Cartoon Pot Calling Kettle Black

Wikipedia does a good job of putting the Muslim outrage over twelve Danish cartoons in perspective:

Many Islamic Middle Eastern newspapers have published cartoons using classical anti-Semitic themes, or those created or inspired by Nazi propaganda, like in the weekly newspaper Der Stürmer. Some examples: On June 6, 2002, Akhbar al-Khalij from Bahrain published a cartoon showing a Jew piercing a baby with a spear. On July 24, 2002 Al Watan from Qatar published a cartoon of Sharon drinking from a cup of Palestinian children's blood. On December 17, 2001, Keyhan published a cartoon showing a Jew in front of a Holocaust scenery, killing Arabs. Almost all Israeli prime ministers in the last 15 years (Shamir, Peres, Rabin, Barak, Sharon) have been depicted as Nazis. Jews are regularly depicted as spiders, octopuses , scorpions, snakes, thieves or other menacing-looking persons with exaggerated "Jewish" characteristics. 

Meanwhile, the Dutch site retecool, famed in Holland for its Fotofuck Friday — a chance for anyone with basic Photoshop knowledge to fashion something between funny and crude — has issued a challenge to create a fake commercial product based on the prophet Mohammed. Results can be seen here.

Most submissions are hardly hilarious, to put it mildly — but they're illustrative of the happy fact that satirists, including amateur ones, are not scared off by hate mail, over-the-top political protests, boycotts, beatings, and other forms of intimidation. No single religious group deserves protection from others' comments, even if those comments are insulting. It turns out, perhaps, that the Dutch know this better than I sometimes give them credit for.

[hat tip: Zacht Ei]

Comments

[Adam W.]

While I obviously support freedom of speech, I hate having to defend assholes like this cartoonist (the one who did the originals, not the retecool guy).

[Martin Owens]

Well, Hoorah!

While the so-called leaders exhibit the spine of a chocolate eclair, the bloggers hold the line.

If the Muslims are entitled to go into fits about so-called insults against their religion, what about the Muslims' slurs against Christianity? And you’re right, the Jew-baiting in Arab countries has reached a level of crudity that would have embarrassed Goebbels. I worked in Saudi Arabia three years, and I saw it.

Muslim countries are mostly disaster areas, even before the natural disasters strike ( then who do they beg for help?) Even when there aren't terrorist campaigns underway, the infrastructure is nonexistent, the politics openly criminal, education is dropping to medieval standards, and the women are locked up for life. And not a finger lifted to actually do anything; a perfect coma of apathy and incompetence.

Ah, but one little hint that a foreigner anywhere has said something bad about Islam, and it’s into the streets, baying for blood!
Hypocrites and bullies.

Shame on anyone who lets that gang get away with it. Let the blogs continue, and bless ‘em all