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Hertzberg On Cordoba

This is such an excellent passage I'll simply excerpt it here without comment:

[T]here have already been several fatalities (in Afghanistan, where “blasphemy” is a capital crime) on account of the Koran business, even though nothing has actually happened yet. This illustrates the reality that among some Muslims in some parts of the Muslim world, Islam is still at a stage of development akin to that of Christianity in pre-modern times, when disputes over theological fine points regularly led to wholesale slaughter. That, in turn, illustrates the absolute necessity of distinguishing between moderate (or, at least, nonmurderous) Islam and violent Islamist fanaticism—the very distinction that, willy-nilly, the opposition to Cordoba House tries to obliterate.