When journalists around the world are defending European media's right to publish cartoons that are caricatures of Mohammed (and that in some cases are forgeries, apparently  by Muslim agitators), one syndicated American columnist, Ray Hanania, scripts a column that celebrates Arab power to suppress the Western press 

 The Power of the Muslim and Arab Worlds

This week, we witnessed the power of the Islamic and Arab worlds to bring a Western nation virtually to its knees. I was amazed at that power. This is over an issue that the nation's government had nothing to do with. All I can wonder is why the Islamic and Arab world doesn't harness that power more effectively and change policies that directly impact our causes and our beliefs? [....]

The entire episode reminds me of when the Arab and Islamic worlds joined together one other time many decades ago to launch an embargo of oil against what was clearly then unfair foreign policies against the rights of the Palestinian people and the Arab world. With the power of unity, the Arab and Islamic oil producers put great pressure on the world's greatest powers, reminding all that right is not always based on might but is instead based on justice and fairness.

Today, Arabs and Muslims are plagued by disunity. The only time we come together to exercise our moral and principled strength is when emotion has overcome our reasoning and we act to punish everyone. Unplanned and spontaneous acts of anger and emotion are not strategic. They may even cause a backlash.

I wonder what the honchos at the Daily Herald in suburban Chicago, where his column often appears, his paper think about someone who  praises the power of  protesters and gun—toting thugs to censor the free speech rights of the press?

Hanania claims that American newspapers victimize the "rightous" Palestinain cause by engaging in "hate crimes" and suggests that Arab store owners refuse to sell newspapers unless they toe the line and genuflect to Arab concerns.

Hello, Daily Herald? Is anyone listening to the words of one of your regular columnists? He is attacking your right to exercise free speech. Are you going to stand up for the rights of the Fourth Estate?

Ed Lasky  2 05 06