...This latest round was instigated by Old Reliable himself, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, a Qatar-based firebrand who is president of the International Association of Muslim Scholars and heads up something called "the European Council for Fatwa and Research." Among his other sidelines, Qaradawi is also what's known as the "spiritual leader" of the Muslim Brotherhood — Egypt's 80-year-old font of terror ideology whose past members include al Qaeda honcho Ayman Zawahiri, 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, jihadi extraordinaire Omar Abdel Rahman (the "Blind Sheikh"), and terror financier Abdurahman Alamoudi. Reminiscent of Michael Corleone's protestations to Kaye, the Brotherhood claims it is going legit any day now, so naturally it has become a favorite Islamic organization of the State Department and the CIA, at whom it bats one winsome eye while winking at suicide bombers with the other.

Months after the original, uneventful publication of the cartoons, Qaradawi used his ready platform at al Jazeera to issue one of those fatwas he'd researched at that European Council of his. This one called for a "Day of Rage." It worked so well that, by the end of last week, the media were reporting, with a straight face, that Qaradawi was now "condemning" the savagery he'd quite consciously started. (See The Muslim Brotherhood Playbook, p.1.) The poor, misunderstood imam, it seems, had only meant to provoke "logical" rage, like boycotts of Havarti cheese and the like. After all, he's a "moderate" who opposes violence ... whenever he's not stirring it up...

[snip]

...Nonetheless, the contemporary vision of "moderate Islam" as a meaningful force for good is a mirage. Certainly there are moderate Muslim individuals. Large pockets of them, there and there, who have assimilated to the modern world and want only to live in ecumenical peace. But many of the people we call "moderates" are flat-out phonies, the bag-men who rise on the shoulders of the leg-breakers.

The authentic moderates, meanwhile, tarry in muted resistance to the domineering strain of their faith...