War Over Words

Marty Peretz, 9/17/06:

It's really quite amazing to see so many Muslims having a temper fit about the Pope locating a propensity toward violence in Islam and then watching as its militants proceed to firebomb Christian churches in revenge. As of Sunday a.m., at least seven churches had been firebombed in what's called Palestine alone. Five of these were not even Catholic, which reflects Islam's sloppy and undiscerning conception of the other. A non-believer is a non-believer. You don't have to know anything else. (The other churches were Greek Orthodox and Anglican, and the fact that the episcopates of these churches habitually dissembled--no, lied--for the Arab cause did not protect them at all.) Is there anything the Palestinians don't like to which they fail to react with violence, as if violence refutes the Pope's words? But the outrage about Bendict XVI was not at all limited to feverish Palestine. In fact, its incoherent frenzy quickly went round the world, from Pakistan and Indonesia to Morocco and Turkey and Egypt. And, of course, also into Iraq from where the Mujahadeen Army (a Sunni terrorist group) addressed the Vicar of Christ as "you dog of Rome." Even if the Pope had been totally in error in his remarks and given what high Muslims habitually say about Christians and Jews, doesn't this hatred aimed at him and his religion somehow confirm that he is right?