It really has been a disgraceful episdoe with the vilest quarters of left ad right finding ways to excuse another act of Islamist blackmail. Johann Hari gets it right:
Rushdie brought it on himself. He wrote things he knew were "provocative". George Galloway, completing his journey to the theocratic far right, has sneered that his novel is "indeed positively Satanic", and said "he turned 1.8 billion people in the world against him when he talked about their prophet in a way that can only be described as blasphemous."
This is exactly analogous to saying a woman wearing a short skirt is responsible for being dragged into an alley and raped. It is also flecked with a form of soft racism, since Galloway assumes all Muslims are excitable children who can only react to querying of the Koran with attempted butchery.
Not all Muslims, of course. Just the fundamentalist fanatics – with very little public opposition from Western Muslims.
The Dish 