considerable majority for leaving the empty offices to the gunmen and keeping the money for deserving causes in Europe.

One alternative use for those EU funds would be an education campaign to explain carefully to newspapers in the Arab world why their vicious cartoon depictions of Jews, and their now hackneyed way of depicting Ariel Sharon as Adolf Hitler, is in appalling taste.

Westerners do not get it. Islamists do not care about what Westerners see as "appalling taste." Such an "education campaign" would have no effect. What is needed is a paradigm shift. The solution is found at the bottom of this previous entry.

Update: Here is an opinion piece that eloquently makes my point. Where we disagree, however, is in her last line:

So, how do you say solidarity in Danish? If we don't find out now, our future is more dhimmitude.

My opinion is that it will result in a resumption of the full-scale, largely dormant, jihad through mass Muslim embrace of terror and intifadas, as well as landslides for Islamist parties like Hamas.

Hat tip: Maria Sliwa.