"The Innocence of Muslims"

[broncofan]

And funnily enough such a film would not provoke attacks on US embassies and killings by angry jews - beleive it or not.

At least as you point out there's not much precedent for that reaction. And it's been tested. The reactions are often angry, but mostly verbal.

The reactions of many in the Muslim world to the insults to Mohammad are different on two levels as well. They are violent and they are not directed only at the provocateurs but their countrymen and even inaminate things like buildings such as embassies seen as symbols.

For Bishr: Neo-Nazis marched through Skokie Illinois (an area where many Holocaust survivors lived) in the United States and the ACLU defended their right to do so. The embarrassing response of some Jews? Quitting the ACLU. Undoubtedly bad behavior in my opinion because the ACLU took a principled stand. However, words cannot describe the difference between quitting a civil rights organization in protest on the one hand and murdering several individuals not the direct objects of the protest.

[broncofan]

When the movie was released and the producer for whatever reason pretended he was a Jew being financed by other Jews I saw a number of articles asking what the Jewish response would be to Muslims mocking them. But the response would be what it always is, complaining not killing. And to be honest, while the movie is a hatefest I do not think it rises to the level of offensiveness of a state sponsored Holocaust denial conference or cartoon contest. This is not just because I am Jewish it's because it is not someone's religious beliefs being challenged in the latter case but the dead being mocked.

Remember us talking about the U.S ambassador being so bad because he put his thumbs up over the dead body of Qaddafi. Multiply that by a million. People in the Middle East always complain about Western double standards on free speech.

Well, what is a bigger threat to free speech? Complaining when someone has a Holocaust denial conference or murdering people when they insult your prophet. As far as I know, condemning hateful speech is in no way a threat to free speech. Killing people sort of is (intentional understatement).

And the entire first post is gibberish. Insulting my mother is free speech and in no way licenses murder. Even in states with laws against villification, the punishment should not involve harming third parties, those sharing their ancestry etc. The anti-semitism on Middle Eastern media is a thousand times what we see in Western media with respect to Islam and people are not murdered because of it. Some angry letters are written, it is roundly condemned, as this movie should be, but no murder.

Question for Bishr: Various Arab media outlets deny the Holocaust in one manner or another all the time. Usually no international stance needs to be taken because embassies are not firebombed as a result. Iran brought together neo-nazis to discuss the facts supporting the Holocaust. You talk about double standards? My understanding is that for there to be a double standard you have to actually have two different reactions to the SAME behavior. I haven't seen Jews storm embassies when we're insulted as we are every day in the Middle East.

I said the Jewish equivalent would be mocking the Holocaust but perhaps it would be mocking Abraham. That would really send Jews on a rampage. The reform Jews would say, "who's Abraham?" But then they'd be very pissed

[BluegrassCat]

It'd be more sacrilegious to go after Jon Stewart.

[broncofan]

It'd be more sacrilegious to go after Jon Stewart.

At least Jon Stewart never threatened to kill his own son because he heard voices commanding him to do so. Not that I know of anyway.

[Prospero]

Actually some of the remarks by Yoda had occurred to me as well.

The genesis of this ugly little film (or amateur video) is curious to say the least - and the rumours around it suggesting jews were responsible for making it were very suspect.

Since the Rushdie affair the response of part of the Muslim population to such provocations is predictable. So the people behind this movie seem to created it to provoking this response - as wide an angry reaction as possible internationally.

One should condemn the riots and bloodshed. But these were an utterly predictable over reaction.

But why exactly was this film made and floated out there on the web at this time?

Pastor Jones's involvement might mere be opportunistic. But this man as i said in an earlier post already has American blood on his hands for his earlier provocations.

Mitt Romney weighed in immediately with a despicable attack on the Whie House following the remarks made by the US Embassy in Egypt condemning the attacks but also this video. He was palpably trying to make political advantage out of a tragedy.

There is an intelligent debate to be had about the way the US handles its relations with the islamic world. Romney and representative rightwingers in here are not contributing to a reasoned response but shooting from the hop.

Cool heads are needed.

This may well have an electoral impact in the US. But it would be interesting to find out why this film was made and distributed now. Suspicious to say the least.

[Prospero]

This is an interesting piece from a british newspaper by the Egyptian-Ameican journalist Mona Eltahaway.

I tell fellow Egyptians and fellow Americans it's about us, not about them
After this week's Middle East protests we must move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question: 'Why do they hate us?'

When my father came home from Friday prayers, I was eager to know what the sermon had been about. We'd all been following three days of protests outside the US embassy in Cairo, ostensibly over a film deemed offensive to the Prophet Muhammad that was posted on YouTube. More protests were expected in several countries after Friday prayers.

"The regular imam wasn't there, so the muezzin stepped in and told us the best way to honour the prophet was to live by his teachings," my dad said. I carry that breathtaking simplicity in my emotional suitcase with me when I travel back and forth between the US, where I've lived for the past 12 years, and Egypt, the country of my birth, to which I'm returning to fight for the social and cultural revolution we desperately need in order for our political revolution to succeed.

When my fellow Americans ask me that tired question, "Why do they hate us?", my initial response is usually: "It's not about you." When a fellow Egyptian wants to talk about hating the US, I flip that response on its head and tell her: "It's not about America – it's about you." The truth is somewhere in the middle, but too many people are willing to use it as a football in an endless match of political manipulation.

For a slightly subtler response, I tell my fellow Americans that "they" don't hate them for their freedom but, rather, because successive US governments all too willingly and knowingly supported dictators who denied their populations any kind of freedom. As a US citizen, I cherish the first amendment. It's what I whipped out as I stood alongside Muslims and non-Muslims in Lower Manhattan in 2010 to defend the right of an Islamic community centre to open close to Ground Zero. We told those who opposed the centre that that first amendment was what gave them the right to protest and at the same time guaranteed freedom to worship right there on that spot.

How could a country that cherishes such freedom be so willing to support dictators all too eager to deny that same freedom to their people? Even President Barack Obama, who spoke so eloquently about dignity and freedom in his 2009 Cairo speech, disappointingly dragged his feet when it was time to decide between Mubarak and the people rising up for that very same freedom and dignity.

Anti-US sentiment has been born out of many grievances – support and weapons for such dictators as Mubarak, unquestionable support for Israel in its occupation of Palestine, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen that kill more civilians than intended targets.

And, paradoxically – or perhaps fittingly – that anti-US sentiment was played on dictators such as Mubarak, who was happy to pocket US aid in return for maintaining Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and buying US weapons, and yet used the state-controlled media to fan hatred of the US. Mubarak was adept, as were many other US-backed dictators, at playing the sane middle to the "lunatics with beards" he so often used as bogeymen to guarantee the support of foreign allies.

Mubarak is gone, and Egypt's president is from the Muslim Brotherhood movement – long vilified as the "lunatics with beards". It is at this point that I tell fellow Egyptians it's about them, and not about America.

That YouTube film – not made or distributed by the US government – was posted at least two months before ultra-conservative Salafists called for protests at the US embassy. Why? Understanding that the president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, must now occupy that same middle ground as Mubarak did, the Salafists are all too happy to flex rightwing political muscle. Why else did they call their protest in Cairo on the anniversary of the attacks on 11 September 2001?

Morsi, not wanting to concede the moral high ground, remained silent for too long, stuck between his memory of being the opposition and an awareness that he's now the president. That's what I mean when I tell fellow Egyptians that it's about us, not America.

Mubarak could and did ban films. That's why many genuinely offended Muslims in Egypt and other countries so quickly ask why the American government can't do the same. Of course, he also gave the green light to messages of antisemitism and hatred against Egypt's Christians.

As an Egyptian-American, I want both sides of that hyphen to enjoy the forms of freedom guaranteed by the first amendment, as I want both sides of that hyphen to move beyond the deceptive simplicity of the question, "Why do they hate us?"

[onmyknees]

Astonishing to me is that people who like to pass themselves off as worldly and knowledgeable ( as do many of you on here) allow themselves to be diverted by a total hoax....the You Tube Video. Every reporter on the ground in any one of the 20 countries currently in flames has explained that most of the demonstrators are poor and uneducated ( although with all due respect, that's pretty common in the majority of these countries) to think that these people had access to a I Pad to see the video is laughable. This is a hateful mob....plain and simple. The video had been out for quite some time, but it served a nice diversion and of course a lazy, corrupt US press, and the majority of you will all go along for the ride. The video is an answer to a problem that is otherwise too difficult for you apologists to cope with.

If the video should be discussed at all, it should be in the context of the first amendment. Speaking of that, this is America 2012.....where if you make an anti Muslim vid...........crude, humorous or otherwise, a dozen police officers will storm your house at midnight, and will have plenty of cameras along for effect, so that the wire services can pick up the story and relay it all over the world, and they'll use the pretext of some outstanding warrants ..."we'd like to take you down town to ask you a few questions"

Absolutely shameful. But you all keep on talking about that video...it's therapeutic and it explains everything, I understand.

[Prospero]

snipe snipe... "pass themselves off etc" "peddling the line" etc etc There are plenty of people here who actually do know a lot more about these things than you do OMK - with your Pavlovian redneck response to issues.

I read your last post two times to try and figure out exactly what point you are making. Broadly you seem to be castigating the media for reporting this at all, ("a lazy corrupt US Press" - talking about Fox again, are you) praising the people who made it for - in your ignorant and twisted world you clearly seem to think it represents an accurate picture of Islam - and decrying the fact that the makers of this are now being questioned by the police.

The "poor and ignorant" people involved in these demonstrations - a tiny minority in all of the places where they took place - were very clearly stirred to action by radicals. In all probabilty many had not even seen this video. (though as you well know it can be seen on a PC, phone etc etc as well as an ipad/ (Cheap shot by OMK again) They are - I repeat - clearly a minority easily roused by mischievous imams and Jihadists with a wider agenda.They were told that it was shown on US State TV - and with the news limitations most have experienced (and many still continue to experience) have no concept of the freedom and variety of media in the West.

This has already now been largely concluded to be the case in Libya where the attack on the embassy was carefully planned by one of the many militias with guns (oh yes guns don't kill people do they.. eh!) in the aftermath of the end of the rule of Gaddafy. There is chaos there and the Islamists see in this an opportunity to rampage. The video was a pretext.

In Lebanon the demonstrations were stirred up by hisb ut Tahirir - a small but very active radical organisation.

And yet you continue with your ignorant attempt to smear the entire Islamic world for the actions of a minority. In that you are as guilty as those Muslims who believe this video represents the views of the West.


However this does not take away from the awesomely offensive nature of the video. Why not watch it OMK?

Stupid

[loveboof]

the reaction so far and anything that follows is quite predictable!

[...]

Mohammad (Allah bless him) certainly wouldn't agree to such a reaction, i think it is doing almost as much harm as the film itself, what a shame!!!

And here you see the very purpose for the video unfold...

I don't think it was designed to simply insult Muslims, but rather to provoke the kind of predictable reaction that it did!

(The fact the reaction was so predictable does not say good things about the state of your religion or your religious leaders around the world)

[bishr]

again you r twisting what i said!

i was not in any way discussing the hypothetical reaction of jews to a video that offends them, i was talking specifically about the difference in the manner in which the USA administration would handle the situation if it was revolving around jews/israel instead of muslims/arabian-countries. i don't know why u turned the whole thing to a comparison between the way muslims react to offense and the way jews react to offense.

also, i said that the events being labeled as a reaction to the video surely would not please our beloved prophet Mouhammad, but they are predictable.

also, for those saying that most of the people living in these countries don't own apple ipads to watch the video on, that is totally correct, but new cellphones with video playback and touch interfaces are shockingly widespread, and even the poorest people own them and videos of interest spread very fast so it is not difficult at all to assume that the vast majority of the protestors have actually seen it.

also, most people here are not stupid and of course understand that if a person from the USA posts a video online that doesn't mean he has the blessing of the president there! the attacks on the embassies are not caused by such a misconception!

the video was like pouring acid in the eyes of every muslim that watched it regardless of his/her level of religious commitment or eduction or social class.