Voices of Moderate Muslims on the violence in the Middle East

From the San Francisco Gate comes reports of some statements from moderate Muslims:

San Francisco Gate - full article

· Writing in the Jerusalem Post, reporter Orly Halpern cites a "secular Iraqi Muslim" in Baghdad who told him that the commotion over the cartoons "is not a religion issue mostly." Instead, Halpern's Iraqi contact explained, "We are angry because of identity abuse. We are filled with Western bulls--t that we can't swallow anymore." Halpern also cited a Palestinian newspaper editor who "blamed the West's stereotyping of Islam for the [recent] demonstrations" over the cartoons.

(Have the Muslims doing the burning and violence failed to notice that they are making the stereotype appear to be a realistic portrait?)

The editor told him: "I believe this reaction is exaggerated....But it's a result of a policy of Western campaigning against Islam. They [the demonstrators] believe that this is a campaign against Islam. I don't think it is. The cartoonists know nothing about Islam. Unfortunately, the Western media [have] mixed moderate Islam with radical Islam as if there isn't any difference, and they are accusing Islam of being a terrorist religion." Halpern also quotes Enas Muthaffar, a Muslim-Palestinian film director, who said: "These [violent] people are just letting off steam because they can't do it against their own governments....I am so ashamed of these barbaric acts. Burning down embassies? What is this? This is an insult to Islam and to Arabs. These people are ruining our name."

· Somalia-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an immigrant to the Netherlands, where she serves as a Liberal Party member of the Dutch parliament, said at a press conference in Berlin yesterday that she defends "the right to offend." (Die Welt, "The Free West" blog)

Speaking in response to the cartoons controversy, Hirsi Ali, who was brought up as a Mulsim and has received death threats for her outspoken criticism of Islam (Reuters South Africa), said in Berlin: "Shame on those politicians who stated that publishing and republishing the drawings was 'unnecessary,' 'insensitive,' 'disrespectful' and 'wrong.' I am of the opinion that Prime Minister...Rasmussen of Denmark acted correctly when he refused to meet with representatives of tyrannical regimes who demanded from him that he limit the powers of the press." Hirsi Ali added that she believed "publication of the cartoons confirmed that there is widespread fear among authors, filmmakers, cartoonists and journalists who wish to describe, analyze or criticize intolerant aspects of Islam all over Europe."(Die Welt, "The Free West" blog)

Criticizing certain specific Islamic doctrines or beliefs, the Dutch politician noted that the Prophet Mohammed "did and said good things." However, she opined, "[H]e was also disrespectful and insensitive to those who disagreed with him." Hirsi Ali said: "I think that the prophet was wrong to have placed himself and his ideas above critical thought[,]...was wrong to have subordinated women to men[,]...was wrong to have decreed that gays be murdered...[and]...was wrong to have said that apostates must be killed." (Die Welt, "The Free West" blog)