February 6, 2006

Fear Factor, the Shakedown, and Diversionary Tactics

By Richard Baehr
The first dangerously violent protests in the Muslim world that have been directed against Denmark and other EU nations in the current cartoon crisis were in the Palestinian territories. Those attacks have grown more serious in the past few days.  It is not surprising that ground zero for these violent attacks against European  institutions was not in Saudi Arabia or Iran (Islam's most fundamentalist states) nor in Pakistan (the nation on the receiving end of the strictest Wahhabist teachings financed by the Saudis), but in Gaza and the West Bank. The violence then spread to Israel's neighbors Lebanon and Syria.  It is in the Palestinian territories that the protests have a focused purpose: shaking down the EU (and to a lesser extent the United States) to continue funding the Palestinian Authority and work with it to pressure Israel, despite the election victory of Hamas. Appeasers like Jimmy Carter are encouraging Western nations to continue...(Read Full Article)