Islamists to Pope: Say We Love Peace or We'll Kill You

By now we assume that everyone has made the observation that the Islamist reaction to Pope Benedict's quotation of an ancient, negative reference to Islam confirms the upshot of the quotation. But no one has made the observation better than the sublime Richard John Neuhaus over at First Things. With the warning the Neuhaus describes his rambling essay as a "potpourri," we still urge gentle readers to avail themselves of the entire contents.

In particular, we commend this alleged letter from a Muslim, quoted by Neuhaus:

Dear Pope Benedict XVI:

We Muslims are not at all violent, not that you said we were, but who needs to read your speech when the local imam, who hasn’t read it either, can tell us what it says? Since peaceful efforts to convince you of our commitment to peace have failed, we hope that the mass riots, burnt effigies, cries of “Death to the Pope!” and a smattering of grenades in assorted churches will exorcise every ghost of the rumor that we are violent, and prove that Mohammed pitched a tent big enough to include interfaith camels. It is hoped that you will rescind your position, even if it wasn’t yours to begin with, lest our peacefulness escalate even further.

And Neuhaus supplies historical perspective by various means, including this quotation from historian William Doino:

The deliberate, explicit targeting of innocent human beings, via terrorism, and the celebration of their deaths; the ritual execution, torture, and beheading of helpless hostages; the routine, often blatant violation of human rights, especially against women (including mutilation of their genitals)—it’s difficult to find anything quite like this throughout religious history, including the worst abuses of Christians, when you at least had other Christians, often popes, rebuking and condemning them for their crimes, and calling for reform, which eventually came about.