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Thursday, February 02, 2006

Muhammad caricatures spark freedom of expression debate in Europe
Angela A. Onikepe at 3:25 AM ET

Protests have spread across the Muslim world over the publication in Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

This will certainly play into a widespread perception among Muslims across the world that many in the West harbour a hostility towards Islam and Muslims.

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Cartoon Inflames Muslim World

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Protests in Mohammad Blasphemy Row

By Tom Heneghan

PARIS (Reuters) - An international row over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad gathered pace on Thursday as more European dailies printed controversial Danish caricatures and Muslims stepped up pressure to stop them.

About a dozen Palestinian gunmen surrounded European Union offices in the Gaza Strip demanding an apology for the cartoons, one of which shows Islam's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban. Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous.

The owner of France Soir, a Paris daily that reprinted them on Wednesday along with one German and two Spanish papers, sacked its managing editor to show "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate convictions of every individual".

But the tabloid staunchly defended its right to print the cartoons. Le Temps in Geneva and Budapest's Magyar Hirlap ran another offending cartoon showing an imam telling suicide bombers to stop because Heaven had run out of virgins to reward them.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the issue had gone beyond a row between Copenhagen and the Muslim world and now centered on Western free speech versus taboos in Islam, which is now the second religion in many European countries.

"We are talking about an issue with fundamental significance to how democracies work," Rasmussen told the Copenhagen daily Politiken. "One can safely say it is now an even bigger issue."

The clash has commercial repercussions. Danish companies have reported sales falling in the Middle East after protests against the cartoons in the Arab world and calls for boycotts.
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Protests have spread across the Muslim world over the publication in Europe of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

The drawings, first printed in Denmark, sparked a fresh row when they were re-run in several newspapers, leading to the sacking of a French editor.

The man named to replace the France Soir editor has now resigned.

There have been anti-French and Danish protests in Pakistan over the cartoons but one Jordanian paper reprinted them urging Muslims to "be reasonable".

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Comic Outrage
February 2nd, 2006

This week people have been doing more agonizing than laughing at newspaper cartoons. Not just Muslims, but now America’s military forces – and the rest of us who support our warriors – are disgusted by a cartoon. Specifically the cartoon  drawn by Tom Toles and published in the Washington Post making light of an amputee recovering from battle wounds.

Beyond being repulsed by cartoons, the two movements have nothing in common.

Here is the statement sent by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Washington Post:

We were extremely disappointed to see the Jan. 29 editorial cartoon by Tom Toles.

Using the likeness of a service member who has lost his arms and legs in war as the central theme of a cartoon was beyond tasteless. Editorial cartoons are often designed to exaggerate issues, and The Post is obviously free to address any topic, including the state of readiness of the armed forces. However, The Post and Mr. Toles have done a disservice to readers and to The Post’s reputation by using such a callous depiction of those who volunteered to defend this nation and, as a result, suffered traumatic and life-altering wounds.

Those who visit wounded veterans in hospitals have found lives profoundly changed by pain and loss. They also have found brave men and women with a sense of purpose and selfless commitment that causes battle-hardened warriors to pause.

While The Post and some of its readers may not agree with the war or its conduct, these men and women and their families are owed the decency of not having a cartoon make light of their tremendous physical sacrifices.As the joint chiefs, we rarely put our hand to one letter, but we cannot let this reprehensible cartoon go unanswered.

The letter is signed by the Chairman, Marine General Peter Pace, and all members of the JCS.

Do you notice any differences from the Islamic reaction?

First of all, consider that the JCS and our military possess overwhelming physical force, yet nowhere demand anything.

Not an apology, not even any assurance of future compliance with their sensitivities. In fact, the JCS recognize the right of the Post to publish whatever it wishes. The JCS instead point out the pain the Post and Toles have inflicted, and asks them to contemplate the demands of decency and refrain from making light of physical sacrifices.

No boycotts, no withdrawal of military resources from the Post, no beatings, no bounties placed on the head of Tom Toles,  no threats at all. If the Washington Post has augmented its security arrangements, it is news to me.

The contast could not be greater, as all the above sanctions have been brought to bear on Jylllands Posten, Denmark and Danes, including two reportedly beaten in Saudi Arabia, and death threats against some of the cartoonists.

European, but so far no American newspapers have reacted to the threat by republishing the cartoons. One brave French editor has been fired for publishing the Muhammad cartoons:

Under the headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God”, France Soir ran a front page cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud.

It shows the Christian deity saying: “Don’t complain, Muhammad, we’ve all been caricatured here.”

The tradition of appeasement runs deep in France.

So far the Spanish, Italian, German, Norwegian and Danish editors who published the cartoons retain their jobs, as far as we know. But The Tocqueville Connection reports that Tunisian authorities have seized, France Soir.

And so far as I know, no Jewish, Christian or Buddhist groups have raised a stir over France Soir. Does anyone expect anything different? Islam seems to play by different rules, which place Islam above all others.

There is considerable evidence that a campaign was mounted to inflame the Islamic world against Denmark by certain imams located in Denmark. From the Copenhagen Post:

PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen lashed out at extremist Muslim leaders in Denmark on Thursday for speaking with two tongues in the on-going row between the country and the Muslim world.

Rasmussen said imams’ positive comments in Danish about the recent days’ thaw in the dispute over newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet Mohammed had been undermined by statements made in Arabic to the media from Muslim countries.

‘We have clearly noted that in certain situations, some people are speaking with two tongues,’ Rasmussen said after meeting the parliament’s foreign policy committee. ‘The government watches what news and information is circulated in Arabic countries very closely so we can catch false stories and correct them immediately.’

Rasmussen was referring specifically to an incident in which controversial imam Abu Laban said to television station al-Jazeera that he was happy about the Muslim boycott. Later in the day, Laban said to Danish television station TV2 that he would urge Muslims to stop the boycott immediately.

‘If Muslim countries decide to boycott, and if Muslims feel that it is their obligation to defend the prophet, then that is something we can be happy about,’ Laban said to al-Jazeera.

Other leading imams have also been accused of misleading Muslims outside of Denmark about the situation.

Earlier this week, imam Abu Bashir appeared on BBC World showing a caricature of Mohammed with a pig’s snout and ears to representatives of the Arabic League. Bashir falsely claimed that the caricature was one of the 12 Jyllands-Posten drawings.

Neither Laban nor Bashir were available for comment.

UPDATE:

The Counter-terrorism blog reports

One issue that puzzles many Danes is the timing of this outburst. The cartoons were published in September: Why have the protests erupted from Muslims worldwide only now? The person who knows the answer to this question is Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, a man that the Washington Post has recently profiled as “one of Denmark’s most prominent imams.”

Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. “We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide,” said Abu Laban.

On its face, it would appear as if nothing were wrong. However, the Danish Muslim delegation showed much more than the 12 cartoons published by Jyllands Posten. In the booklet it presented during its tour of the Middle East, the delegation included other cartoons of Mohammed that were highly offensive, including one where the Prophet has a pig face. But these additional pictures were NOT published by the newspaper, but were completely fabricated by the delegation and inserted in the booklet (which has been obtained and made available to me by Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet). The delegation has claimed that the differentiation was made to their interlocutors, even though the claim has not been independently verified. In any case, the action was a deliberate malicious and irresponsible deed carried out by a notorious Islamist who in another situation had said that “mockery against Mohamed deserves death penalty.” And in a quintessential exercise in taqiya, Abu Laban has praised the boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera, while condemning it on Danish TV. [emphasis added]

In other words, this was indeed a campaign, planned by important members of the Islamic world’s power structure, intended to force Denmark to comply with Sharia requirements. A new norm, that a western nation would conform to Sharia regardless of its free exression tradition, would be on the way to being established. Let a few more small nations succumb and someday a United States Supreme Court Justice might cite such behavior as a precedent in a decision.

Blogger Carib Pundit very helpfully directed me to the Mohammed Image Archive,  which proves beyond any reasonable doubt that images of the Prophet Muhammad have been made in various parts of the Islamic world for centuries, and, indeed, that images continue to made and sold on the streets of cities in Iran today. As religious icons.

Perusing the images, I found one that I had seen before, in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, Italy. You will need to scroll down slightly more than halfway through the Mohammed Image Archive to see two close-ups of the fresco in the Basilica showing Muhammad being tortured in hell.

I made a point of visiting the Basilica when I learned that it was under threat of being blown up, for the crime of housing the picture of Muhammad in hell. Locating the fresco in question took some doing. It was behind a locked gate, and could be seen only from the side, with very little light shining on it. A visit to the Basilica’s gift shop found no postcards or souvenir books displaying the famous painting on sale. The owner suggested that we look for the comprehensive multi-volume history of Bologna’s great art in various bookstores if we wanted an image to bring home to America.

An afternoon spent prowling the book shops of Bologna did not yield a single copy of the particular volume of the art history series. All the other volumes in the series were in stock, but the publisher was, curiously, not selling any more copies to the bookstores.

Only when my family and I returned to the Basilica and told the gift shop manager that we hadn’t been able to find the art history volume which he suggested, did he take pity. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a postcard containing the forbidden image. We had passed the test and were allowed to carry the forbidden image.

Global Sharia has already worked its magic in Bologna, a beautiful Medieval city with a strong Catholic heritage. The city, with its own sad experience of terror, has virtually capitulated in practice. Yes, the Basilica remains intact, for now. But the most controversial art it contains is obscured and made difficult to view, even in a reproduction.

The cartoon incident is no comic matter. Step by step, a dedicated group, numbering in the unknown millions, plans to impose Sharia everywhere. They have already succeeded to a degree that would have been impossible to imagine only a few decades ago.

Hat tip: Vasko Kohlmayer

Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of The American Thinker.

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Feb. 2, 2006, 11:37AM

Rage at Drawings Spreads in Muslim World

By IBRAHIM BARZAK Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

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Cartoon controversy: to publish or not?

By Emily Bell / Debate 04:01pm http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/2006/02/

European Jewish Press - Brussels,Belgium  www.ejpress.org
Jewish dignitaries condemn Muhammad cartoon

France’s chief rabbi Joseph Sitruk and the central Jewish Consistoire joined their Muslim and Christian counterparts on Thursday denouncing press drawings portraying Islamic prophet Muhammad.

The caricatures were printed on Wednesday in the French evening paper France Soir and in a dozen other European newspapers after their publication in Denmark and Norway raised the ire of Arab communities and countries.

France Soir’s main editor Jacques Lefranc, who was dismissed by the newspaper’s Egyptian-French owner Raymond Lakah following the publication, said the paper decided to print the caricatures out of principal in support of the Danish media and the freedom of the press.

But the initiative was criticised by the French government, by Muslims communities and countries and by Christian and Jewish religious dignitaries.

Communal condemnation

“I share the anger of Muslims following this publication,” said Sitruk after a scheduled meeting with French Prime minister Dominique de Villepin on anti-Semitism.

“I understand the hostility in the Arab world. One does not achieve anything by humiliating religion. It’s a dishonest lack of respect,” Sitruk stressed.

He added that he was a long-time opponent of those who mock Christianity and Islam. “You don’t get anywhere by insulting religion,” he said.

Sitruk said he was one of the first religious leaders who criticised Martin Scorsese’s movie, “The Last Temptation of Christ”, “which referred to Jesus in insulting terms to Christian beliefs”.

France’s chief rabbi added that in the past he denounced Salman Rushdie’s criticism over Islam. “One does not gain anything by putting religion down.”

“Free expression often trespassed its limits,” Sitruk told the press, stressing he is also hostile to caricatures of the head of state.

“Insulting” images

Rabbi Michel Serfaty, from the Jewish Muslim friendship association, said believes that press drawings of biblical figures or Jesus Christ can be printed, but not Muslim caricatures.

“The Christians and us are used to this,” he told EJP “We’ve been living in this free speech environment for centuries. They’ve just arrived. We don’t care about these caricatures but they get hurt.”

Asked whether Muslims wouldn’t feel insulted if their religion is treated differently from others, Rabbi Serfaty told EJP that “the important issue now is to reach civilian peace. We must let Muslims develop their own self-criticism by themselves”.

Many French readers didn’t get to see the controversial Muhammad drawings because France Soir was totally sold out and no other paper wished to publish them.

France Soir, a paper trapped with financial problems, might completely disappear in a few days. The paper’s newsroom criticised the owner’s decision to dismiss the editor, and explained this move could have been linked to his business contacts in Egypt.

He was also criticised by political figures but the government however criticised the editor of France Soir following the publication.

“France condemns everything that hurts individuals in their religious beliefs,” said a foreign ministry press release.

Feedom of expression

In Brussels, European Commission vice-president, Franco Frattini, said in a statement issued Thursday: “I can understand the feelings of indignation, frustration and sadness of the Muslim communities. Such events do not facilitate dialogue between faiths and cultures and provide barriers to the integration process to which the member states of the Union are committed.”

However the EU official, responsible for integration policy as well as the promotion and respect of fundamental rights, recalled that “one of the founding principles of our Europe is freedom of expression, including the right to criticise.”

“A difference of opinion, even if it is bitter and disrespectful, often feeds into free polemic debate, in which satire plays a full part,” he added.

“I personally regard the publication of the cartoons as somewhat imprudent, even if the satire used was aimed at a distorted interpretation of religion, such as that used by terrorists to recruit young people to their cause and turning them into fanatics, sometimes to the point of sending them into action as suicide bombers,” Frattini said.

He sharply criticized reactions and calls for boycott against Denmark and others, including the European Union.
More newspapers in France, Germany and Spain have reprinted Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, saying press freedom was more important than protests from the Muslim world.

2 February, 2006 www.asianews.it

Threats and dismissals over Muhammad cartoon strips

Beirut (AsiaNews) –The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade and popular resistance committee are warning that “all those who are of these nationalities or who work in the diplomatic corps of these countries are targets”, the leaders of Hezbollah in Lebanon are evoking the Khomeini fatwa against Salman Rushdie, tolerant Morocco has banned the circulation of a French newspaper that reproduced them, home ministers from Arab nations, meeting in Tunis have asked the Danish government to take “strong measures” in sanctioning the authors of the Muhammad cartoons published last September by the daily Jyllands-Posten. These are the latest chapters in a wave of reaction that encompasses the entire Islamic world, from Lebanon to Indonesia, along with street protests and a supermarket boycott of all Danish products.  Copenhagen has witnessd counter protests.  

For the most part, the European press is coming out against what it sees a san attack on freedom of expression, but at the same time the director of  France Soir is fired for having published the strips and the editor of  Jyllands-Posten sends out letters excusing and explaining himself.  The 12 cartoons in the strip make fun of Muhammad, have been replicated, in full or edited versions, in Italy (Corriere della sera e La stampa), Germany (Die Welt), Spain(El Periodico), Switzerland (Blick e le annuncia La Tribune de Genève), Holland (De Volkskrant, De Telegraaf e NRC Handelsblad) and the Czech Republic (Dnes).

The clash, because it has now got to this point, is between a “lay”concept of freedom and the need to respect a religious conviction.  But to the latter point of view is added the threat of violent repercussions which breeds concern.  Such as the sentence uttered by  Hassan Nasrallah, leader of  Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to whom western papers would “never have dared to mock the Prophet, considering that Muslims had had the courage to carry out the fatwa of Imam Khomeini against Salman Rushdie”. The protests held in Gaza, in Indonesia and in Malaysia echo his words.

In his defense the director of Jyllands-Posten, Carsten Juste, in an open letter published in full by the Middle East Times, he writes that “the publication of the cartoon strips has been viewed in the light of an anti Islam campaign”, while the original intent of their publication was “as part of the debate for the right to freedom of expression, a right that is considered of fundamental importance in Denmark”. “It was never the papers intention to offend the religious convictions of  any person, as unfortunately has happened”. The letter ends with a reminder that on many occasions the paper has apologized for having involuntarily caused offence to believers..

In Europe, the press is examining the incident in some cases calling it an attack on freedom of expression . France Soir, in an editorial writes : “Islam forbids any form of representation of the Prophet ”, “the question one must ask, then is the following: are even non Muslims constrained to respect this ban?”.  But Raymond Lakah, owner of the Parisian daily, has announced the dismissal of director Jacques Lefranc.

The confrontation has also invaded political realms.  Some Islamic nations, such as Libya and Saudi Arabia have taken official diplomatic steps, requests for Danish government intervention have arrived from many corners of the Islamic world.  

The western governments called to give explanation have replied citing the case for freedom of the press. “The publication only concerns those in direct charge of the  paper”, said the French Minister for foreign affairs Philippe Douste-Blazy. Similarly the spokesperson for the Danish government. But it does not seem to quieten the anger of Islam, at least not for the time being.

When Arab papers vilify Jews –
freedom of press is claimed

February 1, 2006 

ZOA: Arabs & Muslims Demand Apology For Offensive
Cartoon Of Mohammed, While They Routinely
Demonize Jews In Their Cartoons

    New York - The ZOA has highlighted the gross hypocrisy exhibited by much of the Arab and Muslim worlds in demanding an apology from a Danish newspaper, Jylland-Posten, which published cartoons of Mohammed that offended Muslims, while they routinely demonize Jews, Judaism and the Jewish state of Israel in newspaper cartoons in their societies. The Danish cartoonist of the Jylland-Posten produced 12 caricatures of Mohammed, including one which depicted him wearing a turban made of bombs and has received death threats. Arab foreign ministers last month lashed out at the Danish government, issuing a statement expressing their "surprise and indignation" at the reaction of the Danish authorities (yahoo.com News, Jan. 5). Additionally, there were calls for a boycott of Danish products and, following the republication of the cartoon in a Norwegian publication, Magazinet, the 57-member nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) stated that it "strongly denounces what the Norwegian newspaper has done by publishing again caricatures that mocked Prophet Muhammad" (Jerusalem Post, January 20).

    The Jylland-Posten apologized yesterday for publishing the cartoon and the Danish government and Arab League held discussions on the matter before agreeing to "close the affair." The Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller stated, "We naturally respect Islam as a major religion." The Danish Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, also said that his government could not apologize on behalf of a newspaper, but said he personally "never would have depicted Muhammad, Jesus or any other religious character in a way that could offend other people" (Jerusalem Post, January 30).

    The high sensitivity and anger shown by Muslim groups, the Arab League and the OIC contrast strongly with the deafening silence about and lack of responsiveness to the toxic depiction of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish state of Israel in newspaper cartoons in their societies. Newspapers across the Arab and Muslim world not only publicize Holocaust denial and vicious diatribes against Israel, Judaism and Jews but regularly depict these as monsters and satanic creatures. Below is a short list of vicious cartoons appearing in the last three years in the major Palestinian Authority (PA) newspaper, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (Palestinian Media Watch, January 7):
 

• Jan. 7, 2006 – An evil-looking caricature of a Jew depicted wreaking havoc beneath the Temple Mount and thus threatening the Dome of the Rock above.
• Sep. 3, 2005 - Text: "Israel" penetrates Pakistan – Israel in scare quotes, depicted as devious vermin trapping Pakistan in to its orbit.
• Apr. 10, 2005 – A Magen David shape is depicted turning the Dome of the Rock and an Arab in front of it in a prison.
• Feb. 5, 2005 - An Israeli soldier depicted as a Nazi, complete with helmet, shaking a blood-soaked hand with a clean-handed Palestinian.
• Dec. 10, 2004 – An Israeli flag, flying from the devil's three-pronged spear and with a corner of its Magen David symbol transformed into a blood-soaked claw, wrapped like a coil around an injured dove of peace.
• Dec. 1, 2004 – Text: "The search for terror is still ongoing" – A figure representing the UN is seen wasting his time looking with a magnifying glass for terrorism while ignoring the figure of a monstrous ape with a caricature of Ariel Sharon's face as the devil.
• Aug 2, 2004 - Jews in Judea Samaria are depicted as a Medusa-like serpent threatening an Arab.
• July 14, 2004 – An anti-Semitic stereotype of a hideous, hook-nosed Israeli soldier, with a uniform and helmet pattern of human skulls.
• April 20, 2004 – Ariel Sharon depicted as a wild bull, pierced with the spears of different Palestinian terror groups.
• March 22, 2004 – Ariel Sharon depicted eating Palestinian children from a bowl of children's corpses.
• Oct. 11, 2003 – A European diplomat is confronted by Israel depicted as an enormous snake.
• Oct. 11, 2003 – An Israeli is depicted as a caveman dripping with blood.
• Oct. 9, 2003 – Israel is depicted as a crocodile about to devour a Palestinian.
• Oct. 4, 2003 – Israel is depicted as a wolf about to devour the Palestinian government.
• Oct. 4, 2003 – The world is depicted as an apple consumed from within by two worms – Israel and the United States, with the text on the apple: Arab world Israel to the USA: "Be strong-we've got a lot of work to do."

    ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, "There is a deafening silence around the world about the constant incitement to hatred of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish state of Israel in the official government-controlled media of much of the Arab and Muslim worlds, especially in the societies that produce this venomous hate material. We have now witnessed the hypocrisy of how, on one hand, the Arab and Muslim worlds protest vociferously about a single series of offensive cartoon depictions of Mohammed, calling for action at the highest levels, threatening boycotts and demanding apologies yet, on the other hand, say nothing and do nothing about how their own societies are awash with Jew-hatred, including viciously anti-Semitic cartoons.

    "The list of cartoons provided above that demonize Jews in the crudest ways is merely a selection from a much longer list of examples provided by Palestinian Media Watch. Some examples we did not list include depictions of Israel as a rat, a Satanic figure, lice and as an octopus. It is clear that we are not dealing here with something that is merely offensive or even merely racist, but a particularly Nazi-like type of demonization and dehumanization that normally appears in the Western world today only in the publications of far right-wing hate groups and is frighteningly reminiscent of the infamous Nazi publication, Der Stuermer.

    "It is deeply ironic that the OIC chose to complain about the Danish cartoons of Mohammed when the OIC itself was addressed in 2003 by the outgoing Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahatir, who made one of the worst anti-Semitic speeches of recent times and then received a standing ovation from the delegates of all member states present. Clearly, the OIC thinks it right to criticize something offensive to Muslims while regarding vicious anti-Semitism as acceptable. Arab leaders like Egypt's Hosni Mubarak, Jordan's King Abdullah and Yasser Arafat have told American Jewish leaders that they allow freedom of the press, but this ignores the fact that Arab governments exercise much control over their media. Mubarak personally appoints newspaper editors to the Egyptian government-controlled press and journalists belonging to the PA's Al-Hayat Al-Jadida are on the PA payroll. Clearly, if Arab leaders were genuinely concerned about democracy and racism, they would take steps to prevent their media inculcating their societies with hatred and toxic ideologies.

    "It is vital, now that Hamas has won the Palestinian Authority elections and the issue of Palestinian hatred and violence has drawn public attention, that the fight against incitement to hatred and murder of Jews and Israelis is put on the agenda in any context in which Israel, the US and the world seeks to advance negotiations for ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. There can be no prospect of peace in the foreseeable future if Arabs and Muslims, particularly Palestinians, are fed a steady diet of hateful propaganda that depicts Israelis as monsters to be eliminated, not human beings with whom they must make peace."

    The Zionist Organization of America, founded in 1897, is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works to strengthen U.S.-Israel relations, educates the American public and Congress about the dangers that Israel faces, and combats anti-Israel bias in the media and on college campuses. Its past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver.

Thursday, February 9, 2006

COPENHAGEN - Reuters

  The Danish newspaper which first published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed that have angered Muslims worldwide had previously turned down cartoons of Jesus as too offensive, the artist said on Wednesday.

  Twelve cartoons of the Prophet published last September by Jyllands-Posten newspaper have outraged Muslims, stoking violent protests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

  "My cartoon, which certainly did not offend any Christians I showed it to, was rejected because the editor felt it would be considered offensive to readers -- readers in general, not necessarily Christians," said cartoonist Christoffer Zieler.

  Unlike Muslims, who consider depictions of the Prophet to be deeply offensive, many Christians adorn churches with images and sculptures of Jesus. But Christian congregations have protested at sacrilegious portrayals, especially in the cinema.

  In an email to Reuters, Zieler said his drawings were rejected by the newspaper's Sunday edition three years ago. One sequence of his cartoons published by a Norwegian paper this weekend lampoons the Christian tradition of Jesus' resurrection.

  "This was not the same editor who later chose to publish the caricatures of Mohammed that offended so many," he added.

  The newspaper referred questions to the former Sunday editor who still works at Jyllands-Posten, but he was not immediately available for comment.

  The editor of Jyllands-Posten has apologized for offending Muslims, but defended his right to print the cartoons in the interests of free speech. Dozens of newspapers in Europe and elsewhere have reproduced them with the same justification.

  But Zieler said he no longer believed "a discussion of Jyllands-Posten's lack of judgment" was any longer relevant to the global uproar unleashed by the cartoons.

  "Perhaps explaining my story of three years ago in its proper context at least won't make matters any worse," he said. "Perhaps ignoring it may be better."

© 2005 Dogan Daily News Inc  www.turkishdailynews.com.tr