"sinister connection" between prophet cartoons and Gaza "extermination campaign"

The cartoon conspiracy turns deadly! (Sinister laughter . . . ) From Al-Ahram:

There is a sinister connection between the rise of anti-Muslim sentiment in the West and the tepid reaction to the blatant extermination campaign Israel is waging against the Palestinians in Gaza. Under the guise of freedom of expression, some West European media and officials, including most recently German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, have sought to denigrate Islam and its symbols as a subhuman culture of cruelty and terrorism. It has thus become fair game for cartoonists, Europe's ultra-conservative politicians, and special interest groups. This attitude provides cover for Israel to escalate its carnage against the Palestinians in Gaza with impunity. Dialogue of civilisations aside, the perpetrators of this defamation campaign -- particularly Israel and its supporting chauvinists -- should know better. Breeding a culture of hate and intolerance may, one day, come back to haunt them, as it did in similar circumstances in the past.

Western Europe is under the spell of a neo- conservative wave that travelled across the Atlantic from the United States after 11 September. Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain are ruled by conservative governments that perceive Islam as an implacable enemy. Acts of terrorism in Spain and Britain, illegal immigration, the influx of cheap, unskilled labour into the European job market and the resistance of migrants to coercive cultural assimilation into newly adopted homelands continue to create social tensions and political problems. Likewise, to Arab and non-Arab Muslims alike, Western Europe is not exactly the melting pot that embraces foreigners, gives them equal opportunity and accepts as slow and difficult the process of integration that may take more than one generation to accomplish. After all, pogroms were committed against European Jewry because of its cultural seclusion and determined resistance to assimilation.

Western ultra-nationalist politicians and their Israeli allies are stoking Islamophobia as part of a racist campaign to demonise Muslims. This campaign serves the best interests of Israel in that it masks its genocidal war on rebellious Palestinians caged in the Gaza Strip. Tightening the noose around their necks every day is the premeditated policy of a criminal state. Israeli Deputy Defence Minister Matan Vilnai warned the Palestinians of "a bigger holocaust" if they intensified the firing of their primitive Qassam rockets into Israel. The Israeli army made good on this threat. Israeli warplanes, land-to-land missiles and direct military invasion killed nearly 120 and wounded more than 350 Hamas resistance fighters, innocent civilians and children in a week-long campaign. Later on, the Israeli deputy minister withdrew his statement, not because it betrayed Israeli designs to commit genocide against the Palestinians, but to protect the exclusivity of the terminology. [...]

Cute.