Did somebody's feelings get hurt?

The controversy over Danish editorial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed has widened, escalating into an armed standoff in the Gaza Strip. Now, Jordan has stepped into the fray -- in favor of the editorials.
Some twenty armed Palestinian scaled the walls of the EU offices in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, amid growing unrest after cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed were published in several European countries.
In Islam, depicting the Prophet Mohammed is tantamount to blasphemy.

Earlier in the day, two armed groups, the Popular Resistance Committee and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, had threatened to harm Danes, French and Norwegians in the Palestinian territories after newspapers in France and Norway opted to reprint the Danish cartoons.

"Every Norwegian, Dane and Frenchman in our country is a target," said the Popular Resistance Committee and the radical Al-Aqsa brigades. If the three countries in question don't shut down their offices and consulates in the Palestinian territories, "we won't hesitate to destroy them."

Call for apology

The militants at the EU offices scrawled the words "Closed Until Further Notice" on the front door of building in Gaza City, which had not even opened for business on Thursday for fear of violence.

The gunmen, from the militant group Islamic Jihad and an armed faction of Fatah known as the Yasser Arafat brigade, fired into the air as they climbed the surrounding walls of the EU compound.

They called for an apology within 48 hours for the cartoons, which were first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in late September, unleashing a controversy that has grown steadily in recent days.

Jordan makes the leap

Meanwhile, a Jordanian gossip tabloid on defiantly published three of the cartoons that have triggered outrage in the Arab and Muslim world.

"Muslims of the world, be reasonable," said the editor-in-chief of the weekly independent newspaper Al-Shihan in an editorial alongside the cartoons, including the one showing the Muslim religion's founder wearing a bomb-shaped turban.

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?" wrote Jihad Momani.

He told the AFP news service he decided to publish the offending cartoons "so people know what they are protesting about... People are attacking drawings that they have not even seen."

The leader of a large French Muslim group said that the papers should be shut down for "Hurting the feelings of Muslims the world over" a German newspaper called him on his statements by pointing out the hypocricy of the fact that middle eastern papers continually publish charactures of Jews, Europeans, and Americans, as idiots, theives etc... and that they didn't seem to be concerned over the feelings they hurt. In addition, I wasn't aware that "Hurting Feelings" was forbidden by the Geneva conventions.