Mobs set the Danish embassy in Beirut ablaze on Sunday as violent protests over publication of cartoons of Prophet Mohammad continued. Saturday the Norwegian and Danish embassies in Damascus were set on fire and the Chilean and Swedish embassies were damaged.
The Associated Press reports only a small group of Islamic extremists tried to break the security barrier of, protecting the Danish embassy in Beirut. Troops fired tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse them. Policemen were attacked with stones and several fire engines were set on fire. At least 18 people were injured, including policemen, fire fighters.
According to Reuters, world leaders and prominent moderate Muslims appealed for calm:
"This has nothing to do with Islam at all," Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told Future television. "Destabilizing security and vandalism give a wrong image of Islam. Prophet Mohammad cannot be defended this way."
[. . .]
"We don't want the expression of our condemnation (of the cartoons) to be used by some to portray a distorted image of Islam," he said. "Today is a big test for us. Let our expression of condemnation be according to the values of Islam."
It seems moderate Muslims are always more concerned with commenting about the image of Islam rather than actually stopping inappropriate conduct.
The BBC reports, Denmark and Norway condemned Syria for failing to stop the attacks and urged their citizens to leave the country:
"The principle of diplomatic relations is that diplomats can work safely and the fact that this has been broken is extremely serious," Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere told a news conference in Oslo.
"It's horrible and totally unacceptable," Denmark's Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller told Danish public television.
The U.S. was also critical of Syria, saying it was "inexcusable" for such damage to be inflicted on diplomatic missions:
"The United States condemns in the strongest terms the burning of the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus, Syria today, which also damaged the Chilean and Swedish embassies," a White House spokesman said.
"The government of Syria's failure to provide protection to diplomatic premises, in the face of warnings that violence was planned, is inexcusable."
Diplomacy seems to have taken a wrong Pakistan, where diplomats from several European countries were summoned and reprimanded over the "derogatory and blasphemous" cartoons:
"We reject the false pretext of freedom of press for publishing these caricatures since freedom of expression does not mean absence of any values, ethics or laws," a Foreign Ministry statement said.
Writing in the London Telegraph, Charles Moore suggests that the mobs protesting the cartoons are not so spontaneous. Moore wonders how the protestors in Gaza City, and many other places were so well supplied with Danish flags ready to burn:
Why were those Danish flags to hand? Who built up the stockpile so that they could be quickly dragged out right across the Muslim world and burnt where television cameras would come and look? The more you study this story of "spontaneous" Muslim rage, the odder it seems.
Moore also offers an explanation as to why cartoons first published in October cause such offense now:
The complained-of cartoons first appeared in October; they have provoked such fury only now. As reported in this newspaper yesterday, it turns out that a group of Danish imams circulated the images to brethren in Muslim countries. When they did so, they included in their package three other, much more offensive cartoons which had not appeared in Jyllands-Posten but were lumped together so that many thought they had.
The burning of embassies and other violence done in the name of protesting depictions of Muhammad, like other manifestations of extremism, must be condemned. Syria and Lebanon should suffer diplomatic consequences for failing to adequately protect embassies. Pakistan's ambassador should be called in to the State Department and receive a lesson on how we respect freedom of the press.
EVERY Islamic nation's embassies in the free world must be closed and their diplomats sent home, and their citizens also sent home until Islamic people learn to behave like grownups. The Islamic street needs to pay a price for tantrums.
Posted by: Walter E. Wallis | Monday, February 06, 2006 at 08:49 AM