What message should the Arab and Muslim World get from the recent declaration by an obscure and angry Florida priest who announced plans to burn a Quran (Koran), the Islamic Holy Book?

That message is clear. The threat to burn the Islamic equivalent of the Bible is offensive to most Americans.

But that’s not what Arabs and Muslims will hear. The fact that leaders from across America and even across the political spectrum have uniformly denounced the Rev. Terry Jones, pastor of the 50-member Dove World Outreach Center, will not off-set the mounting anger in the Arab and Muslim World.

They won’t understand that just because some fanatic in America says something stupid and racist, doesn’t mean that Americans endorse it.

On 18^th December 1499, seven years after the treaty of capitulation of the Muslim kingdom of Granada, Cardinal Ximeners of Toledo forcibly converted and baptized three thousand Muslim citizens and then proceeded to burn thousands of copies of the Qur’an in a huge public bonfire.

Of course, there is no comparison here on the scale and level of the actions of the Catholic Cardinal Ximeners which were part of systematic medieval inquisition program that sought to eradicate Islam and Muslims presence from Spain, and the actions of Rev. Terry Jones, the pastor of Dove World outreach Church in Florida, who plans to burn copies of the Qur’an this Saturday on the ninth anniversary of September 11. Jones motives are not that different from those of Cardinal Ximeners except that converting people and burning religious books are not part of America’s state policy.

Each year that passes, activists on both sides of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist assault try to outdo each other and themselves from the past years in over analyzing the crime.

This year, another “Christian” leader in Florida has declared his plans to burn a copy of the Quran (Koran), the Muslim equivalent of the Bible to commemorate the 9^th anniversary.

The Rev. Terry Jones, a name that meant nothing before but now symbolizes the nation’s growing intolerance and hatred, says he is doing it because Islam is an “Evil Religion.” I guess in Jones’ favor is the fact that in order to really know evil, you have to be even more evil.

The tragedy chasers, a term sometimes used in journalism to refer to people who grab their 15 minutes of fame by glomming on to high profile tragedies, have found a new life in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. Whether the threat of terrorism and the conflicts that are exploited to justify them are resolved or not does not matter to these opportunists.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House with President Obama, they were careful not to make fun of Obama, whose popularity is lower than his bow to the king of Saudi Arabia.

Netanyahu didn’t ask Obama if he celebrates Ramadan, and Abbas didn’t call Obama a “Zionist hack.” Those were good things that came out of the first face-to-face talks in two years. But they need to make sure to avoid creating misunderstandings as were created at Camp David, when Ehud Barak thought he offered a real peace deal to Yasser Arafat, and Arafat thought that peace was based on meeting face-to-face.

Misunderstandings, in fact, have been the major cause of most of the conflicts in the Middle East. Just look at the history.

Is the Obama Administration able today to mediate conflict resolution between Arabs and Israelis?

The White House is hosting this week the launch of a new round of direct Mideast peace talks. Without hesitation, the Administration conveys new signs of hope and assumes the presence of regional readiness for peace making.

On the eve of a long-hoped-for meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, members of the Hamas terrorist organization killed four members of the Israeli terrorist settler movement.

The murders of the four settlers took place at Kiryat Arba in the West Bank where settlers have celebrated the memory of Dr. Baruch Goldstein, the American Jewish mass murderer who killed 29 Palestinians while they were praying at the Hebron Mosque. Amazingly, he wore an Israeli military uniform and the mosque was under the control of the Israeli army.

Talk about an inside job.

This act of terror is more than just a reminder that violence takes place on both sides – yes, Israel settlers kill Palestinians, too. It should remind us of the objective of extremist Palestinians and extremists Israelis, which is to block the peace process.

Inspired by Beck and the "fierce urgency of now" for "direct talks" between Israel and Palestine are scheduled to begin September 2, 2010; and after 20 months of inertia, a new start begins to "resolve all final-status issues...in one year."