By Barak, netWMD Guest Contributor

Here is a must-read by Charles Krauthammer that misses an important point… 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.

I have seen no source that has articulated this point. Many commentators, such as this article by Krauthammer, 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.

Special Report: Danish Cartoons