How is it harassment? The only reason the offensive pictures are being made is precisely because extremist threaten to kill anyone who does it. There are plenty of offensive pictures and cartoons of all sorts of deities, why aren't they shown as much as they are? Because their followers aren't attempting to censor them as much as Islamic extremists.

I disagree. The offensive pictures are being created and publicized because they play into an imperialist narrative which justifies oppression of muslims in the middle east and northern africa, typically ethnic Arabs, to serve the interests of western elites. Ignorant racist French (and British and American) audiences like to consume and spread these images because it makes them feel good about how their society and culture is more just and civilized than that of these muslims, which conveniently lends right wing hawks support for wars and occupations in the geostrategic circlejerk of neocolonial politics. It's a very effective strategy. Kick dirt in the face of the oppressed until they inevitably react with violence, play up this violence in the media, and then ride the wave of popular anger to war and up the political hierarchy.

Most Muslims don't draw pictures of Mohammed, but they couldn't care less if others do. They might think it's stupid and offensive, but it's easy enough to go about their day because the people drawing the images aren't muslim, they aren't bound by the same religious ruling. The average Jew doesn't care if others write the word god or work on the Sabath.

No argument there. We definitely should not be collectively punishing muslims around the world for the crimes of murderers. I hope those who eventually judge the west for the crimes committed in our name show the same compassion.

The only people that care are the extremists, and those are exactly the people we shouldn't be appeasing. There is a distinct difference between re-printing these cartoons as defiance of censorship and actually harassing innocent muslims by conflating their views with an extremist minority.

correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're implying here that the vast majority of Muslims are not offended by the reprinting of these cartoons. You are probably right, but consider this: spreading the cartoon might be exactly what these extremists want. It supports their basic argument that Muslim culture and sensibilities are stepped on at every turn by western governments, and will serve to further radicalize the marginalized Muslim populations specifically in Europe. Not only do we undermine self determination in the middle east by supporting coups and installing corrupt leaders subservient to foreign governments and corporations, drop bombs on civilians from the skies, support the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and pass laws restricting Muslim religious expression among immigrant communities, but we also do all of this with righteous indignation at the depravity of their culture while saying that it's our moral duty to defend ourselves from the barbarity of their acts. An argument like that can sound like a good reason to go to war against the west to a poor young Muslim man living in a Paris ghetto.

Charlie Hebdo wasn't afraid to mock the far right in the same vain they weren't afraid to mock extremist theologists.

I think you are coming at this from a bourgeois philosophical perspective. We need to understand this situation in its historical and material context. Who has the most to gain and lose here? Who is in power and who is dispossessed? Without this perspective it is easy to fall into the trap of victim blaming.