On CNN today, Bill Bennett hit back at the American media, especially CNN, for refusing to show the Danish cartoons that sparked the current controversy. During the lead-in, CNN showed a number of anti-Semitic cartoons from Middle Eastern newspapers as part of a feature story on double standards in the Arab world. But when the segment turned to a debate between Bennett and Arab American Institute president James Zogby, Bennett criticized CNN for its own double standard — showing the anti-Semitic cartoons as part of a news story, but refusing to show the Danish cartoons:

BLITZER: You can understand, Bill, that feeling among many Muslims that this is beyond the pale when you insult the Prophet Mohammad.

BENNETT: Well, sure. And if I was a Jew watching what CNN just led in with, I might be a little upset too. But CNN doesn't have the solicitude for Jews it has for Muslims. Your policy is not to show these cartoons that were shown in Denmark, but to show one after another of the most anti-Semitic cartoons they could come forward with. CNN — I don't mean to pick on CNN just because I work for you. But NBC, New York Times, other media — the Virgin Mary in cow dung, that was fine, we can show that everywhere. Now, the Islamists have won, in that they have intimidated the major news media from showing these cartoons. They have lost, however, in the wider world, because people see that this is just totally nutty behavior — that these cartoons are shown and that people as a result want to kill people, behead people, burn buildings down.

Blitzer answered, "On the showing of these anti-Semitic cartoons, I think you'll find that most Israelis, certainly most Jews, want the world to see some of these caricatures, in order to shed some light on the images that have been portrayed in a lot of these publications."

Blitzer didn't seem to realize that he had just illustrated why showing the Danish cartoons in the American media is so important. Jewish groups want the world to see cartoons like these because they know that such propaganda says more about the Arab governments that create it. Muslim groups don't want the world to see cartoons like these because these cartoons are about the use of radical Islam to justify violence. That's why CNN's decision not to show the Danish cartoons is disgraceful. They are giving into the demands of a faction that wants to censor the political content of those cartoons, and there's no excuse for that.

Video here

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