The Pope and Islam

I have such mixed feelings about the furor created by the Pope's quotation of a 14th century writer who stated that Islam brings nothing to the world but evil and inhumanity (though to be fair, this was in the context of a scholarly lecture at a German university on the topic of violence and religion). In any event, these are harsh words and it's no surprise that Muslims objected. And it seems odd that the Pope didn't even consider that his words might offend. On the other hand, Muslim extremists were so upset by this slander that they fire-bombed two churches in the West Bank. Can you imagine if Jews burned down a couple of mosques every time a high-ranking Imam or Mufti or Ayatolla criticized Jews or Israel? The mind boggles.