
 |
|
Nov. 6, 2009
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How
to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Nov. 5, 2009
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking
Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker
With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater?
With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change
With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Oct. 29, 2009
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our
Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
JWisdom.com Why what we wear
impacts who we are
With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love
With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks
With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness
with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really?
By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A
Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious
By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things
By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices
By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 15, 2009
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
|
| |
Jewish World Review
Feb. 6, 2006
/ 8 Shevat, 5766
Today censors may be coming for some Mohammed cartoons; tomorrow it is your words and ideas they will silence
By
Jeff Jacoby
WE ARE ALL DANES NOW!
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Hindus consider it sacrilegious to eat meat from cows, so when a Danish supermarket ran a sale on beef and
veal last fall, Hindus everywhere reacted with outrage. India recalled its ambassador to Copenhagen, and Danish
flags were burned in Calcutta, Bombay, and Delhi. A Hindu mob in Sri Lanka severely beat two employees of a
Danish-owned firm, and demonstrators in Nepal chanted: ''War on Denmark! Death to Denmark!"In many
places, shops selling Dansk china or Lego toys were attacked by rioters, and two Danish embassies were
firebombed.
It didn't happen, of course. Hindus may consider it odious to use cows as food, but they do not resort to boycotts,
threats, and violence when non-Hindus eat hamburger or steak. They do not demand that everyone abide by the
strictures of Hinduism and avoid words and deeds that Hindus might find upsetting. The same is true of Christians,
Jews, Buddhists, Mormons: They don't lash out in violence when their religious sensibilities are offended. They
certainly don't expect their beliefs to be immune from criticism, mockery, or dissent.
But radical Muslims do.
The current uproar over cartoons of the Muslim prophet Mohammed published in a Danish newspaper
illustrates yet again the fascist intolerance that is at the heart of radical Islam. Jyllands-Posten, Denmark's largest
daily, commissioned the cartoons to make a point about freedom of speech. It was protesting the climate of
intimidation that had made it impossible for a Danish author to find an illustrator for his children's book about
Mohammed. Muslims regard any depiction of the prophet as sacrilegious, and no artist would agree to illustrate
the book for fear of being harmed by Muslim extremists. Appalled by this self-censorship, Jyllands-Posten invited
Danish artists to submit drawings of Mohammed, and published the 12 it received.
Most of the pictures are tame to the point of dullness, especially compared to the biting editorial cartoons that
routinely appear in US and European newspapers. A few of them link Mohammed to Islamist terrorism one
depicts him with a bomb in his turban, while a second shows him in Heaven, pleading with newly arrived suicide
terrorists: ''Stop, stop! We have run out of virgins!" Others focus on the threat to free speech: In one, a sweating
artist sits at his drawing board, nervously sketching Mohammed, while glancing over his shoulder to make sure
he's not being watched. Some make no point at all one simply portrays a man walking with his donkey in the
desert.
That anything so mild could trigger a reaction so crazed riots, death threats, kidnappings, flag-burnings
speaks volumes about the chasm that separates the values of the civilized world from those in too much of the
Islamic world. Freedom of the press, the marketplace of ideas, the right to skewer sacred cows, the ability to
disagree with what you say while firmly defending your right to say it: Militant Islam knows none of this. And if the
jihadis get their way, it will be swept aside everywhere by the censorship and intolerance of sharia.
Here and there, some brave Muslim voices have cried out against the book-burners. The Jordanian newspaper
Shihan published three of the cartoons. ''Muslims of the world, be reasonable," implored Shihan's editor, Jihad
al-Momani, in an editorial. ''What brings more prejudice against Islam these caricatures or pictures of a
hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up
during a wedding ceremony in Amman?" But within hours Momani was out of a job, fired by the paper's owners
after the Jordanian government threatened legal action.
He wasn't the only editor sacked last week. In Paris, Jacques LeFranc of the daily France Soir was also fired
after running the Mohammed cartoons. The paper's owner, an Egyptian Copt named Raymond Lakah, issued a
craven and Orwellian statement expressing "regrets to the Muslim community" and offering LeFranc's head as a
gesture of ''respect for the intimate beliefs and convictions of every individual." But the France Soir staff defended
their decision to publish the drawings in a stalwart editorial. ''The best way to fight against censorship is to prevent
censorship from happening," they wrote. ''A fundamental principle guaranteeing democracy and secular society is
under threat. To say nothing is to retreat."
Across the continent, nearly two dozen other newspapers have joined in defending that principle. While Islamist
clerics proclaim an ''international day of anger" or declare that ''the war has begun," leading publications in
Norway, France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have reprinted the
Danish cartoons. But there has been no comparable show of backbone in America, where (as of Friday) only the
New York Sun has had the fortitude to the run some of the drawings.
Make no mistake: This story is not going away, and neither is the Islamofascist threat. The freedom of speech
we take for granted is under attack, and it will vanish if it is not bravely defended. Today the censors may be
coming for some unfunny Mohammed cartoons, but tomorrow it is your words and ideas they will silence. Like it or
not, we are all Danes now.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2006, Boston Globe
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Michael Barone
Dave Barry
Tony Blankley
Andy Borowitz
David Broder
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
John Fund
Frank J. Gaffney
Lloyd Garver
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Lewis Grossberger
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Nat Hentoff
David Horowitz
Laura Ingraham
Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ed Koch
Ch. Krauthammer
Michael Ledeen
John Leo
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Dick Morris
Bill O'Reilly
Jim Mullen
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Jonathan Rauch
Celia Rivenbark
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Pat Sajak
Debra J. Saunders
Culture Shlock
Roger Simon
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
Lisa Benson
John Branch
Gary Brookins
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holber
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Ranan R. Lurie
Jimmy Margulies
Rick McKee
Michael Ramirez
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Ed Stein
Danna Summers
John Trever
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters

How 2
Lori Borgman
The Savvy Consumer
Elder matters
Fixit
Dr. Peter Gott
GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko
Richard Lederer
Tech Maven
Every Monday Matters
Nutrition Myths
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
How Stuff Works
|