Descriptive but not analytical

Submitted by M'Hamed CHETTALI (Belgium), Feb 13, 2006 at 10:29

Dear Mr. Pipes,

Thank you for posting the report and for your comments on it. In my opinion, the report is descriptive only and lacks the required indepth analytical work. It illustrates my point, I suggest to look back at the events of the last decades.

First, the Iranian revolution is undoubtedly a significant and important event. It was brought about as a reaction to a dictator who has been supported and manipulated by the US. The conflict with Israel, including several wars, is still indirectly or directly a conflict between the arab world and the US because of the blindsighted support of the US to an occupant of Palestinian land. Many dictators in the Arab world have limited constituency or legitimacy, but are still blessed and recieve a lot of support from the US or the West in general. The Iranian Nuke question is another example of double standards where the West sits on Nukes and tolerates that Israel has them.

So, observing that the Islam or the Arab world has been a potential source of threat and conflict is not sufficient. One should go to the root of the problems to identify the real threats. We should protest against all misguided policies regardless of their origin. The test of democracy is not the town square freedom of speech (See Cartoons), but the question misguided policies and to advance proposals in a constructive spirit.

I take this opportunity to call on my fellow Muslims to strongly condemn the Hamshahri's call for cartoons on the Holocaust. Such a call (and eventual publication) is an insult to all people with good faith. We should strongly denounce the misguided decision of the Hamshahri newspaper to retaliate in a non-civilized manner. The publication of cartoons on the Holocaust would go against the letter and spirit of Islam.

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