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Rent-A-Riot
ABCS New York Post
"A BLESSING from God": So have Iran's leaders, starting with
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described the controversy over the
Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
A closer look at the row, however, shows that the whole rigmarole was
launched by Sunni-Salafi groups in Europe and Asia, with Ahmadinejad
and his Syrian vassal, President Bashar al-Assad, belatedly playing
catch-up. God had nothing to do with it.
To see how the whole thing was manufactured to serve precise political
ends, consider the chronology of events:
The cartoons were published last September and, for more than three
months, caused no ripples outside small groups of Salafi militants in
Denmark.
In December, a group of Danish Muslim militants filled their suitcases
with photocopies of the cartoons and embarked on a tour of Muslim
capitals.
They failed to get to Tehran: The Iranians, being Shi'ites, saw them
as Sunni activists bent on mischief. But they managed to go to Cairo,
Damascus and Beirut and, were allowed to send emissaries to Saudi
Arabia.
The Danish Muslim group also did something dishonest — it added a
number of far more derogatory cartoons of the Prophet to the 12
published by the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, and misled its
interlocutors in Muslim capitals into believing that all had appeared
in the Danish press.
In Cairo, the Muslim Brotherhood told the Danish group that this was
not the time to kick a fuss over the cartoons. The brotherhood was
busy plotting its election strategy and pretending to be a
"moderate" political party. The last thing it wanted was to
be branded as a rabid anti-West force. The brotherhood leaders
suggested that the matter be put on ice until January.
The Danish militants also received a negative reply from Hamas, the
Palestinian radical movement. Hamas was busy trying to win a general
election and needed to reassure at least part of the Palestinian
middle classes. The Hamas advice was: Wait until after we have won.
The emissaries found a more sympathetic audience in Qatar — where
the satellite-TV channel Al Jazeera (owned by the emir) specializes in
inciting Muslims against the West and democracy in general. The
channel's chief Islamist televangelist, Yussuf al-Qaradawi (an
Egyptian preacher who is also a friend of Ken Livingstone, the mayor
of London), was all too keen to issue a "fatwa" to light the
fuse. He then mobilized his network of Muslim Brotherhood militants in
Europe to attack the cartoons and claim, falsely, that images were not
allowed in Islam and that the Danish paper had violated "an
absolute principle of The Only True Faith."
Thus the call for Jihad received its supposed "theological"
green light. (Ironically, the section of the brotherhood headed by al-Qaradawi
is financed by the European Union as a non-governmental organization.)
As the first rent-a-mob crowds appeared on global TV screens,
Ahmadinejad realized that here was a cow worth milking.
For Denmark is set to assume the rotating presidency of the U.N.
Security Council — at the very time that the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) is expected to refer Iran to the Security Council
and demand sanctions. What better, for Tehran's purposes, than to
portray Denmark as "an enemy of Islam" and mobilize Muslim
sympathy against the Security Council?
To regain the initiative from the Sunni-Salafi groups, Ahmadinejad
quickly ordered a severing of commercial ties with Denmark, thus
portraying the Islamic Republic as the Muslim world's leader in the
anti-Danish campaign.
Syria was next to jump on the bandwagon, again for mercenary reasons.
The United Nations wants Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and five of
his relatives and aides, including his younger brother, for
questioning in the murder of Lebanon's former premier, Rafiq al-Hariri.
(Assad has tried to negotiate immunity for himself and his brother in
exchange for handing over the others — but the U.N. wouldn't play.)
As with Iran's nuclear program, the Syrian dossier will reach the
Security Council under Danish presidency.
To portray Denmark as "an enemy of the Prophet" would not be
such a bad thing when the council, as expected, points the finger at
Assad and his regime as responsible for a series of political murders,
including that of Hariri.
The Danish-cartoons cow will also be milked in another way: Tehran and
Damascus have launched a diplomatic campaign to put the issue of
"protecting religions against blasphemy" on the Security
Council agenda. If that were to happen, issues such as Iran's quest
for the atomic bomb and Syria's murder machine in Lebanon might be
pushed aside, at least as far as world public opinion is concerned.
People watching TV news may think that the whole Muslim world is
ablaze with righteous rage translated into "spontaneous
demonstrations." The truth is that the overwhelming majority of
Muslims, even if offended by cartoons which they have not seen, have
stayed away from the street shows put on by the radicals and the
Iranian and Syrian security services.
The destruction of Danish and Norwegian embassies and consulates
happened in only two places: Damascus and Beirut. Anyone who knows
Syria would know that there are no spontaneous demonstrations in that
dictatorship. (Even then, the Syrian secret police failed to attract
more than 1,000 rent-a-mob militants.) And the Syrian government
refused the Norwegian Embassy's request for additional police
protection. It was clear that the Syrians wanted the embassies sacked.
The rent-a-mob attacks in Beirut were more cynical. The Syrian Ba'ath
- which has been murdering, imprisoning or deporting Sunni-Salafi
militants for years — was suddenly transformed from a radical
secular and Socialist party into "the Vanguard of the
Faith." The mob that committed the atrocities in Beirut was bused
from Syria and consisted of Muslim Brotherhood militants who are never
allowed to demonstrate on their own account.
The Muslim crowds that have demonstrated over the cartoons seldom
exceeded a few hundred; the Muslim segment of humanity is estimated at
1.2 billion. And only three of Denmark's embassies in 57 Muslim
countries have been attacked.
The Danish Muslim gang who lied by adding cartoons that had never been
published has done more damage to the Prophet and to Islam than the 12
controversial cartoonists of Jyllands-Posten.
The fight between Denmark and its detractors is not between the West
and Islam. It is between democracy and a global fascist movement
masquerading as religion.
Iranian author Amir Taheri is a member of Benador Associates.
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It is rapidly becoming clear that the "cartoon Intifada" is
a hoax.
It is not the spontaneous rage of offended Moslems. It is a faux
crisis fabricated by the Danish Imams and Syria, whose goals are to
create:
a.) intimidation to squash western free speech and any artistic
creativity that might be critical of Moslem terrorism.
b.) a smokescreen to take Iran off of the front pages, and diffuse the
international movement against its WMD designs.
c.) a high-profile incendiary show of fervent support and protection
for Islam by any regime, especially a secular one like Syria that
wants to out-extreme the extremists.
Consider the following:
1.) The original cartoons are not anywhere near as horrific as
the cartoons that have appeared regularly in Moslem press throughout
the world for decades, demonizing Jews, Israel and Christians.
Yet there are no Moslems apologizing for these hate-laden cartoons.
No civilized nation can contend that it has the right to insult anyone
but then deny that same right to everyone else.
2.) The Danish Imams that brought the cartoons to the attention
of political leaders in Arab countries forged three new cartoons,
pretending that these too were part of the Danish collection.
These forged cartoons were indeed insulting characterizations of
Mohammed as a pig, having sex with children, and being anally
penetrated by a goat -- far more horrific than the rather mild
Danish spoofs.
The Imams knew that the Danish cartoons were not so bad. So they
had to forge some fake really bad ones in order to get the desired
response from their audiences.
3.) The assertion that Islam bans pictures of Mohammed is a lie.
There is a centuries-old tradition of depicting Mohammed in art.
Cf. <http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/>
for a collection of hundreds of years of Moslem art depicting
Mohammed. Moreover, none of the figures in the cartoons are
necessarily Mohammed. This lie was necessary in order to
fabricate an explanation for the extreme Moslem rage.
4.) The hypocrisy of these violent demonstrations has not found
expression in western media, but it should. This hypocrisy
belies the sincerity of these demonstrations. How can any
civilized society be passive, or even supportive, when their leaders
kill millions of their own (Saddam Hussein killed c. 1,300,000 Moslems
in his 32 years of violent despotism), or when their co-religionists
bomb mosques with hundreds of Moslem worshippers inside them (as have
the Sunni terrorists in Iraq).....and yet that same society explodes
into paroxysms of violence, murder, threats of genocide, and outraged
self-righteous fury when a Qur'an is purported to be mishandled, or a
newspaper publishes harmless cartoons?
5.) The timing is odd. The cartoons were first published
in September. They were re-published in an Egyptian journal, El-Farg,
with provocative headlines, on October 17; but elicited no response.
Only after a summit meeting in Mecca in December did the cartoon issue
go ballistic. In Syria and Iran, that meant heavy press coverage
in official news media and virtual government approval of
demonstrations that ended with Danish embassies in flames.
6.) As the issue catapulted from a local Danish kafuffle to an
international incident of incendiary proportions in December, the
Danish imams were at it again: this time with lies that the Danish
newspaper had actually published not just 12 but 120 cartoons, that
the paper was a government mouthpiece, that the Danish government was
sponsoring a massive Qur’an burning party, and that the government
was planning to make a movie blaspheming Mohammed.
All pure fiction -- but very effective in heightening the
furore and inciting the Moslem “street” to even greater violence
and hatred.
7.) In a later publication, El-Farg editors wrote, in
opportunistic hindsight, that "…It would have been better that
this [current] holy war against Denmark been launched during the holy
month of Ramadan (October) …This irrelevant….timing is but a sign
that this violent response to the cartoons is politically motivated by
Muslim extremists in Europe and the so-called secular governments of
the Middle East.”.
So, at least to the editors at El-Farg, the ‘cartoon Intifada’ is
a jihad, which should have started in October. And the delay is
evidence that the current “holy war against Denmark” is a
political ploy.
In sum, the current "cartoon Intifada", with its death (to
date, at least 10 Moslems have been killed in Afghanistan riots, a
Catholic priest murdered, and scores injured) and destruction, threats
of genocide and terrorism, hatred and intimidation, is all the product
of Moslem leaders' manipulation.
Now, why would anyone do that?
The anti-Syrian coalition in Lebanon has accused the Syrian government
of starting the riots. Young Bashir is deeply beholden to Iran.
So one must look to Iran as the source of the conspiracy-like process
that has set the Moslem world aflame.
But, what could be Iran's motives?
Thanks to a recent USA/EU/UN/Egyptian agreement for a nuclear-free
Middle East, Iran will now be able to link its compliance with UN/EU/USA
demands for a halt to its nuclear ambitions to the West’s pressuring
Israel to dismantle, or at least disclose to the IAEA, Israel's own
nuclear program. That is what a nuclear-free Middle East means.
The obvious question that Iran and other Moslem countries can now
raise is: why are you attacking Iran about its embryonic nuclear
program which they say is meant for peaceful usages; when you let
Israel get away with building a whole arsenal of nuclear WMDs with
delivery systems which are clearly, and avowedly, for military
purposes? Curtail Israel and Iran will stand down.
Brilliant. Ahmedi-Nejad may be crazy, but he is not stupid.
And the cartoon crisis explodes with perfect timing.
Thanks to this new “jihad against Denmark”, the West is shown very
clearly just what it means to get the Moslem world angry. If
this is how they act when some cartoonists blaspheme, how do you
think they will act if the West does not follow through and show
'even handedness' and 'fairness' by pressuring Israel just as much, or
more, than it pressures Iran?
Now that the West knows what price there is to pay for stoking the ire
of the Moslem world, not only will all western cartoonists be far more
circumspect and self-censuring, but so will other artists,
journalists, analysts, historians, Middle East scholars, diplomats,
and governments.
When the Egyptian Ambassador to Denmark departed, following Egypt's
decision to cut off diplomatic relations in the wake of the cartoon
crisis, his parting words were "Denmark must do something to
appease the Moslem world!”
What sort of appeasement might he have in mind? What could
Denmark do that would calm the savage wrath of the Moslem world whose
delicate religious sensibilities have been ravaged by these cartoons?
Will we soon see Denmark leading a diplomatic charge in the UN to
suspend action against Iran until Israel has divested itself of its
WMDs?
David Meir-Levi
9 February 2006
873 Santa Cruz Avenue (#202)
Menlo Park, CA USA 94025
650 566 3811, 650 322 6638
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