AMMAN, 28 February 2008 — More than 20 Jordanian media outlets yesterday carried a “highly professional and objective” response to the recent “professionally degrading” reprinting by Danish newspapers of cartoons “sacrilegious” to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Under the banner headline “Prophet Muhammad Unites Us,” the six Jordanian daily newspapers and some 15 other weekly and electronic editions printed the same text that dubbed the Danish move as part of a wider “dangerous and systematic phenomenon” aimed at offending Islam and Muslims throughout the world.
“Our serious effort, aimed at divulging who is the real criminal and who is the sole beneficiary, will contribute to endeavors seeking to foil a blueprint that aims to fan up conflicts among faiths and civilizations,” the article said.
At least 17 Danish newspapers reprinted the controversial pictures on Feb. 13, saying they wanted to show their firm commitment to the freedom of expression following reports of an attempt on the life of cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
The Jordanian media found the core of the West’s anti-Islam campaign in a book entitled “Mohammed’s Life” that was written in 1831 by Reverend George Bush, the fifth grandfather of US President George W. Bush.
The contemporary heirs to this message were “the Zionist Christianity and the Neo-Conservatives” currently reigning at the White House, the article said.
“Reverend George Bush called in his book for the destruction of the Islamic empire and George Bush the junior carried out the ideas by waging wars on Iraq and Afghanistan under the pretext of combating terrorism,” the article added.
The Jordanian media alleged that Jyllands-Posten printed the caricatures after a meeting in the United States in 2004 between head of the paper’s cultural section Flemming Rose and Daniel Pipe, “an American Zionist writer who inspired the thought of New-Conservatives.”
