A quote from a French police spokesperson on expatica.com, 20 September 2006

These explosions of violence against the police are a kind of guerrilla warfare aimed at getting the forces of law and order to leave certain areas in order to immerse them in a logic of sedition and terror.

Although not a religious person myself, I am usually in favor of a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. However, I sometimes have my doubts when I see how many, too many, church leaders consistently end up on the wrong side of issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration.

Bat Ye’or claims that dhimmitude in the Middle East has often progressed because Christian leaders have sold out their own people, either for short-term personal gains or in the mistaken belief that they have a “shared religious heritage” with Muslims. It is also frequently Christian leaders and bishops in the West who are calling for open borders for poor, destitute Muslims because “it is the Christian thing to do.”

A quote from Theodore Dalrymple on the City Journal blog, 19 September 2006

The first duty of the intellectual in Belgium is not to state the obvious but to avoid it. Perhaps Belgium is in the European vanguard, which is why it is such a suitable choice for the capital of Europe.

A quote from Claus Christian Malzahn on SpiegelOnline International, 18 September 2006

That so many in the Muslim world joined the protests against the pope merely show[s] just how influential Islamist extremist groups have become. [...] [T]here’s no reason to respond to every presumed insult. Consider an example from Denmark. Recently, a paper there published a number of rather tasteless Holocaust cartoons which had been shown in Tehran. The reaction of Copenhagen’s rabbi was instructive when considered against the bloody response to the Muhammad cartoons – outrage which ended up costing lives. When asked if he would call for protests, the rabbi merely said: “You know, I’ve seen worse.”

Last week, Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Secretary-General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), called upon wealthy Muslims to influence the Western media by investing in them as a means to change the way they cover Islam. “Anti-Muslim attitudes” are to be changed through Muslim media ownership. At an OIC conference with ministers and officials from the OIC member states, Mr Ihsanoglu said: “Muslim investors should put their money into the world's big media corporations [...] so they can influence their policies through their management.” Mr Ihsanoglu also said Muslim countries should operate TV channels in the international leading language [English] in order to change the World’s opinion of Islam.

A quote from Lord William Rees-Mogg in The [London] Times, 18 September 2006

The Pope’s actual quotation is not just a medieval point of view. It is a common modern view; even if it seldom reaches print; it can certainly be found on the internet. “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and then you shall find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” Is it true that the Koran contains such a command, and has it influenced modern terrorists? The answers, unfortunately, are “yes” and “yes”.

A quote from Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Prime Minister of Hungary, in The Daily Telegraph, 18 September 2006

We lied in the morning, we lied in the evening. [...] It’s obvious that we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true.

At the end of August each year, many leading European scholars, businesspeople, policymakers and even some graduate students come to the small Austrian village of Alpbach, arguably one of the most scenic on the planet, to discuss the state and future of the world economy and what should be done. As a participant, I have been struck with the number of European opinion leaders who still ignore the obvious: Economic freedom is the key.

After French and Dutch voters rejected the EU Constitution in 2005, most nation’s expected the majority ‘No’ vote to mark the end of a shared EU constitution. This appears not to be case. A slimmed down version of the treaty is being created by national parliaments across Europe – by old and new members – in a recovery attempt to initiate a brief and condensed version of the rejected constitution. Potential future prime ministers and presidents are so confident of the new repackaged “mini treaty” that they have begun to sell it to electorates, often without any signs of research or prior interest in EU accession or enlargement.

The events of the past days concerning the speech which Pope Benedict XVI gave at the end of his journey to Germany have resulted in what some could describe as an apology towards muslims. I think that in fact the Pope is the moral victor of the conflict, but whether the Islamic religious and political leaders who have mobilized against him will ever understand (or be able to understand) is another question.