With Danish embassies burnt to the ground in Damascus and Beirut–and the Norwegian embassy trashed in Syria as well–reaction to the publication of offensive cartoons continues. In Saudi Arabia, the reaction has been more verbal than violent.

The Saudi government has condemned the cartoons and called for an apology. Saudi-based organizations like the OIC have joined that movement. Individual Saudis are boycotting Danish products and Saudi-owned businesses are taking Danish goods off their shelves. The Saudi papers are continuing their complaints with the most virulent of those complaints appearing on the Letters to the Editor pages.

In today’s Arab News there are a couple of op-eds. One, There Are 101 Ways to Skin a Cat, by Amr Al-Faisal (a grandson of King Faisal), comes up with a truly goofy analysis of Western political systems and motives. But he does provide a four-step program of retaliation and spells out how it would work:

We Arabs have a saying: “What cannot be attained as a whole should not be abandoned as a whole.”

Therefore, the first thing we need to do is to cool down and take a deep breath.

I recommend that we utilize a gradual and escalating approach to boycotting Western goods and services. Starting with luxury items and easily replaceable products as a first step that can be quickly and, relatively painlessly implemented.

We may then move on to more complicated items that require finding alternative sources and working with them to produce goods that match our specifications.

Finally we move on to products that we will need to build our own factories to produce.

This serves several purposes: One, it allows our businessmen to find alternatives to Western products in an organized way. Remember, it is not an easy task to rearrange trading patterns that have been in place for decades, if not centuries.

Second, it allows our economies to realign and adjust to the changed trading environment with a minimum of difficulty.

Third, it allows our non-Western trading partners to adjust their production to fulfill our needs.

Fourth, it allows the West time to back down and apologize for the insults they have heaped upon our beloved Prophet and to make sure it never, ever happens again.

Nothing really objectionable in his program, but other than the first step it’s not going to happen. His solution is too long-term to be taken seriously, particularly when, in this interconnected world, boycotts of foreign goods and services always hurt the local agents, franchise holders, and simple merchants far sooner and far harder than the ostensible targets.

Another piece, A Freedom Gone Too Far, by Faisal Sanai, offers a more reflective, even philosophical look at the issue. Still, though, the writer misses the point that the laws that protect freedom of speech holds as much value in the West as laws that prohibit blasphemy do in the East.