In Arab and Muslim cartoons, the Jews are depicted as blood-drenched monkeys with bulbous noses. Styles of religious clothes and artifacts are ridiculed, and I've even seen depictions of Jewish men being torn apart or stomped on by Muslim stormtroopers and Jewish women defiled in one way or another. The Christians don't fare much better.

Here are a couple of samples:

http://www.jcpa.org/phas/phas-21.htm

http://www.adl.org/Anti_semitism/arab/cartoon_arab_press_080702.asp

More can be found at http://www.memri.org in an assortment of articles.

It's great to hear that the image of Mohammed, and you can bet many other aspects of Islamic life, is sacred. It's too bad that nobody else gets that kind of respect.

Where might these cartoons be viewed?

There are several problems with Alex's pronouncement.

1) It is not outlawed to be anti-Israel in Europe. Europeans make it a habit

of being about anti-Israel as one can be in polite company. They do it at

all levels of government. They do it in Universities. It is extremely wide-spread in liberal, lefty magazines. It is not illegal.

2) The law forbidding anti-Holocaust comments is only the law in a few countries. It's the law in those countries because those governments don't want their youth growing up thinking that what their their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents did to 6+ million people is permissable. It is very likely that those laws will fade away the further we get from the event. Europeans have never committed attempted genocide against the Muslims,

which makes anti-Holocaust speech different from other speech.

3) Anti-Jewish comments are against the law when they become hate speech. Hate speech is a hate crime and applies to every race, creed, and religion. Not just the Jews.

4) The only real hypocrasy here is from the Muslims who demonize and humiliate non-Muslims with impunity while take sudden umbrage when they are placed on the receiving end. I'm not particularly happy with secularists in Europe taking advantage of Mohammed's image in exactly the same way I might be upset if Jewish prophets or other Jewish images were used disgracefully. However, the secularists have every right to say what they want without worrying about getting bombed. At most, they should worry about lawsuits.

JPincus,

two things:

1) http://www.revisionists.com (showing your so-called freedom of speech in Europe, which you call temporary, right)

2) "Europeans have never committed attempted genocide against the Muslims,"

ever heard of a little thing called the Crusades? go ahead and tell me they were defensive now, just to propagate the lie one more time.

"which makes anti-Holocaust speech different from other speech."

no it doesn't, you've just been brainwashed that way (or your just spewing propaganda, being Jewish yourself).

Don't worry, no one will be bombed. Your impression of Arab/Muslim societies is highly skewed. I've been there numerous times, and these are people like you and me trying to make a living. Actually, most people despise terrorism (not resistance), which hurts Muslims more than anyone else. Either way, Muslims are also practicing their freedom not to finance countries that treat their religion with contempt. Very simple.

The Danish newspaper, Jyllandsposten is the largest newspaperin Denmark, but it is seen as quite conservative.

The Norwegian newspaper is a small, three times a week, Pentecoastal movement based

christian newspaper. I think that much more widespread Norwegian papers have also published a couple of the cartoons on their webpages though.

Øyvind

The cartoons themselves can be seen here:

http://face-of-muhammed.blogspot.com/

Which is kind of the point in a free society. You and your belief system in fact do not possess the right not to be offended. And may I also add that we are sick and tired of being lectured by political Islam on the seemingly unique, delicate and dangerous sensibilities of the Muslim mind. The world is cold and life is hard. Wear a helmet, bring a sweater and if your response is to routinely set fires then please remember to stand upwind.

Reporting from Aarhus, Denmark:

There are a few things that need to be understood here. The reason the cartoons were originally published was NOT to mock Islam. A Danish author, Kåre Bluitgen, originally appealed to the Jyllands Posten because he was writing a book for children about Mohammed and couldn't find someone willing to illustrate it because they were too afraid. So the paper took up the cause and appealed to 12 artists to submit drawings. The views depicted in the drawings are therefore those of the artists in question-- not the paper. Most of them do not even mock Mohammed, and some in fact mock the paper and the author for what they saw as a publicity stunt.

Prime Minister Rasmussen made a speech last night in which he reaffirmed that he has no power to sanction the Jyllands Posten for publishing the cartoons, and therefore no intention to do so-- something that Muslims protesting in Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iraq seem utterly unable to grasp. A leader of a country who is not a dictator? A government which allows freedom of speech, and therefore is not responsible for what people choose to say? Mind-boggling.

A lot of Danish people do not even comprehend why Muslims are upset. Hardly anyone here takes religion seriously, so it doesn't make sense that people would be burning flags and effigies simply because someone made a cartoon of their prophet. But it is admirable to me that Rasmussen and the Jyllands Posten are unrepentant, and it is important that they stay that way....I just hope that there is a way to make it clear that freedom of speech protects ALL speech, not just that which specifically mocks Muhammed.

As a former poli-sci major who has studied the Muslim world extensively and has more than a passing understanding of Islam, I can understand why Muslims would find the cartoon offensive. In traditional Muslim art, people and animals are never portrayed, so an image signifying the profit Mohammed would be particularly offensive to them, no matter how inaccurate it should be. The fact that it was an image used to criticize the Muslim would's reponse to terrorism would likely be taken as a particular affront.

Now, having said that, the response of world-wide protests, boycotts and violence is so out of the range of rational behavior that it's hard to feel sympathetic. No religious group is except from examination and criticsm. I'm seen numerous political cartoons critical of the Pope and save for a few complaints from the Catholic League, these pass without a whole lot of hoopla.

Perhaps the Muslim people would have more of an argument if their own newpapers were not filled with vicious cartoons regardng Jews and Israel. Their cartoons often portray such disproven myths as the blood libel, images straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (a fictictious book often used for anti-semetic propoganda), and images equating Jews with Nazis (a particurally offensive image considering the Holocaust).

Criticism is a basic tenent of free speach, and no group or leader is immune. I can respect that people may find such images offensive, but attacking western embassies and looking for westerners to take hostage as have been reported is so out of proportion to a political cartoon that it simply feeds into the negative image that so many westerners have of Muslims.