US Anti-Muslim Film 'Designed To Enrage'

If there was ever a propaganda product designed to enrage and incite violence it is The Innocence of Muslims.

A mere 14 minutes of the two-hour film produced by an Israeli-American has already provoked riots in Egypt, and an armed attack on the American consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.

Among the four dead from the destruction of the mission in Benghazi was Christopher Stevens, the US ambassador.

They are reported to have been killed in a rocket attack during the overnight sacking of their mission.

"The ambassador was killed along with three other officials," Wanis al-Sharif, Libya's deputy interior minister told AFP.

The film cost \$5m (£3m) to make, according to its producer Sam Bacile, an Israeli-American based in southern California.

He told US news outlets that the money was raised from "100 Jews" and that it was intended as a "satire", adding that he believed Islam was a "cancer".

A trailer posted on the internet on Tuesday reveals a crass, violent, amateurish and vindictive attack on the Prophet Mohammed.

He is portrayed as a pervert, drunk, and thief, who derives his own teachings not as a result of divine guidance but "made up… it will be a mix between versions of the Torah, and versions of the New Testament, and [made into] false verses".

Better ignored than given the oxygen of publicity which has fanned flames in Libya, the film is likely to provoke further violence across the Islamic world.

The effects on Libya are particularly tragic. They play into the hands of small but well-organised violent Islamic groups who failed to attract much of a following in Libya’s first ever democratic election this year.

The Innocence of Muslims will now be seized upon by violent groups who will insist that it reflects the 'true' view of the Prophet by many Christians and other westerners.

Not least because many Muslims still live in nations in which there is no freedom of the press and therefore find it incomprehensible that even foolish videos of this nature are not produced with official state sanction.