The difference is in the reactions.
Such cartoons offend us both. What is the Jewish reaction? We kvetch. We write about it, maybe even go to court.
What is the Muslim reaction? Violent terrorist attacks, rioting- murder.
No, we are not hypocrites, and yes, we believe in free speech. But we are allowed to be offended, as anyone would be.
Catholics were offended by the "Holy Virgin Mary," an "artist's" portrayal of Jesus' mother covered in elephant dung. The artist has his right to free speech, just as the Catholics and other Christians have their right to be offended and complain about it. But no Christian murdered the artist, and no priest issued some Christian equivalent of a "fatwa" for his death.
Being offended does equate to a rejection of free speech.
Furthermore, the situation with Jews differs greatly from that of Muslims. Jews account for only 0.2 percent of the entire world population and have yet to recover demographically from those lost in the Holocaust when a huge chunk of our population was wiped out. Our people have been chased out of Arab countries, with approximately one million Jews ethnically cleansed over the years from the Muslim nations they called home for generations. Now the Jewish populations of these countries are either nonexistent or have dwindled down to insignificant numbers.
Muslims from these same nations, where anti-Semitic rhetoric is the norm and anti-Semitic cartoons are published regularly, and more importantly, where violence against Jews is incited, come to the West and harass the Jews who have been living peacefully in these places for many years. Ultimately, Muslims try to push Jews out, no matter who was there first.
The world Jewish population is somewhere around 14 million. The world Muslim population is about 1.7 billion. Their numbers are strong, and the only harassment they've sometimes endured has been bacon or a pig's head left at their mosques- incidentally, something which has also occurred at synagogues.
Jews are not threatening and do not perpetrate terrorist attacks against non-Jews. They assimilate, contribute to society and for the most part, do not take advantage of the generous welfare system, bleeding the government dry while cursing the country they live in, as is often the case with a great number of Muslim immigrants.
Kosher food is not forced onto the general public, while halal food is, and Jewish studies are not integrated into the public school system though a cleansed version of Islamic studies are.
Jews do not get any special privileges and work hard for what they have.
Yet anti-Semitism is alive and well, bred through many avenues, with cartoons being an easy way to reach the general public in a humorous and popular manner. The anti-Semitic cartoons play off the standard scapegoating that has been prevalent in European culture for hundreds of years, some even for over 2000 years.
Blame the peaceful, nonconfrontational Jew who also happens to be a highly productive member of society, contributing to such an extent that the number of Jewish recipients of the Nobel Prize is astounding. Blame the Jew, but protect the Muslim who holds up signs calling for the beheading of those who insult the prophet, who takes over entire neighborhoods in Europe like the 751 no-go zones in France where the French police, firefighters and EMTs cannot go without being attacked in their own countries, and who calls for "death to the infidel."
How can anyone compare cartoons against people who hold the same moral values as those of the rest of the nation to cartoons against the aggressor, responsible for over 90% of the world's terrorism, with promises to continue attacking and tearing apart our world with more violence?
If Islam were the peaceful ideology its adherents claim it to be, why so much violence from the Muslim front and in the name of their god and their prophet?
Sure, lots of Muslims condemned the Charlie Hebdo attack. Good. But too many also endorsed it and even celebrated it. It should go without saying that not all Muslims are violent, but the problem lies in the staggering amount who either commit acts of terrorism or support those acts. The main issue is the violent Islamic ideology, its violence targeting the rest of us, which the mainstream Muslim community largely interprets fundamentally, consequently responding to that ideology in a violent manner. In other words, Islam is violent, and the proof is in the pudding- nearly 25,000 Islamic terrorist attacks since September 11, 2001.
There is absolutely no comparison whatsoever to Judaism.
So go ahead and call me a hypocrite for kvetching about anti-Semitism. Part of free speech gives me the right to voice my opinion, which includes discontentment over anti-Semitic cartoons. It also gives me the right to expose Islamic Jew hatred and the violence both in Quranic verses and preached by Muslim imams.
Who is running around shooting people, stabbing people, running them over in cars or beheading them.? Jews? Or Muslims?
People can complain about Jews and call us all hypocrites, but in the end, those who are in danger, those who are fleeing France by the thousands, are not Muslims but Jews, running for Israel's warm embrace, out of the threatening environment created by Muslim immigrants in France.
So as anti-Semites exercise their right to free speech, we will respond with the written word- while Muslims respond to anti-Islamism with the sword, simultaneously pointing the finger at us for being hypocrites- yet publishing their own anti-Semitic cartoons and worse yet- murdering Jews.
Perhaps hypocrisy is in the eye of the beholder.
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