Because you cannot diplomatically engage in foreign policy with militaristic political parties who react to a *NEWSPAPER CARTOON* with armed attempted takeovers of buildings, threats of kidnappings, and insane threats of violence:
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip
Armed militants angered by a cartoon drawing of the Prophet Muhammad published in European media surrounded EU offices in Gaza Thursday and threatened to kidnap foreigners as outrage over the caricatures spread across the Islamic world.
About a dozen gunmen with ties to the Fatah Party approached the office of the EU Commission. Three jumped on the outer wall and the rest took up positions at the entrance.
In a statement read by one of the gunmen, the group demanded apologies from the governments of Norway, Denmark, France and Germany and called on Palestinians to boycott the products of these countries.
Palestinian gunmen in the West Bank city of Nablus said they were searching apartments for foreigners from several European countries to try to kidnap them to protest the drawings. The claim by the gunmen could not immediately be verified independently.
In a phone call to The Associated Press, a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent offshoot of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, said members of his group are also asking hotel owners in the city not to host citizens of five European countries, including France and Denmark.
In Paris, the daily newspaper France Soir fired its managing editor after it republished the caricatures Wednesday, and Pakistani protesters chanting "Death to France!"
The furor over the drawings, which first ran in a Danish paper in September, cuts to the question of which is more sacred in the Western world _ freedom of expression or respect for religious beliefs. The cartoons include an image of Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a burning fuse.
Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet to prevent idolatry. The drawings have divided opinion within Europe and the Middle East, where they have prompted boycotts of Danish goods, bomb threats and demonstrations against Danish facilities.
France Soir and several other European papers reprinted the pictures in a show of solidarity with the Danish daily.
5 comments:
They shouldn't have published pictures like that.
In Islam we're not even allowed to draw pictures of the Prophet peace be upon him.
We dont draw pictures of Jesus or Moses, we respect all the prophets.
We love our prophet peace be upon him.
While I don't think JP (Jyllands-Posten) should have published the picture in the first place, the governments shouldn't have anything to say about it. In my opinion this is a freedom of speech issue, and therefore needs to be dealt with by taking action against the companies involved not the governments. Because else all your doing is trying to dictate to people.
I think the cartoon makes a good point but I understand being offended by it. The thing is, militants are only furthering the idea behind the cartoon by USING this prophet as an excuse to terrorize. If someone portrayed Christ bombing an abortion clinic I would feel a tad offended but I would understand that the sentiment is not toward Him but those who are using His name to do things He would never do. Maybe Muslims are not allowed to draw pictures of the prophet but it wasn't Muslims who did it.
This is not an easy issue to resolve, IMHO.
S is right on. How can non-Muslims be expected to uphold the laws of Islam? And how can free and democratic nations somehow say that THIS religion or THAT religion must be free from satire or derision by others?
Just as "Christians" who bomb abortion clinics somehow do not get that their actions harm the image of their savior, it seems that Muslims burning and terrorizing people over the issue of Muhammad being depicted with a bomb on his head (ie, as a supporter of terrorism), don't get that their actions--NOT the cartoons--further the belief that Muslims are terrorists.
In a free society, Catholics and Jews suck it up every day. This is the price of having freedom of religion; generally freedom of speech rides along too.
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