By Michael Weiss. The New York Times tweeted today that the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which found itself the victim of a gruesome massacre, “long tested the limits of satire.” I did not know that there were limits to satire or that the Gray Lady, which often unintentionally engages in the art form, had managed to uncover them. The implication here is one that will surely become as tediously explicit in the hours and days ahead as it is familiar: If you “provoke” Muslims by mocking their religion, then you’ve only yourself to blame for what happens next.
Some in the media are admirably honest about why they go mum in this regard. Stephen Pollard, the editor of London’s Jewish Chronicle, today explained that his newspaper will not run any of Charlie Hebdo’s notorious cartoons in its coverage of the terrorist attack on the French weekly: “Get real, folks. A Jewish newspaper like mine that published such cartoons would be at the front of the queue for Islamists to murder”. . .
But now contrast Pollard’s justification with how Bruce Crumley, Time magazine’s then-Paris bureau chief, characterized the work of satirists after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed in 2011 for the ostensible “offense” of putting Mohammed in the editor’s chair for a single issue: “[N]ot only are such Islamophobic antics futile and childish, but they also openly beg for the very violent responses from extremists their authors claim to proudly defy in the name of common good. What common good is served by creating more division and anger, and by tempting belligerent reaction?”
Openly beg. I wonder if Crumley will write that the 10 Charlie Hebdo employees gunned down today by men claiming (evidently in perfect French) to have “avenged the Prophet Muhammad” got what they deserved or were perhaps laïcité’s answer to suicide bombers. . . (Read more about the liberal media’s refusal to confront Muslim fundamentalists HERE)
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Guess Who Gives Cover to the Jihadist Murderers?
By Ben Shapiro. Here are the top ten recent examples of top politicians and media figures providing justification for jihadi killing of those who slander the prophet of Islam.
President Barack Obama, 2012: On September 11, 2012, Islamic terrorists attacked the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya, murdering four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens. President Obama and his administration promptly blamed a filmmaker who made the YouTube film “The Innocence of Muslims.” He then went to United Nations on September 25, 2012, and said:
The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. . .
General David Petraeus, 2011: The general in charge of America’s war in Afghanistan ripped Pastor Terry Jones of Florida after Jones burned a copy of the Koran. Petraeus said that burning the Koran was
hateful, it was intolerant and it was extremely disrespectful and again, we condemn it in the strongest manner possible. . .
President Bush, 2008: After a video emerged of an American sniper shooting a Koran, White House press secretary Dana Perino said that Bush had apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:
He apologized for that in the sense that he said that we take it very seriously. We are concerned about the reaction. We wanted them to know that the president knew that this was wrong.
Bush State Department, 2006: After the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a cartoon of Mohammed, ambassadors from 11 Islamic countries demanded that the newspaper be punished in a letter to the Danish prime minister:
We deplore these statements and publications and urge Your Excellency’s government to take all those responsible to task under law of the land in the interest of inter-faith harmony, better integration and Denmark’s overall relations with the Muslim world.
(Read more from this story HERE)
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