A children’s book depicting a Muslim as a terrorist, or as a “baddie” as the book’s publisher Scholastic Australia claimed librarians described the role of a Muslim within the book, has been shelved because it paints this one Muslim in a poor light.

A prominent literary agent has slammed the move as “gutless”, while the book’s author, award-winning novelist John Dale, said the decision was “disturbing because it’s the book’s content they are censoring”.

“There are no guns, no bad language, no sex, no drugs, no violence that is seen or on the page,” Dale said, but because two characters are Arabic-speaking and the plot involves a mujaheddin extremist group, Scholastic’s decision is based “100 per cent (on) the Muslim issue”.

This decision is at odds with the recent publication of Richard Flanagan’s bestselling The Unknown Terrorist and Andrew McGahan’s Underground in which terrorists are portrayed as victims driven to extreme acts by the failings of the West.

The Unknown Terrorist is dedicated to David Hicks and describes Jesus Christ as “history’s first … suicide bomber”.

In McGahan’s Underground, Muslims are executed en masse or herded into ghettos in an Australia rendered unrecognisable by the war on terror.

Scholastic Australia can print a book that describes Jesus as a suicide bomber, thus confirming the publisher will touch on such issues both religious and violent, but because the villain in this book is a Muslim they nix it.  The publisher will though print a book which makes Muslims the victim of a horrendous act.  Always the victim, never the aggressor?

Elsewhere in Australia, a children’s play has recieved the axe treatment after parents complained it painted radical Islamic terrorist groups, including Hamas’s Qassam Brigades and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, in a positive light.  The play, The Australian reports, “accurately said that [Hezbollah’s] long-term aims were to rid Palestine of the Jewish population and create an Arab state but no mention was made of its terrorist activities, only philanthropic ones.”

Syrian President Bashar Assad had no role with Hezbollah or international terrorism, but rather was intent on bringing the Internet to Syria.  On occassion we get a few hits from Syria, so wouldn’t that mean Syria already has Internet access?

The profile of Hamas said it was founded by the crippled cleric Sheik Ahmed Yassin “who fell victim to a targeted assassination carried out by Israeli helicopter gunships”, without mentioning the dozens of suicide-bombing attacks that Yassin had ordered against Israeli civilians.

The profile said Hamas supported “a community of schools, mosques, health clinics and even sports leagues”.

What about how Hamas still maintains there is no Israel?  Or what about the daily rocket attacks into Israel from the various terrorist groups?

Who writes this complete nonsense that is not named Jimmy Carter?