If there
were any lingering doubt that large numbers of fanatical Islamic
adherents want to kill us or bring the democracies of the world
to their knees, this past week should have settled the issue.
Last September,
a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons
or caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad -- the one receiving most
publicity depicting the Prophet with his head and turban looking
like a bomb fused to go off. Four months later, riots, looting
and killings by Muslim mobs are being organized around the world.
According
to The New York Times, the cartoons have been republished
in “Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Hungary,
as well as in Jordan.” The U.S. State Department, according
to The Times, “defended the right of the Danish
and French newspapers to publish the cartoons.”
According
to The Times, “Major American newspapers, including
the New York Times, The Washington Post, the
Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, did not
publish the caricatures. Representatives said the story could
be told effectively without publishing images that many would
find offensive.” Surely, that excuse is inadequate in the
U.S. with a population of 300 million, more than 75 percent Christian
and subjected to seeing, as columnist Charles Krauthammer pointed
out in his brilliant column of February 10, 2006, “publish[ed]
pictures of the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung and celebrat[ion
of] the “Piss Christ” (a crucifix sitting in a jar
of urine) as art deserving public subsidy, but [these newspapers]
are seized with a sudden religious sensitivity when the subject
is Muhammad.”
So why the
reluctance to report the real story? Did these stalwarts who believe
they are protecting the civil rights of the American public when
they write editorial after editorial denouncing the Patriot Act
and the spying activities of the National Security Agency without
court warrants, both of which the President of the United States
and leading members of Congress have told us time and again are
necessary -- with the President insisting he is using the power
provided in both the Constitution, law and court decisions in
time of war -- to defend the U.S. from terrorist attack?
Some observers
suggest that the newspapers fear physical attacks upon their buildings,
presses and worse still upon editors and journalists. In the past,
The Times has published material that was classified
under U.S. law, e.g. the Ellsberg Pentagon Papers on the Vietnam
War and the recent article alleging illegal National Security
Agency eavesdropping on telephone conversations -- which the government
believed to be taking place between people in the U.S. and people
abroad where the government has probable cause to suspect that
one of the parties was involved with international terrorism.
Surely when
deciding to take actions that might lead to a criminal indictment
by the U.S. government against the newspaper for publishing classified
material, there must have been some discussion at the paper on
whether the story should be published. One can only wonder what
arguments were made when the decision was made not to publish
the Muhammad cartoons, when the basic principle by which all of
these guardians of the First Amendment pride themselves and constantly
evoke is their commitment to provide all the news that’s
fit to print, without fear or favor.
Bill Bennett,
who was Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan,
and John Zogby, President of the Arab-American Institute, were
interviewed on this subject by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on February
9th. Zogby sought to explain, but not excuse, the violent response
in the Muslim world, saying, “As it [the publication of
the cartoons and the face of Muhammad] spread into the Arab world,
another sensitivity, insecurity took over, and that was the fact
that there is a deliberate insult against Islam. And Muslims are
an iconoclastic religion. They don’t use icons, and they
find them deeply insulting.”
At that
point, Blitzer interjected, saying to Bennett, “You can
understand, Bill, that feeling among many Muslims, that this is
beyond the pale when you insult the Prophet Muhammad.” Bennett,
as penetrating and brilliant as Krauthammer, responded, “Sure.
And if I were a Jew watching what CNN just led in with [anti-Semitic
cartoons used in Muslim countries], I might be a little upset,
too. But CNN doesn’t have the solicitude for Jews it has
for Muslims. Your policy is not to show these cartoons that were
shown in Denmark, but to show one after another of the most anti-Semitic
cartoons they could come forward with. CNN -- I don’t mean
to pick on CNN, just because I work for you. But NBC, The
New York Times, other media -- the Virgin Mary in cow dung,
that was fine. We can show that everywhere. Now, the Islamists
have won, in that they have intimidated the major news media from
showing these cartoons. They have lost, however, in the wider
world, because people see that this is just totally nutty behavior,
that these cartoons are shown and people, as a result, want to
kill people, behead people, burn buildings down. And, whatever
the argument with the Danes, what is the point of burning the
Jewish flag? What is the point of burning the U.S. flag and saying
death to Israel and death to the United States? People get a good,
close look at this and say, you know, these people are unhinged.”
Bennett’s
most important comment was, “I promise you, they have won.
They have silenced -- these -- these mobs have silenced the mainstream
media, who are afraid of the mob.” Later on in the discussion,
Bennett stated, “One of the difficulties with the cartoons
is, they hit pretty close to the bone…Is there no suggestion
that, in the name of Islam, in the name of the Koran, in the name
of Allah, people are having their heads cut off? These things
hit their target.”
To me, that
is the crux of the matter. There is a war of civilizations being
waged in the world with the Islamic fanatics subliminally seeking
to storm once again the gates of Vienna, where, in 1683, they
were defeated. If by threats of terror against them, the great
media institutions can be brought to their knees, we are in big
trouble. Before this occurred, I had no doubt that, no matter
how difficult, no matter how long the war we are now engaged in
continues, the democracies of the world would win, as they did
when first facing Hitler and later Stalin. Today, I am no longer
so certain.
That Bush-haters
Cindy Sheehan and Harry Belafonte seek to sap our strength as
a country does not worry me with regard to outcome. But when the
greatest, most important institutions in the land -- the free
press -- get frightened and surrender, as the German press did
under similar assault in Hitler’s Germany in the 1930s,
I worry about the final outcome.
For years
prior to the outbreak of World War II, Hitler and his Nazi party
made their murderous agenda very clear, while frightened democracies
refused to heed the warnings and kept their heads in the sand.
Today there are new ostriches in our land. They refuse to take
terrorists at their word. The Times reported on February
4th the comments of a cleric at the Al-Omari mosque in Gaza, “We
will not accept less than severing the heads of those responsible.”
Regrettably, many Westerners don’t take Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
Osama bin Laden’s principal deputy, at his word when he
said, “Killing the infidels is our religion, slaughtering
them is our religion, until they convert to Islam or pay us tribute.”
Ed
Koch is the former Mayor of New York City.
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