Firstly I would advise against calling those who oppose the Muhammad
pictures "extremists" or "fanatics". Although some of those users
might have violent tendencies, protesting against what you feel is an
insult to your faith is hardly extremist behaviour.If it were so you
would have to call a large number of Christian leaders fanatics for
opposing the "Da Vinci Code". Infact by past standards the response of
the Muslim groups to this issue has been exceedinly passive, not even
a fatwa has been issued yet.
That being said, to compromise on principles due to pressure from
certain groups is hardly desirable. However experience shows that
Muslims are a very difficult group to negotiate with. The fact that
the concerned Wikipedia article has 3 talk pages to explain the issue
to offended Muslims is proof of this. This tendency (of not budging
from their fundamentalist religious views) among those of the Islamic
faith is described by some as "fanaticism" and by others as "admirable
devotion", and it is this trait which perhaps sets Islam apart from
other major religions.
The point I a trying to make is that you cannot and will not succeed
in convincing Muslims to accept that image, however hard you try. In
fact you would have much more chance of convincing non-Muslims of why
the image had to be taken down. Wikipedia seems tobe trying to make a
point. One wonders what it is?