There is a parallel between the Muslim power elite recalling ambassadors from European countries where newspapers published racist Danish cartoons and Germany jailing Holocaust deniers.
What might be called "state anti-imperialism" serves as a cover for the total capitulation of the Muslim power elite on issues (Palestine, Iraq, Iran, etc., etc. in international politics and democracy, civil rights, economy, etc. at home) that matter far more than the racist cartoons.
What might be called "state anti-Semitism" serves as an anti-racist cover for the German government's own contemporary racist policies (which are targeted against non-European immigrants, mainly Turks, Kurds, etc., not Jews); Germany's reemergence as a military power (through the affairs of Yugoslavia, etc.); the world power elite's actually having happily lived with most fascists (those who actually committed fascist deeds, not younger apologists for Nazis who were just children or weren't even born during WW2) after the war -- some of them in high places, like Hirohito, Kishi, Sasakawa, Franco, etc.; the world power elite _still_ paying homage to fascists (e.g., Reagan visiting Bitburg; Koizumi visiting Yasukuni; "Zuroff complained that while Latvia has managed to prosecute several former Soviet functionaries for Communist crimes, not a single Nazi collaborator has been tried since the country became independent. In 2000 Zuroff discovered that at least forty-one Latvian members of the Arajs Kommando, a notorious Latvian security unit implicated in the shootings of thousands of Jews, had just been officially rehabilitated and rewarded with increased pensions . . . Both the Latvian Parliament and President Vaira Vike-Freiberga--whom Zuroff labeled a "metaphor for the whole problem"--at one time considered combining the day of the SS march with the national memorial holiday" [at <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050523/ames>]; "Remember all the frothy praise of Viktor Yuschenko and what a great democrat he was -- back when he was the leader of the so-called Orange Revolution that toppled the corrupt Ukrainian regime of President Leonid Kuchma (left) -- from George Bush, the neocons, Freedom House, and the Western press in general? Well, this week a little-noticed dispatch from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (the worldwide Jewish news service founded in 1917) related how now-President Yushchenko (above right) has just awarded Ukraine's highest honor -- the "Hero of Ukraine" medal -- to a notorious anti-Semite, Ivan Spodarenko. But not a word of this outrage has appeared in the major U.S. dailies." [<http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2006/02/ ukraines_yusche.html>], etc.).
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>