Titled:   More cartoons and protests in Mohammad blasphemy row

The cartoon row mentioned in an earlier article continues to reveal the character of modern Europe.

The Danes and Norwegians rolled over pretty quickly in the face of Muslim complaining. Then France and Germany waded in, republishing the cartoons, followed by Spain and Italy. This was quite surprising for the French, especially after their talk of nuclear weapon use last week. It seemed for a moment that the French had found some backbone.

This morning we see that the French were merely dipping their toes in the water of controversy:

The owner of France Soir, a Paris daily that reprinted them on Wednesday along with one German and two Spanish papers, sacked its managing editor to show "a strong sign of respect for the beliefs and intimate convictions of every individual".

With France resuming its white flag-waving character, what of the rest of Europe?

Switzerland's Le Temps and La Tribune de Geneve ran some of them on Thursday, as did Magyar Hirlap in Budapest. Some European dailies ran cartoons making fun of the controversy.

I thought the Swiss were traditionally neutral? I mean, who would bother to invade a country where every household has to keep a military rifle and ammunition by law? Mind, for all their years of sitting on the sidelines watching the world fight around them, they don't have a lot to show for it. Money, maybe, but what have the Swiss done for you lately? Sure, they have made some fine watches, some lovely clocks and their chocolate is pretty tasty. But hardly world changing innovation and paradigm-busting thought.

Of course the Muslims continue to behave as stereotyped:

In Beirut, the leader of Lebanon's Shi'ite Hizbollah said the row would never had occurred if a 17-year-old death edict against British writer Salman Rushdie been carried out.

"Had a Muslim carried out Imam Khomeini's fatwa against the apostate Salman Rushdie, then those lowlifers would not have dared discredit the Prophet, not in Denmark, Norway or France," Hizbollah head Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said on Wednesday night.

Such nice people. So tolerant. So peaceful. Right...