Don't Let Me Stop You: Riots and Muslims

The now-retracted Newsweek report, Al Jazeera tells us, sparked "Massive anti-U.S. protests across the Muslim world." Protests are one thing, but riots, as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, are quite another. Certainly, Newspeak deserves the blame it has gotten for aggravating conditions that were already dangerous.

Let's not forget, though, that the chief blame for the riots belongs with those who did the rioting. Dennis Prager wonders why that's just accepted.

Dennis Prager: Newsweek and the rioters: "And now a word about the rioters. They have desecrated their religion and their holy text far more than the alleged flushers of Koranic pages.

Did any Buddhists riot and murder when the Taliban Muslims blew up the irreplaceable giant Buddhist statues in Afghanistan?

Did any Christians riot and murder when an 'artist' produced 'Piss Christ' -- a crucifix immersed in a jar of the 'artist's' urine? When all Christian services and even the wearing of a cross were banned in Saudi Arabia? When Christians are murdered while at prayer in churches by Muslims in Pakistan?

Have any Jews rioted in all the years since it was revealed that Jordanian Muslims used Jewish tombstones in Old Jerusalem as latrines? Or after Palestinians destroyed Joseph's Tomb in 2000 and set fire to the rebuilt tomb in 2003?

It is quite remarkable that many Muslims believe that an American interrogator flushing pages of the Koran is worthy of rioting, but all the torture, slaughter, terror and mass murder done by Muslims in the name of the Koran are unworthy of even a peaceful protest.

Nevertheless, one will have to search extensively for any editorials condemning these primitives in the Western press, let alone in the Muslim press. This is because moral expectations of Muslims are lower than those of other religious groups. Behavior that would be held in contempt if engaged in by Christians or Jews is not only not condemned, it is frequently 'understood' when done by Muslims."

The same elite opinion-makers that claimed that Muslims can't be expected to govern themselves democratically think Muslims should be expected to resort to violence when insulted. Eventually, Muslims will learn to expect better of themselves.