Angry arabs

This article is probably one of the best articles (it's a column rather) written on about Arabs that I've seen in a long time.

"In school in Gaza, I learned hate, vengeance and retaliation. Peace was never an option, as it was considered a sign of defeat and weakness."

There's been a lot of talk recently about the Danish cartoons and my take on it is that you shouldn't make fun of the prophet but burning flags threatening people and raiding embassies is NOT equally bad; it's worse. Calm down arabs! You're just putting weight behind the cartoons and giving right-wing extremists more concrete examples of bad-doing to point at. After having read this article I understand much more:

"As a young woman, I visited a Christian friend in Cairo during Friday prayers, and we both heard the verbal attacks on Christians and Jews from the loudspeakers outside the mosque. They said: "May God destroy the infidels and the Jews, the enemies of God. We are not to befriend them or make treaties with them." We heard worshippers respond "Amen"."

Her statements are bold, strong and right to the point

"It's time for Arabs and Muslims to stand up for their families. We must stop allowing our leaders to use the West and Israel as an excuse to distract from their own failed leadership and their citizens' lack of freedoms. It's time to stop allowing Arab leaders to complain about cartoons while turning a blind eye to people who defame Islam by holding Korans in one hand while murdering innocent people with the other."

A really good article really worth reading.