-First, three of the cartoons are just racists. It is not that they depict someone. I think the great majority of muslims (excet for the more radical elements) could not give a damn about the other nine. It would just like painting Virgin Maria with big boobs... no problem there. But the racist part was indeed a problem and any pacific mean to get an apology was more than appropriate.

-Second. The escalation came from both sides. First Saudi Arabia and Siria, then right-wing newspapers using the theme of freedom of expression to "fuck you intolerant arabs that do not how to take a racist cartoon". British papers where the clear example of what a liberal society would do. The guardian among them was a clear example of the best Europe can offer in this case.

-Third. Concentrating on the escalation of the right-wing press (since we all know what Saudi Arabia looks like)  I would like to mention that they did not raise any eyebrow in the well-documented cases of

1- Withdrawing a publicity campaign of a video game in Italy which just depicted Jesus-Christ as you can see in the link. Jesus

2- The fact that similarly racist cartoons against jews and the shoa have been forbidden by the Supreme-Court of Spain

3- The fact that one person faces one year in prison in Spain right now because he created (alone) a set of two video-games whose purpose was to kill "beatos" and "cofrades" like in a war game, that is, religious people that cry and beat themselves in honour of Virgin Maria in the South of spain (actually different Virgin Marias) Kiling religious people for fun. The procedures against him have alrady started. And even more. The author of a short movie called the best way to cook Jesus-Christ for two people also facing eight months in jail for his creation (30 year ago) after it was rebroadcasted in TV...because both acts are illegal according to present law (article 525.1 of the Spanish Penal Code).

Suddenly those newspapers started ventilating by how the Danish asked for apologies....but they are not doing nothing for free speech down here in Spain.. I guess we are underdeveloped and stupid and we do not deserve their attention.

To finish it off Haaretz reports the following:
Muslim groups are going to depict satiric cartoons in Europe against jews to test our freedom of speech

Frank in bed with Hitler

In a word the radical wing nuts in Saudi Arabia and the racist right-wing newspapers are just two monsters feeding each other...falling into the trap of blaming one more than the other is what I think both fundamentalists want.

A pleasure

I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude