May 25, 2005

Radical Islamís Dysfunctional Response to the Koran Desecration Report (and to the World in General)

Dear Friend of FLAME:

By now we’ve all heard about the brouhaha and the rioting that caused the deaths of almost twenty people that came about as the result of six lines in a recent issue of Newsweek to the effect that an American interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a Koran down the toilet.

The whole story is in all likelihood a hoax, and Newsweek shouldn't have run with it. Have you ever tried to flush a heavy book down a toilet? It is really very difficult.

But what is astounding in retrospect is the reaction of the famous "Muslim street" to this non-event and how those concerned (and many not even involved) jumped through hoops, trying to outdo each other with abject apologies about this incident---an event that had in all likelihood never occurred.

Representatives at the highest level of our government offered profuse apologies. The editor of Newsweek virtually abased himself in excuses and "retractions."

Jeff Jacoby's sober view of this matter, below, comes as a welcome breath of fresh air. In it, he exposes radical Islam as a dysfunctional movement, and he denounces those who are cowed by its tantrums. Jacoby, a columnist for the Boston Globe, writes frequently about Israel and the Middle East.
Sincerely,

Gerardo Joffe
President, FLAME

P.S.

If you are concerned about the threat of fundamentalist Islam, as we are, I recommend that you review FLAME's public relations message---"Worldwide Islamic Terrorism: Are the U.S., Israel and other nations fighting the same enemy?”---which you can find at http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_75.html. This piece cogently, yet powerfully addresses the danger of radical Islam to Western democracies, and you may want to print it out for friends and colleagues. Of course, as always, if you support the dissemination of truthful messages like this in national and international media, we welcome your tax-deductible donation. Simply go to http://www.factsandlogic.org/make_a_donation.html to make your contribution online.

Why Islam Is Disrespected
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, May 19, 2005

It was front-page news this week when Newsweek retracted a report claiming that a US interrogator in Guantanamo had flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet. Everywhere it was noted that Newsweek's story had sparked widespread Muslim rioting, in which at least 17 people were killed.

But there was no mention of deadly protests triggered in recent years by comparable acts of desecration against other religions.

No one recalled, for example, that American Catholics lashed out in violent rampages in 1989, after photographer Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ"—a photograph of a crucifix submerged in urine -- was included in an exhibition subsidized by the National Endowment for the Arts. Or that they rioted in 1992 when singer Sinead O'Connor, appearing on "Saturday Night Live," ripped up a photograph of Pope John Paul II.

There was no reminder that Jewish communities erupted in lethal violence in 2000, after Arabs demolished Joseph's Tomb, torching the ancient shrine and murdering a young rabbi who tried to save a Torah from the flames.

And nobody noted that Buddhists went on a killing spree in 2001 in response to the destruction of two priceless, 1,500-year-old statues of Buddha by the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Of course, there was a good reason all these bloody protests went unremembered in the coverage of the Newsweek affair: They never occurred.

Christians, Jews, and Buddhists don't lash out in homicidal rage when their religion is insulted. They don't call for holy war and riot in the streets.

It would be unthinkable today for a mainstream priest, rabbi, or lama to demand that a blasphemer be slain. But when Reuters reported what Mohammad Hanif, the imam of a Muslim seminary in Pakistan, said about the alleged Koran-flushers—"They should be hung. They should be killed in public so that no one can dare to insult Islam and its sacred symbols"—was any reader surprised?

The Muslim riots should have been met by an international upwelling of outrage and condemnation. From every part of the civilized world should have come denunciations of those who would react to the supposed destruction of a book with brutal threats and the slaughter of 17 innocent people. But the chorus of condemnation was directed not at the killers and the fanatics who incited them, but at Newsweek.

From the White House down, the magazine was slammed—for running an item it should have known might prove incendiary, for relying on a shaky source, for its animus toward the military and the war. Over and over, Newsweek was blamed for the riots' death toll. Conservative pundits in particular piled on.

”Newsweek lied, people died" was the headline on Michelle Malkin's popular website.

At NationalReview.com, Paul Marshall of Freedom House fumed: "What planet do these [Newsweek] people live on? . . . Anybody with a little knowledge could have told them it was likely that people would die as a result of the article." All of Marshall's choler was reserved for Newsweek; he had no criticism at all -- not a word -- for the marauders in the Muslim street.

Then there was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who announced at a Senate hearing that she had a message for "Muslims in America and throughout the world." And what was that message?

That decent people do not resort to murder just because someone has offended their religious sensibilities?

That the primitive bloodlust raging in Afghanistan and Pakistan was evidence of the Muslim world's dysfunctional political culture?

That the Bush administration would redouble its efforts to defeat the Islamofascist radicals who use religion as an excuse to foment violence and terror?

No: Her message was that "disrespect for the Holy Koran is not now, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be, tolerated by the United States. We honor the sacred books of all the world's great religions."

Granted, Rice spoke while the rioting was still taking place and her goal was to reduce the anti-American fever. But what "Muslims in America and throughout the world" most need to hear is not pandering sweet-talk.

What they need is a blunt reminder that the real desecration of Islam is not what some interrogator in Guantanamo might have done to the Koran.

It is what totalitarian Muslim zealots have been doing to innocent human beings in the name of Islam.

It is 9/11 and Beslan and Bali and Daniel Pearl and the USS Cole. It is trains in Madrid and schoolbuses in Israel and an "insurgency" in Iraq that slaughters Muslims as they pray and vote and line up for work. It is Hamas and Al Qaeda and sermons filled with infidel-hatred and exhortations to "martyrdom."

But what disgraces Islam above all is the vast majority of the planet's Muslims saying nothing and doing nothing about the jihadist cancer eating away at their religion.

It is Free Muslims Against Terrorism, a pro-democracy organization, calling on Muslims and Middle Easterners to "converge on our nation's capital for a rally against terrorism" this month -- and having only 50 people show up.

Yes, Islam is disrespected. That will only change when throngs of passionate Muslims show up for rallies against terrorism, and when rabble-rousers trying to gin up a riot over a defiled Koran can't get the time of day.

NOTE: If you found Jeff Jacobyís article useful, we commend you to FLAMEís piece on "Worldwide Islamic Terrorism: Are the U.S., Israel and other nations fighting the same enemy?" You can find this message at http://www.factsandlogic.org/ad_75.html.