Egypt receives $1.5 billion dollars of U.S. miitary and economic aid a year. The Egyptian government is not serious about protecting Egyptian Christians. Withholding aid money until Egypt protects its Christians makes total sense. We need to press Trump to initiate a vigorous freedom of religion foreign policy. As John Stonestreet writes:
[Egyptian Christian] Copts have been, at best, second-class citizens since the 1952 coup that created the modern Egyptian state. Repression, discrimination, and violence have all been part and parcel of their existence.
While the Egyptian government obviously didn’t attack the worshippers at St. Peter’s or attack Christians in Minya, the Egyptian government is largely indifferent to the fate of its Christian citizens.
Actually, it’s even worse than that. Mistreating Copts was the way that Egypt’s rulers, including the present one, have burnished their Islamic identity. And, until recently, virtually no one, especially in the West, said “boo!” about it. The sad truth is that Copts had to start dying in significant numbers for anyone to take notice, and that “anyone” includes their brethren in the West. [more...]