In a story titled “Jihad Jitters” today, The New York Post reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art is likely to keep artwork that it owns depicting the Islamic Prophet Mohammed locked in its capacious basement when its new Islamic galleries open next year. This would be only the latest of many attempts by the museum to avoid geo-political controversy. In 1982, Mayor Ed Koch threatened the end the museum’s public funding when it cancelled a planned show of archaeological artifacts from the West Bank on the advice of trustee Henry Kissinger. Then-museum director Philippe de Montebello cited fears of a “security risk from radical elements” in explaining the about-face. After Koch countered that the museum was suffering from “speculative fears and political hallucinations,” the museum restored the show to its schedule. Something tells me freedom of expression will not prevail this time. The museum’s Islamic Galleries have already been renamed as the Galleries for the Arts of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Later South Asia, reports the Post’s Isabel Vincent, who writes that “the Met has a history of dodging criticism and likely wants to escape the kind of outcry that Danish cartoons of Mohammed caused in 2006.” UPDATE: All sixteen comments on the Post web site are highly critical of the musem.