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Any Westerner can now buy a Koran for a dollar and burn it, while any Muslim with a platform can transform that act into a fighting offense. As passions rise on both sides of the divide, Western provocateurs and Islamist hotheads have found each other, as confrontations occur with increasing frequency.

After the 9/11 incidents, Islam has become a big question mark among westerners, especially Americans. The mass media constantly raise the issue of relationship between Islam and terrorism.

The West is in for a long, irregular confrontation - not with terrorism, which is simply a tactic, but with radical Islam.

At times one feels that what is being said in the West is that the fact that you are a Muslim predisposes you to this blind, stupid terrorism.

Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith - even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity.

Many people in Europe and the U.S. dispute the thesis that we are living through a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west. But a radical minority of Muslims firmly believes that Islam is under siege, and is committed to winning the holy war it has declared against the West.

When Western politicians propose blanket discrimination against Islam, they bolster the terrorists' propaganda.

The hatred Muslim extremists feel against the West feeds on certain conflicts in the world.

Muslim communities themselves, as they expect mainstream society to stand down racists, must do more to also stand down the Islamist extremists.