The issue is not freedom of speech. As I have said many times, we are at war: a generational, cultural, ethical, political, terrorist and demographical war. Sure, we can give ground on the issue of the cartoons of the Prophet by beheading a few Danish cartoonists, thereby giving the Islamicists their Sudetenland.
But it won't stop there, for this is a clash of world orders. The enemy doesn't have cruise missiles, but he has terrific belief and resolute purpose.
Most of all, he has teleology, a sense of long-term goals. Islamicists genuinely believe in converting the world to Islam.This is not some pious abstraction but, for many, the driving ambition of their lives. Moreover, we have seen that wherever Muslims exist in numbers, there is conflict with people of other religions: Chechnya, France, Britain, Denmark, Holland, Spain, Egypt, Thailand, India, Lebanon, Indonesia, Australia, Nigeria, Sudan. Like environmentalism, the issues in all those places might be local, but the vision is always global.
Contrariwise, who anywhere ever hears of Jewish-Hindu clashes, or Christian-Buddhist, or Parsi-Jain? The only answer to resolve is resolve. And maybe some resolve is emerging in Britain now after the appalling demonstrations in London last weekend, when little children were festooned with bandanas declaring, "I love Al Q'aida", a mock suicide-bomber cavorted boastfully, and protesters' placards bore the slogan, "Behead all those who insult Islam". And nowadays, "behead" means exactly what it says on the tin. At least, the Metropolitan police are being given a roasting for standing by and watching (because "they didn't want to cause trouble". Ah. How sweet of them).
The worldwide intifada over the "Muhammad" cartoons - even in New Zealand, God help us - is a glimpse into the future. Moreover, it certainly wasn't a "spontaneous" expression of indignation, for the offending drawings were first published five months ago. Since then, imams have sedulously stoked the fires of Islamic anger, even adding three further cartoons to the original selection. Thus Western newspapers which recently re-published the cartoons in a show-off display of bravado were merely doing the imams' work for them.
On the other hand, we cannot have the mob deciding what appears in newspapers in free countries. Europe will have to assert its common values over its own territories, for this is a cultural matter, not a religious one. Whenever we see a picture of Jesus or Mary we know it is not a genuine representation of them, but merely an expression of the artist's imagination. It is equally impossible to show a representation of Muhammad. So the cartoons which have triggered such global insanity could equally be given any other title.
And maybe this is what the newspapers of Europe should do - that far from acting individually, we all publish some of these same "offensive" cartoons on the same day, and entitle them "Jesus Christ", thus proving how ethically meaningless man-made imagery is in our culture.
But maybe Muslims don't want such proofs. Admittedly, imams at Wednesday's Islamic conference in Birmingham declared that they did not condone violence. Yet you know what word followed that sentiment, don't you? It was of course the b-word. So they continued: "but we cannot ignore the fact that there has been a worldwide outburst of Islamophobia".
Rubbish. Utter rubbish. Copts are not driving Muslim communities from their ancient homelands in Egypt. Christians are not forcibly converting Muslims in Sudan. Jewish suicide bombers are not wandering into Palestinian cafés on the West Bank. London is not hosting anti-Islamic marches, in which demonstrators declare that those who insult St Paul must be beheaded.
Buddhists are not decapitating Muslim schoolgirls in Thailand. Dutch secularists are not ritualistically murdering Muslim artists they disapprove of. American Southern Baptists are not flying airliners into Arab skyscrapers. Methodist zealots are not blowing up worshippers at Finsbury Park mosque. The Israeli President has not said he intends to wipe Iran off the map. Hindus in Bali are not massacring the faithful as they gather to pray towards Mecca. Spanish Catholics are not leaving bombs to slaughter Muslim commuters. And the entire non-Muslim world is not burning Saudi embassies in capitals everywhere because of the racist and sectarian filth that is promulgated about Christians and Jews in the madrasahs answerable to the royal house of Saud.
Indeed, far from the world being Islamophobic, it has been positively Chamberlainesque in seeking to appease Islamic ire. The result? Muslim extremists simply feel they own the streets of whatever capital they inhabit, and that they have a total monopoly on righteous anger.
It is customary at this point to extol the virtues of "moderate" Muslims, as if they are in the clear majority. But not so, according to a recent and very depressing Populus poll of British Muslims. Nearly half of those polled thought that Jews were in league with freemasons to control the media, and 37 per cent actually considered British Jews were legitimate targets. Most British Muslims believed their leaders should boycott Holocaust Day, and 68 per cent depended for their news about the Middle East on Muslim-only radio channels.
In other words, most British Muslims inhabit an ethically and culturally discrete world. The real challenge therefore facing all Western European countries (including ourselves, and sooner rather than later) is to break down the barriers which insulate these virtually autonomous Islamic communities from the societies they exist within. We must get them on our side. For unless we do, one day inevitably, trouble at t'mill.