The Innocence of Muslims

Moustafa Bayoumi in Merip (Middle East Research and Information Project) castigates East and West about the way the Danish cartoon controversy is being replayed, in an more explosive manner: 

What is true is that publics in Muslim-majority countries around the world would be well served to learn more about how American civil society operates. And it would be in the interest of Western publics to understand the many complexities and contradictions of Muslim-majority societies around the world so they can understand who exactly is protesting and why. In other words, what is really driving the current explosion is not really wounded religious sensibilities, or cultures of complaint, or atavistic Islamic rage. It is politics. And it is often a local politics of jockeying for power through mobilization of a religious base, whether in the United States or in Muslim-majority counties. The problem is that if you do not know the politics of the Muslim-majority countries involved, all you see are the screaming beards.
In the meantime, the only award for this terrible show goes to Alan Roberts, who, as the putative director of this insipid little video, has managed not just to direct his own actors but thousands of people around the world to act, and to act very badly indeed.