Europe's Nerve

Well, with the torching of the Norwegian and Danish embassies by angry crowds in Damascus , Syria, it is definitely still the Europeans that have some apologizing to do.

The nerve of newspapers in Europe, to take advantage of free speech in the way they did by critically examining intolerance and intolerant elements in Islam! The nerve of French and German and now Jordanian newspapers, to reprint cartoon images originally appearing in a Danish newspaper, cartoons which, in the scheme of things, were never meant to insult Muslims but merely provide a commentary by a non-Muslim majority country’s free press for the open-minded readers who would see the images.

What’s worse: the Muhammad cartoons of late last year and now this year, or that wacky time back in 2002, when Muslim Palestinian gunmen forcibly took over the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, desecrating that site’s holiness by bringing guns into the church?

No, no, wait, you’re right: Hate-mongering murderers holed up at the site of Christ’s birth, bringing the Israeli Army to surround the complex, is a much less egregious offense than critical, relatively harmless cartoons being printed in European newspapers. Demanding an apology by burning down the embassies of countries whose only offense was to allow their free press to print what they wanted is, on the whole, a rational move on the part of Syria’s Muslim citizenry.

Bravo to Syria for teaching the world, once again, how dangerous European intolerance is. Way to teach those Europeans a lesson by burning their flags, burning their embassies, and calling for the deaths of those who protect free speech!

Oh wait, it's still European intolerance we're talking about, right?