When one actually looks at the 12 “Muhammad cartoons” published by the Danish paper Jyllands Posten, all the regrets about, apologies for, and condemnations of them by Western politicians and media figures seem craven and uncalled-for. I wouldn’t be happy with some of these cartoons if I were a believing Muslim either, but all 12 taken together are more intelligent, complex, and interesting than one might have gathered just from reading about them and are certainly nothing for anyone in Denmark to wring his hands over.

Jyllands Posten had originally asked Danish cartoonists to draw a picture representing their associations with the figure of Muhammad. Of the 12 published responses, I must admit to not understanding one, which couples Muslim crescents with Jewish Stars-of-David in an obscure symbolism. The other 11 fall into three categories:

One drawing, by Claus Seidel, is not really a cartoon at all. It is a sketch of a bearded, turbaned Arab in peasant dress, a staff in one hand and the rope of a donkey he is leading in the other, striding over a bare, hilly landscape with a rising sun behind him. The man is sympathetically depicted and Mr. Seidel seems to be saying: “When I think of Muhammad, I think of a dignified, determined Arab sprung from his own culture and soil.” That’s certainly nothing to riot over.

Six of the cartoons are self-reflective and are more an expression of the cartoonists’ own uncertainties, doubts, and fears than a statement about Muhammad and Islam. One, by Arne Sorensen, show the cartoonist bent over a drawing of a perfectly conventionally depicted Arab with a beard and a keffiyeh; drops of sweat fly from the cartoonist’s forehead, and it is not clear whether they come from the heat of the lamp above the drawing or from the tension – which appears to have neutralized his imagination – of drawing the Prophet of Islam. Another cartoon, by Annette Carlsen, show a man facing seven Arabic-looking figures in a police lineup and saying, “Hm … I don’t recognize him” – which would seem to be Ms. Carlsen’s way of saying that she is at a loss to picture what Muhammad really looked like.

Peder Bundgaard draws a turbaned, bearded face partly composed of a green crescent and green star: “I can’t really imagine Muhammad, either,” this cartoon says, “so here’s a strictly formalistic solution.” Poul Erik Poulsen has a tall, thin figure dressed in purplish pajamas; emerging from its head are two yellow crescents joined by dots, interpretable either as a devil’s horns or an angel’s halo.(“Which is it? Don’t ask me!” this cartoon appears to declare.) Bob Katzenelson shows us how silly he thinks the whole thing is by drawing himself as a turbaned Dane, with the words “PR stunt” on his head and a doodle of an Arab stick figure in one hand. Lars Refn expresses his fear of Muslim reactions by drawing, not Muhammad, but a Muslim Danish schoolboy writing on a blackboard, “We think Lars Refn is a coward.”

This leaves four cartoons that are or could be interpreted as “anti-Muslim.” In one, by Kurt Westergaard, a solemn looking Muhammad wears a turban that is in fact a bomb with a burning fuse. Rasmus Sand Heyer draws two frightened women in chadors, their veils gagging their mouths as they stand behind a Muhammad with a dagger and a (see no evil?) blindfold. Jens Julius puts Muhammad on a heavenly cloud, telling a queue of dead suicide bombers: “Stop stop, we have run out of virgins!” Franz Fuechsel has Muhammad looking at a cartoon of himself and saying to two sword-wielding bodyguards, “Easy my friends, it is only a drawing made by a non-believing Dane.” (This last cartoon, indeed, could be interpreted as “pro-Muhammad,” since in it the Prophet is trying to calm his inflamed followers.)

An orchestrated defamation of Muslims? Hardly. A concerted attack on the Prophet of Islam? Also not. Jyllands Posten gave 12 cartoonists total freedom and got 12 different reactions. Even the Westergaard, Heyer, and Julius drawings do not begin to approach, for sheer inflammatory viciousness, dozens of anti-Israel cartoons that have appeared in European and American newspapers over the years, including the notorious Dave Brown illustration in The Independent of an ogre-like Ariel Sharon biting off the head of a Palestinian baby while saying, “What’s wrong…. You never seen a politician kissing babies before?”- a caricature, for those who have forgotten, that won first prize in the 2003 “Cartoon of the Year” competition of the UK’s highly respected Political Cartoon Society.

No British embassies were burned down over that one. Nor – and it’s just as well – did high politicians, in Great Britain or elsewhere, give pious speeches about respecting Jewish sensitivities. Jews organization protested – as was their right. Muslim organizations have every right to protest the Jyllands Posten cartoons, too, or for that matter, to boycott Danish butter and burn Danish flags. Torching Danish embassies, though, is something else. It’s there that the line needs to be drawn.

For Western governments to say to Muslim protesters, “We’re frightfully sorry your feelings were hurt, those cartoons should never have been published, but there was unfortunately nothing we could do about them,” is to give the wrong message. The right message is: “We’re frightfully sorry your feelings were hurt, but those cartoons were none of our business, and there was fortunately nothing we could do about them. If you think they’re libelous, go to court and sue.”

The culture of political correctness is bad enough without reinforcing it with Western fear of Muslim fundamentalist reactions. If it isn’t made clear to Muslim communities in Western countries that they must, in their relations with the rest of society, play by Western democratic rules, then Western democratic rules will gradually go by the wayside. And apologizing where no apologies are called for will only make things worse.

Mr. Halkin is a contributing editor of The New York Sun.