Danes apologise History of Jewish holocaust Racist Danes, Dutch, Norwegians The WE News Archives

Danish dairy in Riyadh
forced to shut down

Danish dairy in Riyadh forced to shut down.

A huge sign saying that this supermarket is observing the popular demands for boycotting Danish products, in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia.

Picture: www.aljazeerah.info/Alquds Alarabi, 1/31/06

Danish dairy in Riyadh forced to shut down.

A huge sign saying that this supermarket is observing the popular demands for boycotting Danish products, in Riyadh, Saudi
Arabia.

Picture: www.aljazeerah.info/Alquds Alarabi, 1/31/06

Iraqi capital, Baghdad —
Shia clerics burned the Danish flag.

In the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Shia clerics burned the Danish flag.

Picture: BBC/Reuters

(left)	Danish dairy in Riyadh forced to shut down. A huge sign saying that this supermarket is observing the popular demands for boycotting Danish products, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
(right)	In the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, Shia clerics burned the Danish flag. Photos: www.aljazeerah.info/Alquds Alarabi, 1/31/06, BBC/Reuters

When I first saw them, I was struck by their crudeness.

Surely Jyllands-Posten could have hired better artists.

And surely cartoonists and editors ought to be able to spot the difference between Indian turbans and Arab ones.

Tabish Khair
Aarhus University, Denmark

Double-Faced, Double-Standard West:

Anti-Semitism is a crime punished by law

Anti-Islamic cartoons and articles are freedom of expression

In April 2003, Danish illustrator Christoffer Zieler submitted a series of unsolicited cartoons dealing with the resurrection of Christ to Jyllands-Posten.

Zieler received an email back from the paper's Sunday editor, Jens Kaiser, which said: "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them."

Jens Kaiser:

"The illustrator thought his cartoons were funny. I did not think so. It would offend some readers, not much but some."

Gwladys Fouché
Guardian February 6, 2006

February 2, 2006

Cartoons and Hypocrisy
Danes Finally Apologize to Muslims (But for the Wrong Reasons)

By RACHARD ITANI
I n many European countries, there are laws that will land in jail any person who has the chutzpah to deny not only the historicity of the Jewish holocaust, but also the method by which Jews were put to death by the Nazis.

In some of these countries, this prohibition goes as far as prosecuting those who would claim or attempt to prove that less than 6 million jews were slaughtered by the Nazis.

In none of these countries are there similar laws that threaten people with loss of freedom and wealth for denying that large percentages of gypsies, gays, mentally retarded, and other miscellaneous "debris of humanity" were also eliminated by the Jew-slaughtering Nazis.

Hypocritical Europeans with blood on their hands

Cartoons inserted by TheWE.name
Danish Products:

It's illegal to deny the Holocaust

It's illegal to express racist attitudes

It's OK to be anti-Islamic !!!

Photo: www.aljazeerah.info/Emad Hajjaj, Alquds Alarabi, Arab News, 2/2/06

Danish Products:

It's illegal to deny the Holocaust

It's illegal to express racist attitudes

It's OK to be anti-Islamic !!!

Quickly now: what defines a hypocrite?

Answer: a person who follows the letter of the law, but not its spirit.

The laws against anti-semitism are just that: laws against anti-semitism enacted by hypocritical Europeans with blood on their hands from the genocides in their recent and distant past, and much guilt to atone for in their hearts and minds.

The spirit of the law, which would extend this protection to Muslims as well, if not indeed other religious groups, is nowhere to be found in the Western legal code.

You can curse the Prophet of the Muslims at will and with total impunity.

However, approach the holocaust at your own risks and perils if you do not include in your discussion the standard, ritualistic incantations about the six million Jewish victims of the European Nazis.

There is a word for this in the English language: hypocrisy.

Behaved as a mob

I used to have a lot of respect for the Dutch, the Danes, and the Norwegians, and still do.

However, I cannot claim that this respect is not more nuanced today.

The coloring started when the Dutch, who are invariably and automatically described as being amongst the most "tolerant" people in the West, if not the world, proved that their tolerance was little more than skin deep.

Their reaction to the murder of Theo Van Gogh was anything but driven by tolerance.

They behaved as a mob in reaction to the criminal, despicable action of an extremist and murderer, by painting the whole Dutch muslim community with the same broad brush that Vincent Van Gogh would have eschewed.

They burnt Muslim schools and mosques.

They directed opprobrium at Muslims in their midst, calling on them "to go home" though many had been born in the Netherlands.

No subtlety in the Dutch reaction.

Just collective anti-semitism which they directed not at the Jews, but at the Jews' cousins, the Muslims.

Anti-Islamic Western attitude in Denmark (left)

Western observers injecting their noses in Palestinian elections (right)

Danes decided to go the Dutch one better

Then the Danes, who must have felt left out, decided to go the Dutch one better: a Danish paper published cartoons that are no less offensive to Muslims than anti-semitism is to Jews.

The cartoons were described by Danish politicians and the press as not provocation, but a principled case of free speech, although many Danish and Scandinavian newspaper editors are on record stating that they published the cartoons as an act of defiance against "radical Islam."

This is akin to these ignorant morons recommending that the U.S. ought to nuke Tehran because that would teach Iranian President Ahmadinejad a lesson.

What free speech?

What free speech are we talking about here?

The law says thou shalt not utilize or publish anti-semitic language or imagery.

Consequently, Danish (and other European) papers will refrain from doing so, lest they fall foul of the law and offend Jewish sensitivities.

The law does not say: thou shalt not offend muslims or use imagery that may be deeply offensive to them.

So Danish papers will not refrain from doing so, in fact they will go out of their way to offend Muslims both in Denmark and around the world, in the name of "free speech."

Norwegian Christian Paper

And the Norwegians?

Well, they just decided to follow the Danes down perdition lane, all in the name of holy hypocrisy, so a Norwegian paper also published the offending cartoons.

The statement about "confronting radical Islam" was in fact made by the Norwegian editor of a newspaper that is described as a "Norwegian Christian Paper."

Protecting Israeli Interests:

US-EU standing on the thick Israeli nuclear program and arsenal and threatening Iran:

Hey You Iran, We'll see you in the UN Security Council.

And now that other European papers and Magazines have also followed suit, if there was any doubt that this affair is one of anti-Muslim bias, it was swept away by the statements of the Editor in Chief of Die Welt, the German magazine, who declared that the right to publish the cartoons was "at the very core of our culture" and that Europeans cannot "stop using our journalistic right of freedom of expression within legal boundaries."

It's the "legal boundaries" qualifier that gives the game away: there are no legal boundaries in Europe protecting Muslims from the same ignominies that the law protects Jews from.

And what further argument does Die Welt put forward to justify its "legal" action?

"It pointed out that "Syrian TV had depicted Jewish rabbis as cannibals."

You can imagine how helpful a similar argument would hold up in a court of law: "But your honor, I only killed one guy and raped two women: the other guy killed four and raped 10!"

That a German editor-in-chief of a major German paper should use the "legal" argument to justify offending the religious sensitivities of Muslims, when that same "legal" framework would see him thrown in jail faster than he could spell the word legal if he offended the sensitivities of Jews, may be a testament at least of his own deep-seated contempt for Muslims.

That so many European papers have now reprinted the offensive cartoons is an indication that the contempt for Muslims does not stop with the editor-in-chief of Die Welt.

This whole affair is nothing but an over-reaction to a simple cartoon, you say?

Arab mediation between Hamas and the Israeli government.

Not if you remember a certain other cartoon that appeared in the British newspaper, The Independent, on 27 January 2003.

It depicted Prime Minister Sharon of Israel eating the head of a Palestinian child while saying: "What's wrong?

You've never seen a politician kissing babies before?"

Jews in Britain and around the world erupted with indignation, arguably because the depiction reminded them of millennial charges levied against them by Christians who accused them of using the blood of babies in ritualistic killings.

You see, Sharon can actually kill, maim and spill the real, actual blood of Palestinian babies: that is not offensive to Zionist Jews and their apologists in the West.

But let Sharon be depicted in a cartoon metaphorically as the ogre that he has proved to be in his real life, symbolically eating a Palestinian child, and the world will erupt in offended indignation.

A cartoon that is offensive to Muslims, on the other hand, is depicted as nothing but an expression of "free speech." There is a word for this in any language: hypocrisy.

Before the Danish cartoon incident started to evolve into a growing international crisis, the Danish Prime Minister and the publisher of the Danish newspaper that first published the offending cartoons both declared that they would never apologize on grounds of free speech and because publishing the cartoons had not broken any Danish laws.

(Yes, the "no law broken" argument again.)

Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten (The Jutland Post):

Yes, the paper is the country’s largest newspaper which means it has a circulation of about 175,000 copies.

It is a conservative paper.

It has a long tradition for association with the party of Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark today.

It has always taken into consideration the religious sensitivities of its readers who are primarily provincial middle class and farmers.

Jytte Klausen
Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Brandeis University.

Danish Products in the Middle East

There was an annual meeting of one of the [Danish political] parties, it’s a coalitional government.

Denmark has many parties and no one party has enough votes to govern.

So the government is a coalition of two parties, two right-wing parties, and they depend on the very xenophobic Danish People’s Party for the majority.

At the annual meeting, one of the parties before the courtroom, Brian Mikkelsen said that in the past five years, he said, Denmark has been in a cultural war and the government has now won the first round and this is a time to start the second round to eliminate all signs of multiculturalist relativism in Denmark.

It was a battle cry.

The government has been deeply engaged in a project of Danish moral restoration...which they say are Christian values.

And the Danish People’s Party, members of the Danish People’s Party — two of them are in fact pastors in the Lutheran church — have repeatedly stood up in parliament and said that Muslims are a cancer on Danish society.

      Jytte Klausen
       Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Brandeis University.
      www.democracynow.org      February 9th, 2006

Tsunami

Yesterday, however, they both ended up apologizing in the face of a growing tsunami of protests on the part of Arab and Muslim governments, some of whom withdrew their Ambassadors from Copenhagen.

The Danish prime minister did not apologize because his moral compas suddenly found True North again.

The real reason, of course, is that he understood, though a tad too late, the potential economic consequences of a widespread boycott of Danish goods on the part of one billion people.

There is a word for this in the Danish language: realpolitik.

Muslims and other reasoning people around the world understand well that European laws against anti-Semitic speech, writing, and behavior, were enacted for two reasons.

Western freedom of expression is a mask for freedom of hatred

Pogroms

The stated reason was to protect the Jews from the continued onslaught of anti-Semitic attacks, both verbal and physical, which culminated historically in the repeated pogroms that Christian Europeans launched against Jews repeatedly through the centuries.

(Historically, it was the Arabs who protected the Jews and took them in whenever they fled Christian barbarity, especially in the Middle Ages.)

The real reason, of course, is to protect the Europeans from the pangs of their own conscience, which has very good reason to feel guilty indeed, given what Europeans did to Jews in the last millennium, especially in the 19th and 20th centuries, not to mention what they did to the indiginous people of the Carribean and the Americas since the 1600s, and to the people of Asia, Africa and Oceania as well.

I have long thought that it's European Christians, more so than Jews, who ought to observe Yom Kippur, or adopt a similar atonement observance of their own.

While the spirit of the law is that Europeans shalt not offend any ethnic or religious groups including Muslims, this seems to be lost only on the Europeans themselves, or at least the Danes, the Germans and their ilk amongst them, who only care about, or fear, the letter of the law.

Israeli Occupation - US Paid For - Air Strike Kills 3 Palestinians and Wounds Eight others in a Sports Club, Israeli Woman Killed.

Photo: www.aljazeerah.info/IPC, 2/5/06

Israeli Occupation - US Paid For - Air Strike Kills 3 Palestinians and Wounds Eight others in a Sports Club, Israeli Woman Killed.

February 6, 2006

Meek complaints by the French Foreign Office

Why should we therefore be shocked when Muslims depict Europeans as nothing but a bunch of hypocrites? Why shouldn't Governments of Muslim countries recall their Ambassadors to Denmark in protest, as some did?

The only disappointment is that no Western or non-Muslim government, the meek complaints to a French newspaper by the French Foreign Office excepted, had the moral and ethical courage to publicly, unequivocally and forcefully condemn an act that is as deeply offensive to Muslims as the desecration of a Torah scroll, or of a Jewish cemetery, is offensive to all civilized people in the world, be they Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Animist, or Atheist.

There are two ways for Europeans to redeem themselves: the immediate temptation would be to call on their national parliaments to extend the protections of the laws against anti-Semitism and Holocaust denying to Islam and Muslims, as well as any other religious group.

That would be the wrong recommendation however.

The right recommendation would be to repeal the laws that govern holocaust denying and other laws that favor one group over another, so that the issue truly becomes one of free speech.

And if Europeans are the civilized people they claim to be, then their politicians and newspaper publishers ought to find it easy to immediately apologize when they have unwittingly offended the taboos of any human community, be it religious or otherwise.

European Christians

Muslims and Arabs have suffered enough hypocrisy on the hands of European Christians, just as Jews suffered in the past on the hands of these same Europeans, and as Palestinian Muslims and Christians alike are suffering today on the hands of Americans, Europeans and, of course, Zionist Jews, both Sephardim and Ashkenazi.

If Europe thinks of itself as a civilized society, then it ought to do its utmost to redress the wrongs that too many people around the world have suffered as a result of European misbehavior and often outright criminal actions, most especially since the 1400s.

US soldiers stopping Iraqis for body search and arrest in Hitt, western Iraq.

Photo: www.aljazeerah.info/Assafir, 2/4/06

US soldiers stopping Iraqis for body search and arrest in Hitt, western Iraq.

February 4, 2006

Muslims deserve nothing more nor less than for Christians in the U.S. and Europe, and Zionist Jews in Israel, to simply abide by the golden rule: treat others as you would have others treat you.

So far, Christians and Zionist Jews have proven that they only abide by the alternative definition of this rule: "They who have the gold, make the rule."

The gold in this case is a combination of economic and military might.

Of this, Europeans, Zionist Jews and their American overlords have aplenty in reserve.

Were it that they also had an equal reserve of un-hypocritical, civilized morality and ethical behavior to underpin their feelings of sanctimonious superiority.

And the other measure that Europeans can adopt to redeem themselves?

Pogroms against the people of Iraq

The European people can start by throwing out of office, and initiating criminal proceedings against, any politician responsible for sending a single soldier to invade, occupy, and initiate pogroms against the people of Iraq: these politicians have been guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, which makes them unfit for the honors that continued office holding bestows upon them.

Europeans can also give the boot to any politician who has approved or turned a blind eye to a single rendition flight that sent any person to the torture chambers of the Americans or their surrogate torturers in some Arab or Muslim countries.

These are the same countries whose religious sensitivities we should all respect as strongly as we respect Jewish sensitivities when it comes to the Jewish holocaust, not because the law says so, but because it's the right thing to do.

These are also the same countries whose human rights trespasses Europeans ought to condemn as equally and vehemently as they should condemn the continued human rights abuses and state terrorism perpetrated by the Israeli government in Palestine/Israel, and by some European governments in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in other out-of-sight/out-of-mind places like Haiti, Africa, and elsewhere.

In other words, Europeans can start by applying the simple rule of one weight and one measure to both friends and foes, equally to themselves and to the rest of the world, because policy and politics, both domestic and foreign, ought to be based upon and subject to principled moral considerations, not expediency of the economic, financial or religious kind.

Is that such an unreasonable moral proposition to consider?

In April 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Daniel Pipes to the board of the United States Institute of Peace, a congressionally sponsored think tank dedicated to "the peaceful resolution of international conflicts."

The nomination was followed with a summer 2003 recess appointment for Pipes as a temporary term at USIP without Senate approval.

Like many other Middle East scholars, Daniel Pipes sees a way to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

But unlike most of his peers, Pipes sees no room for negotiation, no hope for compromise and no use for diplomacy.

"What war had achieved for Israel," Pipes explained at a recent Zionist conference in Washington DC, "diplomacy has undone."

His solution is simple: The Israeli military must force what Pipes describes as a "change of heart" by the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza — a sapping of the Palestinian will to fight which can lead to a complete surrender.

"How is a change of heart achieved? It is achieved by an Israeli victory and a Palestinian defeat," Pipes continued. "The Palestinians need to be defeated even more than Israel needs to defeat them."

Daniel Pipes comments on the meeting with Flemming Rose:

Rose visited me in my office on October 25, 2004, when he interviewed me for a feature piece on me that he published on October 29 in Jyllands-Posten.

The resulting article, "Truslen fra islamismen," can be found on my website, as can a translation of it into English, "The Threat of Islamism."

It was a standard interview in which Rose inquired about my views on a variety of questions pertaining to radical Islam.

It contains, for example, my signature statement, translated into Danish: "Hvis militant islam er problemet, så må modsætningen, moderat islam, være løsningen."

Flemming Rose and I have not written, spoken, or seen each other since that one meeting.

I had nothing to do with the decision to commission or publish the cartoons eleven months later and only learned of their existence from press coverage of them.

Sources:
Christopher Bollyn      American Free Press      February 5, 2006
Barry Chamish      www.conspiracyplanet.com      February 15, 2006
Michael Scherer      www.motherjones.com      May 26, 2003

Egypt

Yemen

(left)	An employee removes Danish goods from the shelves of an Egyptian supermarket.
(right)	These Yemeni women held placards urging a boycott of Danish goods amid a growing backlash against the country. Photos: BBC/Reuters

The West spreading its democracy among Muslims!

The Bush Double-Standard Democratic Concepts:

Down with democracy if the winner is Hamas !!

Thursday, 2 February 2006

Danish plea for calm on cartoons

Pakistani protesters burn the Danish flag in Lahore

Protests against Denmark have spread to many Muslim countries

Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen has appeared on Arabic television to try to defuse a worsening row over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in European media.

Mr Rasmussen again apologised for any offence but insisted his government was not responsible for newspaper articles.

The cartoons, first seen in a Danish paper, have sparked violent protests and boycotts across the Muslim world.

Editors of a Jordanian and a French newspaper who chose to republish the cartoons have been dismissed.

One of the cartoons shows the Prophet wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise is running short of virgins for suicide bombers.

Islamic tradition bans depictions of the Prophet or Allah.

Ambassadors summoned

In an interview with the Dubai-based al-Arabiya channel, Mr Rasmussen called on all parties to avoid escalating the row.

We fought for freedom of religion... France Soir's owner should be ashamed

Marcel de Vries, Netherlands

Freedom of speech has its limits when it concerns others... How would it feel if Jesus Christ was the one insulted instead?

Randa Ahmed Essa, Egypt

"I have sent a very strong appeal to everyone in Denmark that though this dispute may raise many strong feelings, everybody should take the responsibility to ensure peaceful co-operation in Denmark," he said.

Mr Rasmussen said the issue has gone beyond Denmark to become a clash between Western free speech and Islamic taboos.

Denmark has summoned ambassadors in Copenhagen to talks on the row on Friday. Syria and Saudi Arabia have already withdrawn their envoys.

Danish companies are already feeling the pinch of Muslim boycotts.

Dairy firm Arla Foods said on Thursday it was laying off 125 staff in Denmark.

Although the cartoons originated in Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper, they have been reprinted in newspapers in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain — all saying they were expressing free speech.


	CARTOON ROW 30 Sept: Danish paper Jyllands-Posten publishes cartoons 20 Oct: Muslim ambassadors in Denmark complain to Danish PM 10 Jan: Norwegian publication reprints cartoons 26 Jan: Saudi Arabia recalls its ambassador 30 Jan: Gunmen raid EU's Gaza office demanding apology 31 Jan: Danish paper apologises 1 Feb: Papers in France, Germany, Italy and Spain reprint cartoons

In Jordan, an independent tabloid, al-Shihan, reprinted three of the cartoons on Thursday, saying people should know what they were protesting about.

In a separate article, the newspaper's editor, Jihad Momani, urged the world's Muslims to "be reasonable" in their response to the drawings.

The paper's publishers sacked him hours later over the "shock" he had caused, Jordan's official Petra news agency reported.

There has been widespread anger over the cartoons among Muslim nations and communities.

Norway closed its mission to the public in the West Bank in response to threats from two militant groups against Norwegians, Danes and French people.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned that the decision to publish the cartoons could encourage terrorists.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned their publication, saying it was "an affront... for hundreds of millions of people".

Hundreds of students demonstrated in the Pakistani cities of Lahore and Multan, burning flags and effigies of the Danish prime minister.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson also criticised the European papers which re-ran the cartoons, saying they were "throwing petrol onto the flames of the original issue and the original offence that was taken".

Bomb threat

MUSLIM CONCERNS OVER ART

1989:Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini calls on Muslims to kill British author Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemy in his book The Satanic Verses

2002: Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel's article about Prophet and Miss World contestants sparks deadly riots

2004: Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh killed after release of his documentary about violence against Muslim women

2005: London's Tate Britain museum cancels plans to display sculpture by John Latham for fear of offending Muslims after July bombings

The row intensified on Wednesday when France Soir, alongside the 12 original cartoons, printed a new drawing on its front page showing Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian holy figures sitting on a cloud, with the caption "Don't worry Muhammad, we've all been caricatured here."

France Soir's editor, Jacques Lefranc, was dismissed by the paper's French-Egyptian owner after the decision to publish the cartoons.

But journalists at France Soir stood by their editor's decision on Thursday, printing a front page picture and editorial in which they strongly defended the right to free speech.

The man named to replace Mr Lefranc in an interim role, Eric Fauveau, said he would not take up the post. Mr Fauveau called the dismissal of Mr Lefranc "inopportune".

Jyllands-Posten has apologised for causing offence to Muslims, although it maintains it was legal under Danish law to print the cartoons.

Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Two
Wound Two
Demolish Two Houses

Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Two Islamic Jihad Activists in Jenin, Wound Two, Arrest Seven, and Demolish Two Houses in the West Bank. Above: Funeral of Nidal Abu Sa'ada.

Picture: www.aljazeerah.info/Al-Hayat Aljadeeda, 2/1/06

Israeli occupation bulldozer
demolishing two Palestinian homes

Israeli occupation bulldozer demolishing two Palestinian homes in the town of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem yesterday.

Picture: www.aljazeerah.info/IPC, 2/1/06

Israeli occupation bulldozer demolishing two Palestinian homes in the town of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem yesterday.

Picture: www.aljazeerah.info/IPC, 2/1/06

(left)	Israeli Occupation Forces Kill Two Islamic Jihad Activists in Jenin, Wound Two, Arrest Seven, and Demolish Two Houses in the West Bank. Above: Funeral of Nidal Abu Sa'ada.
(right)	Israeli occupation bulldozer demolishing two Palestinian homes in the town of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem yesterday. Photos: www.aljazeerah.info/Al-Hayat Aljadeeda, 2/1/06, www.aljazeerah.info/IPC, 2/1/06

Israel, US, EU threaten more hunger on Palestinians

(After Hamas winning), Israel, US, EU:

We respect the right of the Palestinian people to choose whoever they want as their representatives ...

And here is our hand extending to you.

But when I discussed — I teach at a Jewish university.

And when I discussed the cartoons with my students, their immediate reaction was, if they can draw this kind of cartoon about Muslims, what is it to prevent them from doing it about Jews.

Obviously my students were on to something.

      Jytte Klausen
       Associate Professor of Comparative Politics, Brandeis University.
      www.democracynow.org      February 9th, 2006

Thursday, 2 February 2006

UK Muslims voice cartoons concern

French daily newspaper France Soir open on cartoon page

Some of the cartoons depict the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist

UK Muslims have reacted with concern to the reproduction of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad by European papers.

The Muslim Association of Britain accused the Danish paper which first carried them of "flagrant disregard" for the feelings of Muslims worldwide.

It said other papers would have been "prudent" not to "exacerbate" tensions by reprinting them and urged the British media not to follow suit.

The BBC aired "glimpses" of the images, which it said it used "responsibly".

EU offices threatened

The cartoons, including one depicting Muhammad with a turban-shaped bomb on his head, have sparked protests across the Middle East.

The editor of the Danish paper which first carried them has apologized but newspapers in Spain, Italy, Germany and France have reprinted the material in a show of support.

You cannot reproduce these images in a sensitive manner

Muslim Association of Britain

Earlier, Palestinian gunmen briefly surrounded EU offices in Gaza to demand an apology over the cartoons.

The Muslim Association of Britain condemned any acts or threats of violence by those on either side of the row.

But it said any reproduction of the images by the British media would "only infuriate the British members of the Muslim community and Muslims around the world".

A spokesman added: "It will be insult to injury. You cannot reproduce these images in a sensitive manner."

A spokesman for the BBC said it had decided to show the images in full context to "give audiences an understanding of the strong feelings evoked by the story".

"We are only showing these within the context of full reports of the debate," a spokesman said.

'Gloating about freedom'

The Muslim Council of Britain said its reaction to the BBC decision would depend on the context in which it used the images.

A spokesman said: "It depends on whether they're broadcast to illustrate the story about the row developing or, in the same way as the European newspapers have published, to gloat about freedom.

"We recognise that the newspapers have full freedom. However we hope that they would be able to show restraint when it comes to these images because of the enormous hurt it would cause to Muslims."


	I would urge all sides now to climb down and treat this as a hard lesson in building inter-cultural ties Sajjad Karim

Liberal Democrat MEP Sajjad Karim, who represents north-west England in the European Parliament, said it was irresponsible for papers to publish the cartoons.

But it was also irresponsible for Muslims to threaten to retaliate against citizens of the countries where the newspapers were published and it was now time to "put the issue to bed".

He said: "I would urge all sides now to climb down and treat this as a hard lesson in building inter-cultural ties."

European Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson earlier condemned those newspapers which re-printed the cartoons, accusing them of throwing "petrol on to the flames".

He told the BBC: "I can understand the motivation at one level of these newspapers. They are, as they would see it, standing up for freedom of speech.

'Kid gloves'

"What they also have to understand though is the offence that is caused by publishing cartoons of this nature."

A spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said whether British media organisations decided to carry the images was a matter for them to decide.

He said: "In this country there are ways in which the media reach their judgments and they know they have to do so within the law. "It would be entirely wrong for the government to... dictate in advance what media organisations can or cannot do."

Former Spectator editor and Conservative MP Boris Johnson told the BBC the Muslim religion should not be treated with kid gloves.

He said: "If you are a Muslim and your faith is strong and you believe in God and in your prophet then I don't think you should be remotely frightened of what some ludicrous infidel says or does about your religion or any depiction he produces.

"I think we've got to move away from this hysterical and rather patronising idea that we have got to treat the Muslim religion with kid gloves and not subject it to all the same rough and tumble that we subject other faiths to."

Kuwait

Kuwaitis protest outside the Danish embassy in Gaza on 28 January.

Picture: BBC/AFP

Footprint on Danish Flag

A Danish flag with a black footprint painted on it.

Picture: BBC/AFP

(left)	Kuwaitis protest outside the Danish embassy in Gaza on 28 January.
(right)	A Danish flag with a black footprint painted on it. Photos: BBC/AFP

First sign that you agree to all my conditions, then we can start negotiations !!!

Wednesday, 4 January 2006

'Irving? Let the guy go home'

By Brendan O'Neill

David Irving, the infamous British war historian, is today sitting in an Austrian jail, accused of denying the Nazi Holocaust. So why is an American Jewish academic who dramatically crushed Irving in the British courts saying he should be released?

When you ask Professor Deborah Lipstadt for her thoughts on David Irving's forthcoming trial, the very last thing you expect her to say is: "Let the guy go home. He has spent enough time in prison."

Lipstadt, the American Jewish academic who exposes Holocaust deniers is not exactly David Irving's greatest fan.

	Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens Deborah Lipstadt

But five years after she famously defended her own reputation in the High Court, and in doing so shredded Irving's, she is arguing that the Austrian authorities should probably let him go, saying the far-right will find a martyr if he goes to jail.

David Irving, 67, who made his name as a World War II historian, became infamous for suggesting that the Holocaust didn't happen.

But in November last year he was arrested in Austria for two speeches he made in 1989, during which he allegedly claimed there had been no gas chambers at Auschwitz.

Gas chambers

It is a crime in Austria to minimise the atrocities of the Third Reich and the historian faces up to 10 years imprisonment if found guilty. Speaking after the arrest, Irving's lawyer said the historian no longer denies that gas chambers existed in Nazi death camps.

Yet Lipstadt, arguably the best-known warrior against Holocaust denial, believes that the best outcome would be for Irving to be let go.

"I would not want to see him spend more time in jail," she says.

"I am uncomfortable with imprisoning people for speech. Let him go and let him fade from everyone's radar screens."

Irving said his reputation as an historian had been 'vandalised'

If there were to be a film of Deborah Lipstadt and David Irving, they would be presented as nothing less than arch enemies, fighting to the last — as they indeed did in the High Court.

Lipstadt has spent years exposing the arguments of Nazi sympathisers.   She warns historians must "remain ever vigilant" against those who say the Holocaust was a hoax, "so that the precious tools of our trade and our society — truth and reason — can prevail".

The showdown came in January 2000 when she stood accused of libel for describing Irving in a book as "one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial"; he accused her of "vandalising" his legitimacy as an historian.

The 32-day trial became a legal debate on the history of the Nazis — and the nature of truth itself.

Mr Justice Gray witheringly described Irving as anti-Semitic, racist and a Holocaust denier who had "deliberately misrepresented and manipulated historical evidence".

Irving had comprehensively lost not just his money, but his reputation.

Much to the annoyance of those who have fought against him, Irving is still invited to speak both in Europe and the USA.   And Lipstadt raises questions about both free speech, and the publicity Irving stands to gain at his impending trial.

"Generally, I don't think Holocaust denial should be a crime," she says.   "I am a free speech person, I am against censorship."

Irving's 1977 book Hitler's War contained the thesis that, until late 1943, Hitler knew nothing of the Holocaust

"I don't find these laws efficacious.   I think they turn Holocaust denial into forbidden fruit, and make it more attractive to people who want to toy with the system or challenge the system.

"We don't have laws against other kinds of spoken craziness.   If you're a medical quack and you hurt someone, there's a law against that.

"But if you're a medical quack and you stand on the street corner preaching that you have an elixir that cures cancer and saves lives, no one throws you in jail."

Holocaust deniers spread conspiracy theories such as that Anne Frank's Diary was a hoax, and that the gas chambers were secretly built after the war.

But whether free speech should include the freedom to say such things has been the subject of furious debate on both sides of the Atlantic.   Nine European countries have laws against Holocaust denial — and supporters argue that this is the one issue that crosses the line because it is offensive to both the dead and the survivors.

Democracy

In the UK, the free speech debate has focused on religious hatred: the government says it will outlaw incitement to hatred of believers.   Opponents of the measure, including comic actor Rowan Atkinson, say it's an attack on free speech.

The gas chambers and crematorium at Birkenau, Poland

However, in the case of the Holocaust, Lipstadt says she recognises a case for laws in the lands that formed the heart of the Third Reich.

"Germany and Austria are not so far past the Third Reich.   So I can understand that the swastika symbol, Mein Kampf, Holocaust denial, being a neo-Nazi and all the rest have a certain potency there that they would not have in the United States," she says.

"And Austria is a democracy.   If the citizens of Austria were against these laws, they could change them.   Austria and Germany are different, but I would not support those laws being instituted elsewhere."

Lipstadt says the reason she is generally opposed to outlawing Holocaust denial is not because she fails to recognise how deeply offensive it is but because such laws tend to turn cranks into martyrs.

"I am not interested in debating with Holocaust deniers," she says.   "You wouldn't ask a scientist to debate with someone who thinks the Earth is flat.   They are not historians, they are liars.   Debating them would be nonsensical.

"But we also should not allow them to become martyrs.   Nothing is served by having David Irving in a jail cell, except that he has become an international news issue.

"Let him go home and let him continue talking to six people in a basement.

"Let him fade into obscurity where he belongs."

Feb-10-2006


Lebanese protestors attacked the Danish embassy over the cartoons (Iberpress)

CARTOON CRISIS: WEST AND ISLAM 'DON'T UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER'

Beirut, 10 Feb. (AKI) — Western "sensibilities" and those felt by people in the Muslim and Arab worlds are different and this leads to much incomprehension from both sides of the religious and cultural divide, says Lebanon's interior minister, Ahmad Fatfat.

"The two worlds really don't seem to understand each other and the issue over the cartoons, provides the latest example of this," he told Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview.

Fatfat, a Sunni Muslim born in the northern port city of Tripoli who has spent many years living in France and other parts of Europe, feels part of the problem is the attempt to judge one culture by the values of the other.

"If we want to interact with another culture, we have to learn everything we can about it and then open a communications channel based on mutural respect," he says.

"By publishing the cartoons, the dignity of an entire culture was offended, said Fatfat, explaining that Western ideas of what is "religious" or what is "secular" are misplaced when applied to the Muslim world.

"For many of us, even liberals and progressives, Islam is not just a religion, but a set of cultural values that shape our specific identity," he says.

He compared the outraged response by Muslims to the publication of the satirical cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, to the "European sensibilities" towards the Jewish Holocaust.

"The publication of [Holocaust] cartoons would without doubt provoke the indignation and condemnation of Jewish communities in the world, and of many of your [Western] politicians.

"This is normal because in your [Western] history the Holocaust is an explosive subject. It is up to us [Muslims] to learn this and respect you for it, in the same way that it should be your responsibility to learn about us and to respect us, Fatfat concluded.

(Lto/Aki)

Feb-10-06

February 9, 2006

An American Indian's View of the Cartoons
Such Depictions Have Been Used as a Weapon Against Oppressed Peoples for Centuries

By ROBERT ROBIDEAU
R eading the first news reports about the cartoons depicting Muhammid as a terrorist reminded me of the unfriendly media that printed the then Attorney Gerneral of for South Dakota, William Janklows` vigilante order:

"The only way to deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun to the AIM leaders' heads and pull the trigger."

Such ethnically hostile and abusive reporting by mainstream media was what helped to kill more than 60 American Indians and assault hundreds more during the federal governments reign of terror that occurred between 1973 and 1975 on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota reservation.

White man speaks with forked tongue

The old adage that was popularized in Hollywood westerns," White man speaks with forked tongue" had a special meaning.

It denoted the deceit of European settlers who often lied to North American Indian people as they stole coveted lands and nearly decimated them as a people.

The recent split tongue approach used in defending Danish racist cartoons as freedom of speech must be loudly condemned as just more attacks on the rights of Muslims to defend their lands, culture and self determination.

Most European and North American newspapers support the editor of, Jyllands-Posten, the first paper to publish the offensively racist cartoons, expressed position, "we cannot apologize for freedom of expression."

The word "but" is a favorite transition of hypocrites who would have us believe on one hand that freedom of speech is a democratic principle to be defended at all cost, while on the other hand are quick to condemn when it attacks and incites hatred toward them and those they wish to protect.

Many "Democratic" European countries have laws against anti-Semitism, which are exclusive; they do not protect other cultures from racial attacks.

You can insult the prophet of Islam with offensive cartoon messages that deface his image, to create an atmosphere of hatred for Muslims, but dare not tread on the special rights and protections they have formed laws around to protect anti-Semitism.

Abu Hamza al-Masri

For years Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian Muslim, had exercised his right to free speech at his Finsbury Park mosque in London.

The British authorities attempted to revoke his citizenship and for years never brought criminal charges against him.

With the new atmosphere created around the global war on terrorism (GWT) an English tribunal recently convicted and sentenced Hamza to seven years in prison for allegedly "directly and deliberately stirring up hatred against Jewish people and encouraging murder of those he referred to as non-believers."

Certainly the same could be said of the cartoonist.

Despite the fact that more then 10 people have died as a result of the Danish cartoons there has been no criminal charge laid against the offending papers nor the Danish cartoonist.

Some countries say that they are looking for ways to prosecute.

The cartoons, which many Danish and Scandinavian newspaper editors defended in the name "radical Islam" predictably, resulted in stirring the anger of the Muslim world, rightly so.

In defense, they have taken to the streets in unified protests that will, I hope, send shock waves throughout the European Union for sometime to come.

With all the comparisons that have been made and continue to be made between the struggles of Muslim people and North American Indian people, it did not come as a surprise to find similar cartoons historically used to create racism, hatred and war against American Indians.

Portraying the popular sentiment about Indians in the 1800`s.

A cartoon by Grant Hamilton, called the, "The Nation's Ward" portrayed the Indian as a savage snake constricting a pioneer family.

It shows further the American Indian being fed by Uncle Sam while the pioneers' home burns.

This cartoon and others like it protested the U.S. treaty promise of giving out food rations to Indians through hard winters.

Political propaganda fed through various printed media has helped to create the mentality that allowed wholesale, systematic and frenetic killings of Indian men, women and children.

One example of such an atrocity took place at Sand Creek when Phil Sheridan gave U.S. soldiers permission to butcher women and children and to hang their sexual body parts on public display at the Denver opera house.

Such atrocities have occurred in today's modern wars currently being waged against Muslim people under Bush's doctrine of ´preemptive strike´ that has killed more civilians then fighters.

Cointelpro cartoons

More recently, the United States federal government began using the FBI as a national political police force to put down legitimate protest movements of the 1960´s.

A program called the counter intelligence program (cointelpro) was developed to assist the FBI.

This program used offensive cartoons as a method to fan the flames of racism that had been spoon-fed to the Euro-American public through newspapers, books, cartoons and Hollywood westerns became part of their standard bag of dirty tricks in putting down peaceful protest.

Today, the FBI, with a mad infinity for maintaining the imprisonment of now world famous American Indian activist, Leonard Peltier, not to long ago, used a cartoon posing him as an Indian terrorist killing their fellow agents.

This cartoon is still today on their website, despite the fact that even prosecutors who tried the case admit they "do not know who killed the two FBI agents" during the Pine Ridge reign of terror on June 26, 1976.

Leonard Peltier has been confined 30 years in federal prisons as a result of FBI manufactured evidence, much of which the federal government has since admitted to.

Chief Illiniwek

There is no question that sports teams who use Indian Mascots, cartoons that portray inaccurate images, symbols insulting to American Indians.

One professor speaking out against the use of Chief Illiniwek by the U of I football team in the late 1990s, said:

"I've often visited Germany and speaking to younger people there, they all feel great pain when they consider the recent past.

Not one university in Germany would contemplate having a rabbi as a mascot."

Freedom of speech and of the press has been used as a weapon against oppressed people for centuries.

It has been nothing more than a smokescreen to justify the actions of a few but in reality incite religious and ethnic hatred.

Deadly propaganda tools

The editors knew these cartoons were clearly drawn as deadly propaganda tools, created with malice and forethought, to neutralize Muslim groups in struggle and deny them "respectability" in the world community.

Who now should be charged for inciting a riot?

Who now should be held accountable to the Muslim communities for these slanderous, racist cartoons that has forced communities to take sides against each other?

How can we share this world, respecting the diversity of ethnic origins if the powers on hand continue to pump the public with hate filled propaganda!

It is time for the media to step up to the plate accepting responsibility for their actions and what better place is there to start than in Denmark!

ROBERT ROBIDEAU is co-director of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee.