We highly recommend watching this Pajamas Media interview of Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, about the Mohammed cartoons.
UPDATE:
Some fascinating details in an article by Pernille Ammitzbøll and Lorenzo Vidino: After the Danish Cartoon Controversy
Terror groups came together in Denmark over the weekend for a conference on anti-terror laws. The "Anti-Terrorism Legislation, Political Rights and International Solidarity" conference was designed to "discuss the supposed war against terror which we see as a global menace against democratic rights," conference spokesman Jens Henneberg Andersen said.
Among the groups present were Batasuna, the political wing of armed Basque separatist group ETA, the Palestinian National Council, the Prensa Rural from Colombia, the Bayan Muna from the Philippines, and Sweden's Demokratiuppropet. The Danish NGO Rebellion was the host. In October, a Rebellion spokesman was indicted under the 2002 Danish anti-terrorist laws for giving money to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
"Violent conflicts... should be resolved with dialogue and by negotiation and not just by putting one of the other party into the terrorist category," Henneberg Andersen said.
Foreign Ministers from Arab nations including Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Kuwait are in Cairo today for an emergency meeting to discuss an "immediate" and "proper" response to the Israeli shelling of a town in Beit Hanoun. The ministers were scheduled to discuss measures that could be taken against Israel after the U.S. vetoed an Arab-backed draft Security Council resolution condemning the attack.
Secretary Rice said that the U.S. was "compelled" to reject the resolution because it "used the tragic incident in Beit Hanoun to advance a one-sided political agenda." Ten of the 15 council member nations voted in favor while four - Britain, Denmark, Japan and the Slovak Republic - abstained. The draft had demanded an immediate withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza and an end of "aggression" by Israel, which was labelled the "occupying power."
A new poll of Egyptians finds that 27 years after the Camp David Peace Accords, an astounding 92 percent see Israel as an enemy nation. Behind Israel was Denmark with 60 percent calling it an enemy nation. That figure certainly stems from Muslim rage over the publication of caricatures of the prophet Muhammad by Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten.
Coming in third on the most-hated list is the U.S. with 50 percent of respondents seeing America as an enemy of Egypt. Which countries have been crowned as 'friends' of Egypt? The list is topped by Saudi Arabia, Libya, the Palestinian Authority, Sudan and Syria.
A Danish court has rejected a lawsuit against the newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that first printed the Muhammad cartoons. The court rejected claims by Muslim groups that the drawings were meant to insult the prophet and make a mockery of Islam.
"The dismissal of the lawsuit against the newspaper, which was expected, confirms the ongoing intention to harm our religion and our prophet," said Mahmoud al-Kharabsheh, who heads the Jordanian parliament's legal committee.
In Lebanon, where protesters set fire to the Danish Consulate in February, Islamic-studies professor Radwan el-Sayyed said the verdict was a "misinterpretation of freedom of expression." He said he did not expect a repeat of February's riots, however, saying people knew the violence was counterproductive.
In Syria, where a mob set fire to the Danish and Norwegian Embassies in February, legislator Mohammed Habash, who heads the Islamic Studies Center in Damascus, said the ruling would "widen the gap between the Western and Islamic world."
The furor and violence over the Danish cartoons have died down, but crucial issues have not been resolved. Flemming Rose, culture editor of Jyllands–Posten, explains his motivation as well as the challenges arising from Europe’s unsuccessful attempts at multiculturalism in a recent op-ed published in Spiegel.
In the wake of the cartoon crisis, Rose argues that Europe faces a "moment of truth." Tracing his own political and intellectual journey from the turbulent 1960s and the Cold War to the cartoon crisis, he crafts a compelling position that outlines how fictions of victimization and bias as well as the European welfare system contribute to the non-assimilation of Muslim immigrants.
European policies and attitudes are based, to a large extent, on experiences with homogenous cultures. Rose suggests that Europe follow the U.S. example, broadening the definition of belonging in European culture to encourage assimilation. In the end, Muslims and other citizens must accept satire as part of belonging and exclude the violence that speaks of irreconcilable differences.
Cheese, butter and medicine from Arla Foods, the Danish company that suffered an intense boycott in the Middle East since the cartoon controversy erupted, is finding its way back onto store shelves in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Lebanon, the UAE, and most recently Qatar... but at what price?
"The retailers in the region were forced to pull out the Danish products, including medicines, from their shelves following a call from a section of clerics over the region. Arla Foods, was the main target of the boycott. But now, with Arla coming out openly against the Danish Government the ban has become a non-issue and we have resumed distributing the products," said Muhammed Unni Olakara of Transind Food Suppliers in Doha, Qatar.
We took a look at what Arla had done, and found out that it had put out a full-page advertisement in 25 Arab newspapers that among other things, said that "Arla Foods has distanced itself from the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten's actions in publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. We do not agree with the newspaper’s reasons for publication."
Arab customers still don't get it. Arla's statement distanced the company from the newspaper, not the government. Therein lies something very telling... as the above quotes show, there is no separation between the Danish government and the press in the mind of the Arab consumer.
As the violence raged two months ago, the Danish government tried to get that message across to no avail. Now it appears as if the same mentality that led to riots, deaths and torched embassies is what's going to get Arla back on track in the region.
Denmark on Tuesday denounced the Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, the deadliest in Israel in 20 months, and said the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority was isolating itself internationally by not condemning the attack.
"A Hamas spokesman had tried to legitimate the terror attack," Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "That is totally unacceptable."
Meanwhile, a sixteen-year-old tourist from the United States is fighting for his life after sustaining critical wounds in Monday's suicide bombing.
His injuries were mostly to his stomach and internal organs and his aorta was torn, a hospital spokeswoman said. The American boy's family did not want any details about him released to the media.
UPDATE 4/18 @ 1:36pm: Overview and analysis of the bombing here.
The cheeses and butters of the Danish company Arla were back on the shelves of Saudi supermarkets on Thursday after an Islamic group - the International Committee for the Support of the Prophet - called for end to the boycott that was sparked by the Danish cartoons of Muhammad and an irrational intolerance of free speech.
"We're delighted that our largest Saudi customers have decided to lift the boycott," said Arla Foods' executive manager, Finn Hansen. The company said its products were now selling in 3,000 shops and supermarkets in the Middle East, and that 31 of its largest retailers in Saudi Arabia had promised to resume sales of Arla goods on Saturday.
However, the Jordanian and Kuwaiti boycott continues as Arla products were not available yesterday in two major Jordanian supermarkets nor on the shelves of Kuwaiti state cooperatives.
Today is The International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is celebrating the day with this vile poster portraying a product of Denmark's most famous company, LEGO, in a poster about racism (HT: Michelle Malkin and The American Thinker).
Rantings of a Sandmonkey says that the UN not only issued a blatently biased report on the whole danish cartoons incident, but that
its use of red-colored (in allusion to Denmark) piece of LEGO on their new anti-racism poster implies that Denmark is now, according to the UN, racist. "Nevermind that Islam is not a race, nevermind that muslims in Denmark were never discriminated against in terms of finiding jobs or social status, and nevermind that the whole crisis was started by a Danish Imam who urged the Islamic world to economically hurt the country that gave him shelter and a home, using false evidence and fake cartoons. That is not the point as far as the UN is concerned."
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