Muslim Artist Draws Line on Cartoons

But as violence mounts worldwide over Danish editorial cartoons that many Muslims believe defame the prophet Muhammad, the artist is taking a different view from some cartoonists when it comes to free speech. Just as yelling fire in a crowded theater should not be protected speech, he argued in an interview this week, neither should attacks on Islam's most revered prophet.

"The concept of freedom of expression in a democratic society must always be balanced by the no less important notion of social responsibility," said Bendib, 49, who has clients worldwide. "These crude caricatures are, in Muslim eyes only, the latest sign of the West's utter contempt for their dearest values and traditions."

He said Muslims may not have reacted so harshly had they not felt under siege by both homegrown Islamic extremists and what many view as Western occupiers of Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Muslims are stuck between a rock and a hard place: foreigners invading their lands on the one hand and the homegrown menace of Islamic extremists on the other," said Bendib, a Paris native of Algerian descent. "It's a catastrophe."

But he condemned the violent backlash, as have most major U.S. Muslim groups, including the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los Angeles and the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations.

On Wednesday, President Bush called on Islamic nations to "stop the violence," as four more protesters in Afghanistan were killed by police during demonstrations over the cartoons. The cartoons have also set off a tense debate over freedom of expression that has divided even members of the Assn. of American Editorial Cartoonists.

Signe Wilkinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist for the Philadelphia Daily News, defended her Danish colleagues and said no religious group should be allowed to place their sacred symbols off limits for public debate.

In her own work, she said, she has portrayed Jesus Christ with a smoking shotgun to criticize Christian murderers of abortion doctors, and a Star of David as a hoop through which politicians must leap to get elected -- and has been denounced for it.