Unrest over Cartoons

Tempers flared today throughout the Islamic world. Students marched in Pakistan shouting "Death to Denmark" and "Death to France". Masked Palestinian gunmen shut the European Union office Thursday in Gaza City, writing on the door that the office would remain closed until the Europeans apologize to Muslims. The Palestinian men, from Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired bullets into the air and one of them read their demands. In Gaza, gunmen threatened to kidnap European workers unless the European Union apologized. The rational new government will certainly restore order to the West Bank, right? Check that - Hamas is the new Palestinian government. So much for law and order.

Why all the threats of violence? Why the intimidation of EU workers in the West Bank? A cartoon. Yep, a political cartoon published in Denmark initially which depicted Muhammed. Said outgoing Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia about the pictures: they "provoke all Muslims everywhere in the world."

Wow - so the beheading of westerners doesn't provoke Christians? 9/11 didn't provoke Christians? The claims that Israel has no right to exist and the holocaust is a myth don't provoke Jews? Once again, the hypocrisy of the Muslim world is on center stage. This could be the new radical Muslim motto: "We'll kill you for your religious beliefs, but don't you dare even write a cartoon about ours!"