This Space for Rent

My only word on the Danish anti-semitic cartoon controversy

So. Crude anti-semitic cartoons aimed at Islam? good. But if they're aimed at Jeeeeeeezus? bad bad bad, and we're not going to print them.

Someone's playing a nasty racist game here, and pulling in a lot of fishies.

"But but but Saudi Arabia hates the Jews!!!" Yes, the government (and a distressingly large subset of the population) does; they're nasty fundamentalist thugs and hating Jews is what fundamentalists thugs do. But I don't see you supporting their "right of free speech" by reprinting the torrent of spectacularly evil anti-Jewish cartoons they publish. So why are you reprinting a torrent of anti-Islamic cartoons that were originally published by a bunch of religious bigots, and then whining when the victims register their complaints?

I have very little truck with the whole "pictures of Mohammad (pbuh) are forbidden!" argument that some of the more dimwitted muslim fundamentalists are using. Islamic artists have been producing pictures of the prophet for over a millenia, and there's a world of difference between a picture of him worshipping before the Ka'aba and that filth that the right wingers in Denmark vomited up before the world. If someone wants to show "solidarity" with a free press, they should reprint this picture of the prophet, or this one, or this one.

(links to newspaper articles via Xymphora and Sisyphus Shrugged)