A Muslim holding an apologetic sign.

On Tuesday, September 11 Islamist extremists murdered U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three staffers in Benghazi, Libya, and others attacked the U.S. embassy in Cairo. Protests continue to rage at U.S. embassies throughout the Islamic world. A few thoughts on this.

Islamist extremists are up to their old tricks. This week The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s current leaders, simultaneously sent out opposite messages on the Brotherhood’s official Twitter feeds. According to The Wall Street Journal, “just as the Brotherhood’s English-language Twitter account made earnest-sounding inquiries about the safety of U.S. diplomats in Cairo, its Arabic-language Twitter account praised Egyptian protestors for ‘rising to the defense of the Prophet.'”

Sounds like the good old days of the Oslo Peace Process, when Yasser Arafat received the Nobel Peace Prize and tooled around talking peace with the West while turning around and preaching war and hatred to his people in Arabic. Established media outlets like The New York Times had no interest in reporting that two-faced fakery in the 90’s and they have no interest in doing so now.

Part of the shame of appeasing extremists like Arafat, Hamas, Hezbollah or the Muslim Brotherhood, (and kidding ourselves that they really desire peaceful co-existence) is, in addition to strengthening America’s and Israel’s enemies,  it diverts energy and resources away from helping and bolstering real reformers in the Muslim world. There are individual Muslims who have shown courage and are willing to work with us and co-exist with us – individuals like the man pictured in the now-iconic photo bearing the sign, “Sorry People of America this is not the Behavior of our ISLAM and Profit” (who probably incurred risk to send this message to the American people, bless him). Memo to the Obama administration: this American wants her tax dollars used not to bribe or bolster the Muslim Brotherhood but to identify and protect the real Muslim reformers and moderates and help them educate others to build civil society in Egypt, Libya, and other parts of the Islamic world.