Alex,

" '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"

The crusades were an attempt to defend the Byzantine Empire against Islam being "spread by the sword." But hey, don't take my word for it - from Richard Hooker of Washington State Unversity (http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MA/BYZ.HTM):

ISLAM - Almost all of Byzantine energy over the next centuries would be focussed on Islam. The Muslims very quickly conquered Byzantine territory in Syria and Egypt largely because of disaffected populations of Christians and Jews who had been persecuted since the time of Justinian. The patriarchal caliphs and later the Umayyad caliphs, however, really had their sights on Byzantine territory—in fact, the conquest of Byzantium itself. They easily conquered all the Persian territories, but they could never quite conquer the heart of Byzantium itself. In 670, they attempted this conquest with a large fleet; in 717, they tried again with a land and sea operation against the city.

This operation, however, turned the tide away from the Muslims. Under the emperor Leo the Isaurian (717-741), the Muslim invasion was turned back and the Byzantines began to hold their own against Islamic incursions.

As the centralized Islamic government under the caliph began to disintegrate in the ninth century, the Byzantines began to reassert their dominance over Asia Minor. By the middle of the tenth century, they reconquered most of Syria and were once again and powerful and influential empire stretching from Greece to Arabia.

In 1071, however, the Seljuk Turks conquered the Byzantine army at Manzikert in Asia Minor—after this victory, the Seljuks quickly overran all of Byzantine territory in the east.

THE CRUSADES - The Byzantines, however, turned to Europe for help against the Muslims—the Byzantine emperor, Alexius Comnenius, called upon the European states to push back the Muslim conquerors. While Byzantium and the Europeans had drifted apart culturally, they still shared a common religion, and the European states complied. They had, however, designs of their own on Byzantine territories. While they successfully pushed back the Seljuks and returned territory to the Byzantines, the western Europeans also carved out kingdoms of their own in Syria and Palestine. This wasn't quite enough for them—in 1204, the Crusaders attacked, conquered, and pillaged the city of Constantinople, a goal that the Muslims had been trying for for centuries.

The amazing thing about this event is that it did not spell the end of the Byzantines. For a few decades, the Byzantine imperial government continued to function in Greece—in 1261, they returned to Constantinople and retook the city! But the Byzantine Empire was no longer an empire after 1261, but rather a small kingdom centered around Constantinople. In 1453, the city was finally and permanently conquered by the Ottoman Turks and renamed Istanbul. Byzantine culture, law, and administration came to its final end"

So, Islam was being spread by violence throughout the middle east. I'm not saying that the Crusades were a great thing either. But to suggest that it was genocide launched by christians is inaccurate. Or maybe, a "lie".

I hope that no one is killed over these cartoons. Spare us all from the "true believer" of any stripe - whether it's the guy who said "Whoever defames our prophet should be executed" (Quoted by CNN) or Pat "lets assasinate Hugo Chavez" Robertson.

If your faith is so weak and pathetic that you feel you have to kill anyone that disagrees or "insults" it...

Am I the only person responding who feels enormously conflicted about this?

I happen to agree that censorship caused by religious fundamentalists who seek to bully the rest of society is a bad thing, something to be avoided whenever possible. But then I look at the powderkeg of France, and this happening so closely after the October riots, and I ask myself:

if unjustly firing one news editor can tangibly save lives, is it so bad?

Will it save lives? It may. Besides, the people who might say that intolerance and censorship must be resisted at all costs probably don't live in neighborhoods where they might be victimized by such violence.

It's a little like, say, having a bumper sticker that says support the troops but freaking out when your 17 year old son says he wants to join the military, perhaps so you can be proud of him. Would this editor getting fired bother you so much if you were a poor white person living in a seedier neighborhood in Marseille?

In the long term, some things, plural, have to change. If there are five million Arabs in France, they are a part of France, now, and it doesn't seem right to say all the change needs to be made by them. The racism Arabs face in the west is real, not just a made-up grievance.

But by that same token, the kind of Islam that fundamentalists want to impose is ultimately untenable. Believe it or not, ultimately I feel hopeful for the future of Islam, in the west and elsewhere. And ironically, I think the main reason I feel hopeful is I look at how far European Christian society has come since the days when we burned heretics.

All I have to say, is that before we are so quick to throw stones, we should think about what happened when 'The Life of Brian' was released. How can we forget the pictures of the offices of Handmade Films going up in flames, surrounded by hordes of screaming Christians. The pope calling for the deaths of all of the members of Python. What they did to Graham Chapman... It haunts me to this day.

First of all, I'd like to thank Zaynab D. for sharing his forthright perspective on the question that's had us all so baffled here in the West, e.g. "Why does the Muslim world seem so unable to take a joke?"

Then again, my fundamentalist relatives are equally on-the-defensive whenever someone dares to poke fun at their narrow Jesus-isms. I'm reminded of the long theological "did Jesus laugh" debate in Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose" -- it seems completely absurd today, but one can imagine that in the early days of the Catholic church, such debates caused all manner of hissy fits, heart-palpitations (papaltations?) and burnings-at-the-stake.

It would be intersting to see if anyone has done an academic study on just how long it takes, on the average, for an organized religion to develop a sense of humor. 1500 years? 2000? Ever?

On another note: John McMahon -- you are completely, 100% WRONG about Islam having little or no tradition in the visual arts (and I specifically refer you to its brilliant history of illuminated manuscripts, as well as secular works like "the Perfumed Garden".) Next time, do your homework (or at least go to a few museums) before making sweeping generalizations about a culture spanning so many people and so many centuries -- you make us all look bad,