Offensive cartoon offensive
Kevin Sullivan reported Turmoil Over Cartoons Began Quietly Among Danes and focuses on the role Ahmed Abu Laban had in publicizing the cartoons.

Laban immediately called together 11 other Muslim leaders to plan a response. Eliciting no regrets from the newspaper or the Danish government, they sent envoys to the Middle East to seek support there. The chain of events illustrates how, in the current climate of tension between Islam and the West, a small spark, printed on an inside page of a midsize newspaper in a small country, can escalate into an international conflagration.

It really sounds benign doesn't it? But two things are absent from the article. One is who is Abu Laban really? And why didn't the controversy start until five months after the cartoons first appeared?

Despite the benign portrayal of Abu Laban in the Washington Post, Lorenzo Vidino of the Counterterrorism Blog writes

Last November, Abu Laban, a 60-year-old Palestinian who had served as translator and assistant to top Gamaa Islamiya leader Talaal Fouad Qassimy during the mid-1990s and has been connected by Danish intelligence to other Islamists operating in the country, put together a delegation that traveled to the Middle East to discuss the issue of the cartoons with senior officials and prominent Islamic scholars. The delegation met with Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar Sheikh Mohammad Sayyed Tantawi, and Sunni Islam’s most influential scholar, Yusuf al Qaradawi. "We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide," said Abu Laban. . . .

In any case, the action was a deliberate malicious and irresponsible deed carried out by a notorious Islamist who in another situation had said that “mockery against Mohamed deserves death penalty.” And in a quintessential exercise in taqiya, Abu Laban has praised the boycott of Danish goods on al Jazeera, while condemning it on Danish TV.

This still doesn't explain why it took until now for the cartoons to spark Muslim rage. As I noted earlier

Kesher Talk and Daled Amos question the timing of the protests against the Danish cartoons - five months after they originally appeared. Each provides credible reasons.

And while Secretary of State Rice is condemning Syria and Iran for fanning the flames of violent protest, The Counterterrorism Blog's Walid Phares sees a larger dynamic in play

Would a generalized inflaming of the masses on the “cartoon matter” be better before or after the Palestinian elections, by Hamas standards? Before or after the Iraqi elections, by Salafi angle? Before or after the Egyptian elections, by Muslim Brotherhood plans? Before or after the withdrawal from the Lebanese Government, by Hezbollah calculations? Before or after the Iranian decision to rush to the nuclear race, by Ahmedinijad’s planning? And on the top coincidence list was the fact that Denmark was to head the UN Security Council, just as its members were to take Tehran to the UN. At first glance, there is no link between the spontaneous but violent demonstrations on the one hand and the complex calculations of the web of regimes and organizations. I argue otherwise. M Abu Laban heralded it loudly: the delegation went to seek support from the Arab Muslim East after all attempts to resolve it failed. The first part of the assertion is correct: Arab League diplomats in Copenhagen were not satisfied by the Danish Government response and we know why. But the second part of the delegation’s journey into the region is to be addressed: If the Arab League was rebuffed by liberal Denmark who they ask “support” from in Egypt, Syria, Gaza,and the rest of the region? In short, religious authorities and militant forces: And why would they seek beyond the diplomatic circles as a Danish citizen? Because a decision to ignite an intifada was already made by the architects of the overseas journey: One doesn’t remit the dossier to Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, the Ikhwan of Egypt, Hamas and the other Salafi in the region to request some prayers: The casus belli was already on. It was beyond the Danish cartoons. It was about a broader issue: Something a representative of an American Islamist group called on CNN “a strategic change in world relationship after 9/11.” Hence, the procedure, not the substance of the protest, had to be thought, devised and prepared. Hence the time elapsed between September and January.

Consistent with this view is that of Shalom Harari in his New Yorker profile by Ari Shavit

Yet the impact of the Hamas victory, he said, is not local but regional. “As we speak,” he said, “there are growing fears not only in Israel but in Jordan, Egypt, and even Syria. The Hamas victory is a Middle East earthquake. Its shock waves will be felt in every town between Casablanca and Baghdad.”

It would appear that the Islamists are waging a jihad against the West. The cartoon offensive is a systematic way of challenging the West. The victory of Hamas, may not have been planned but unless it is successfully challenged it, too, will become part of that offensive.

And that's what makes this advice from Ehud Ya'ari so important.

Israel and its friends must decide whether to let the tiger gain strength or to beard it in its den. Until Hamas accepts Israel's right to exist and renounces terrorism, Israel should freeze its economic agreements, border procedures, and all other dealings with the P.A. A diplomatic siege and an active boycott should be developed, coupled with persistence in counterterrorism operations. Any attempt by Hamas to invite Iran to step in must be subverted in an effort to nip this hostile new regime in the bud.

Technorati tags: Islam,
Hamas, cartoons.

Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.