Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

IT'S TIME WASHINGTON SENT A MESSAGE TO EGYPT TO PROTECT ITS CHRISTIANS

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...]

QUICK TAKES

From the Drudge Report:

-- Millennials looking to fix overpiercing, remove tattoos...

-- Pakistan airline mocked for goat sacrifice...

-- Title IX is “bureaucratic sex creep” gone wild

-- Hopeless Afghan struggle to save boy sex slaves...

From other sorces:

-- New York Times staff less diverse than Trump’s cabinet

-- IN PICTURES: WHAT AN ISLAMIC SUICIDE BOMBING LOOKS LIKE

THE DEADLIEST CHURCH ATTACK IN EGYPT’S MODERN HISTORY

Raymond Ibrahim reports on the recent church bombing atrocity in Cairo calling it "the spectacular manifestation of a constantly simmering hate." Ibrahim, the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians, is the premier reporter on Muslim hatred towards Christians.

The worst attack on Egypt’s Christian minority in recent years occurred yesterday, Sunday, December 11, 2016.    St. Peter Cathedral in Cairo, packed with worshippers celebrating Sunday mass, was bombed; at least 27 churchgoers, mostly women and children, were killed and 65 severely wounded. As many of the wounded are in critical condition, the death toll is expected to rise.

As usual, witnesses say that state security was not present and that police took an inordinate amount of time to arrive after the explosion.   Preliminary investigations point to a bomb placed inside an unattended lady’s purse on one of the rear pews of the women’s section, though more recent revelations indicate there was a male suicide bomber involved.

Mutilated bodies were strewn along the floor and pews of the cathedral.  “I found bodies, many of them women, lying on the pews. It was a horrible scene,” said one witness.

Ibrahim makes important points about what life is like for Christians in Egypt so I would encourage reading the whole piece.  (Bolding emphasis is my own)

Rev. Franklin Graham: ‘Imagine the Outcry if 21 Muslims Had Been Beheaded by Christians? … The Storm is Coming’

Michael W. Chapman, CNSNews.com reports:

The Islamic State beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians over the weekend, propping the severed heads on the victims’ backs, a barbaric slaughter that led Reverend Franklin Graham to ask, “Can you imagine the outcry if 21 Muslims had been beheaded by Christians?”

“Where is the universal condemnation by Muslim leaders around the world?” he asked.

The brutal killing of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, who had been abducted in Libya by members of the Islamic State, was videotaped and the entire death film was posted online on Sunday, Feb. 15. It is entitled, “A Message Signed With Blood, To The Nation of the Cross.”

In a Facebook post on Feb. 16, Rev. Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, said, “The militant Islamic terrorist group ISIS has released a video called A MESSAGE SIGNED WITH BLOOD TO THE NATION OF THE CROSS  showing the beheadings of the 21 Egyptian Christians who had been kidnapped in Libya.”

“Can you imagine the outcry if 21 Muslims had been beheaded by Christians?” said Rev. Graham. “Where is the universal condemnation by Muslim leaders around the world?”

“As we mourn with the families of those 21 martyrs, we’d better take this warning seriously as these acts of terror will only spread throughout Europe and the United States,” warned Rev. Graham.

“If this concerns you like it does me, share this,” he said. “The storm is coming.”

"WORLD'S MOST PERSECUTED MINORITY" -- CHRISTIANS

Raymond Ibrahim does an excellent job spotlighting the persecution of Christians in the Middle East and the Western media's failure to give serious attention to this reality.  Ibrahim is the author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians.

 

TheBlaze introduces the video saying:

Author Raymond Ibrahim has produced a new video for Prager University that reveals what he says is the most “persecuted religious group in the world today.”

Christians — mainly those living in Middle Eastern countries — face the harshest treatment at the hands of fundamentalist Muslims who, many times, torment and kill them simply because of their faith, according to Ibrahim.

“I’m not talking about ‘War on Christmas’ type harassment,” he said in the new Prager University video. “I’m talking about, ‘know your place or we’re going to kill you persecution.’”

The author said that 20 percent of the population in North Africa and the Middle East was Christian 100 years ago, but that the proportion has since decreased to just 4 percent.

“Muslims are rendering North Africa and the Middle East free of Christians,” he said, noting that businesses have been torched, young girls have been abducted and acts of violence have been committed.

Ibrahim added, “Christians are being persecuted in Muslim countries, because they’re Christians or, as the Koran puts it, infidels — that is non-Muslims who are regarded by many fundamentalist Muslims as inferior.”

QUICK TAKES

--  New Egyptian constitution gives greater freedom to Christians  (Ht: Mere Comments)

New Egyptian constitution gives greater freedom to Christians - See more at: http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/#sthash.TAMyecCs.dpuf

New Egyptian constitution gives greater freedom to Christians - See more at: http://touchstonemag.com/merecomments/#sthash.TAMyecCs.dpuf

--  Biblical Archaeology's Top Ten Discoveries of 2013

--  Iran Steps Up Its Campaign Against Christians (Current!)

-- Interesting statistics of Bible verses shared over the internet  (You'll find this infographic interesting!)

--  Israeli soldiers warned against contact with Messianic Jews  (Appeasing the ultra-Orthodox)

-- China's navy and air power rapidly rising to  eventually control Western Pacific  (Very sobering analysis of U.S. decline)

- - World Magazine's Top 25 articles for 2013 (Articles that generated the most reader traffic on World's website - really interesting!)

JOHN BOLTON - RAMIFICATIONS OF OBAMA'S MIDDLE EAST FOREIGN POLICY RADICALISM

John Bolton, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, says:

Americans must realize that we are seeing not merely a series of separate U.S. policy failures or a run of bad luck in the Middle East. Obama is presiding over declining American influence and prestige because he thinks we are too powerful, too dominant in the world. And so, by extension, are our allies in the region, especially Israel.

The indisputable evidence demonstrates that Obama's guiding ideology is as radical in international affairs as in domestic policy. Just as he wants to “spread the wealth around” domestically, so too he is at ease in “spreading” U.S. power around internationally. We will pay for Obama's radicalism for years to come.

Read the entire article for an incisive analysis of what is happening in the Middle East.  The article begins:

Under Barack Obama, American influence in the Middle East has sunk to levels not seen since before World War II. From Israel to Saudi Arabia, from Egypt to the United Arab Emirates, our friends are shaking their heads, wondering why we have seemingly taken leave of our senses.

Across this vital region, Obama is effectively empowering our opponents and turning his back on U.S. supporters and allies. He has openly courted implacable adversaries like Tehran's ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood, allowed Chinese penetration to reach unprecedented levels and restored Russian clout to pre-1979 proportions. . .  [more...]

EGYPTIAN MILITARY HAVE NO INTEREST IN PROTECTING CHRISTIANS

lizabeth Kendall  concludes her important survey saying:

The violence in Egypt is settling into a deadly cycle: (1) The MB [Muslim Brotherhood] challenges the military (resisting the coup); (2) the military responds with force; (3) MB supporters react with violence against Coptic Christians (whom they blame for the coup). Then the cycle starts again.  The military cares nothing for Christians and, with money coming from Saudi Arabia, it has no interest in protecting Christians but only in protecting itself. The military would kill Christians without a second thought if it felt it were in its interests to do so, as it did in Maspero, October 2011. With the MB recruiting jihadis in Algeria and beyond, it can only be anticipated that terrorism against the State and genocidal violence against the Coptic Church will increase. Egypt's
Christians need our prayers.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT -

* God, 'the hope of all the ends of the earth', will intervene in Egypt   and 'still . . . the tumult of the peoples' (from Psalm 65).

* the Holy Spirit will move powerfully amongst Egyptian Christians,   enabling them to stand firm in faith (Isaiah 7:9b) with confidence and   assurance (Hebrews 10:35-39), so they might live radically  counter-cultural lives, loving their enemies and praying for those who  persecute them (Luke 6:27-36); not fearing what people fear, but honouring the Lord in all circumstances and knowing his presence according to his promise (Isaiah 8:11-15).

* the Holy Spirit will bring awakening to Egyptian Muslims, convicting multitudes of 'sin and righteousness and judgement' (from John 16:7-11); as Egypt is 'shaken' may Islam be brought down and the Lord  exalted (Isaiah 2:7-21 and Hebrews 12:26-29).

EGYPTIAN MEDIA PORTRAY OBAMA AS SATAN

Raymond Ibrahim reports:  (HT: Drudge)

Popular and widely read Egyptian newspaper Al Wafd published the above picture today portraying U.S. President Barrack Hussein Obama as Satan himself. The unflattering picture has been making the rounds on Facebook in the Middle East and, according to Al Wafd, is representative of the hatred growing numbers of people in the region have for the American president, thanks to his staunch and unwavering support for Islamists and jihadiis — whether in Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, or Syria — even as they terrorize, murder, rape, and burn down Christian churches, that is, even as they engage in diabolical activities.

EGYPTIAN CHRISTIANS' "RADICAL" RESPONSE TO ISLAMISTS

This five minute report is well worth viewing.  From CBN news:

 

ELIZABETH KENDAL - "EGYPT: A TIME TO WEEP, MOURN AND PRAY"

Elizabeth Kendal's analyses offer insight on troubled areas around the world and ways to pray for  Christians suffering persecution and martyrdom.  Here's her report on the current situation in Egypt.

The present crisis in Egypt is the culmination of several strategic trends, particularly the arrival of 'democracy' after decades of Saudi-sponsored Islamic radicalisation in a State that is hurtling towards collapse. Egypt's population has exploded, doubling in one generation to more than 92 million. With a massive youth demographic, high unemployment (40 percent), high illiteracy (45 percent), critical food and fuel shortages and looming bankruptcy, Egypt is on the brink of becoming a failed State. Saudi money keeps Egypt afloat and the Saudis want their nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood (which advocates republicanism), not just out of power, but crushed. In this, the interests of the Saudis, the Egyptian military and the Salafis converge.

As noted in RLPB 218 (10 July), the military staged their coup under the cover of anti-Morsi protests, ensuring that anti-Morsi elements would bear the blame and the brunt of reprisals. And 'no soft target so clearly represents opposition to Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as the Coptic Church'. The military's actions may have halted the Muslim Brotherhood's consolidation of power and guaranteed the flow of Saudi aid, but their actions are making the situation worse. Violence against Christians has exploded. The military may even exploit this, rather than prevent it, to legitimise military violence, military rule and requests for military aid. As the guardians of the Suez Canal and the Sinai, the Egyptian military is essentially a law unto itself, something Morsi and the MB have failed to appreciate.

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION PUSHES FOR MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD PARTICIPATION IN EGYPT; DANIEL PIPES DISAGREES

Daniel Pipes, the president of the Middle East Forum, is the man to listen to in this discussion.  He writes:

In the aftermath of the coup d’état in Egypt, a consensus has emerged, to cite an anonymous Obama administration official, that “trying to break the neck of the [Muslim] Brotherhood is not going to be good for Egypt or for the region.”  

The thinking behind this view is that (1) it’s better to have Islamists in the political process than violently rebelling and (2) participating in civil society has the potential to tame Islamists, making them see the benefits of democracy and turning them into just another interest group.

May I vociferously disagree?

Yes, we do indeed want to break the brotherhood’s neck because that is good for Egypt, the region, and (not least) ourselves. Both the above assumptions are wrong. (1) Islamists can do more damage within the political process than outside it. To put it graphically, I worry more about a Turkey, with elected Islamists in charge, than Syria, where they are engaged in a civil war to attain power. (2) Islamists have a history of using the political process for their own ends, and not of being tamed by it: See Mohamed Morsi’s year in power for one clear example.

No tolerance for the intolerant. Just as fascists and Communists are not legitimate players in a democracy, neither are Islamists. No matter how smooth-talking, they remain autocrats who disregard the popular will. Better that they be excluded entirely from participatory politics.

Me:  Will the Obama administration ever get its foreign policy right?

** Pipes on Israel's release of 104 murderers: Very bad idea

Pipes says:

Israeli leaders have a long history of making lopsided trades with their Arab enemies. These include:

1985: 1,150 prisoners for three captured Israelis

2000: 450 Arab prisoners for three Israeli bodies and a kidnapped Israeli;

2008: Five Arab prisoners (including the psychopath Samir al-Kuntar) and 199 Arab bodies for two Israeli bodies;

2011: 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for Gilad Schalit;

I strenuously opposed these unbalanced exchanges (e.g., the Schalit one), even as I acknowledged the honorable Israeli intent not to abandon soldiers.

THE DISASTROUS OBAMA "AGE OF HILLARY" FOREIGN POLICY

Andrew C. McCarthy brings us up to speed on Obama's foreign policy regarding Egypt, as does David French.  As usual, Obama sides with the anti-American, anti-Christian forces and seems unable to comprehend basic realities. 

Victor Davis Hanson surveys five years of Obama rhetoric:

After five years of empty loquacity and procrastination, the world—in scary places like Iran, Syria, Russia, China, and North Korea—has caught on that when Obama pontificates about a redline or a deadline, these are mere suggestions for further discussion and hardly guaranteed by the power of an unpredictable and dangerous United States.

He makes a further observation:

Obama’s background as a long-time student, lawyer, law lecturer, and politician has led him to live in a world of words rather than of those concrete consequences found more often in the private sector or in the landscape of the self-employed. . . .

MUST WATCH (VIDEO INTERVIEW WITH RAYMOND IBRAHIM): "CRUCIFIED AGAIN: THE NEW ISLAMIC WAR ON CHRISTIANS"

I posted an article by Raymond Ibrahim yesterday and then today saw him interviewed on the 700 Club.  His book, Crucified Again: The New Islamic War on Christians, looks outstanding, a book urgently needed to enlighten people living in ignorance of Islam's history and current jihad against Christians.   Underneath the interview below, I have posted a helpful synopsis of the book by a reader, William Garrison Jr.

 

"Crucified Again: Exposing Islam's New War on Christians" by Raymond Ibrahim (April 2013), 322 pages. The author knows well of the sufferings of Christians at the hands of Muslim tormentors: he learned Arabic from his Egyptian Coptic Christian parents, has traveled throughout the Middle East, and his website maintains a blog of Islamic assaults against Christians, Jews and other mulhid, jahil, gird, and generic kafirun.

On Amazon, the "view inside" feature should be available, however, at the time of this posting, it is just of the e-book Kindle version. This book is not a cut-and-paste posting of his various internet columns; this isn't just a collection of newspaper clippings regarding tormented Christians. Instead, it is a remarkably detailed and scholarly study [52 pages of notes alone!], of Christian persecution (and at times near genocidal assault) throughout the Islamic world (as well as in countries where Muslims have a strong presence).

In Part 1: "Lost History": the author noted how that within the first couple hundred years of Muhammad's jihad the Muslim umma islamiya had conquered half of the Christian world. The author purveys Muhammad's holy book, the Qur'an, for ayat that justify the superiority of Muslims to conquer non-Muslim al-dhimma.

Part 2: "Islam's War On Christian Worship": Here the author discusses the Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) for justifying Islamist curtailment of non-Muslim houses of worship, as well as the chastisement of their congregation. Today's attacks against Christian churches can be traced back 1,400 years ago to the Muslim conqueror of Jerusalem `The Conditions of Omar' (p. 33), and as expounded upon by other 14th Century Islamist theologians (p. 35).

Part 3: "Islam's War On Christian Freedom": the author reviews the history of Muhammad (al-insan al-kamil) ordering the killing of those who mocked him (p. 101), and how this developed the notion of blasphemy (tashif), whereby those who publicly question Islamic beliefs can be killed, as well as Christian proselytizers (dai'ya). The author recounts many accounts of Islamist attacks against Christians throughout the world [Caution: not for the fain-of-heart: there are 14 pages of full-color photographs of burned churches and many brutally butchered Christians, pp. 130+].

Part 4: "Climate of Hate": Herein the author details how Muslim governments "plant and nourish the seeds of hate" against non-Muslims.

Part 5: "See No Evil, Hear No Evil": The author explains why liberal academia and media "whitewash Islam and blame the West" for Islamic attacks against non-Muslims. Not a book with a happy ending. [Also see an important companion book: "Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians" by P. Marshall, et. al. (March 2013)].

U.S. GIFT OF F-16 FIGHTERS HEADED TO EGYPT, DESPITE MORSI'S HARSH RHETORIC

Maxim Lott of Fox news reports:

Four F-16 fighter jets left the U.S. this morning, bound for Egypt as part of a foreign aid package critics say should have been scrapped when the nation elected a president who has called President Obama a liar and urged that hatred of Jews be instilled in children. 

A source who works on the Naval Air Force Base in Dallas confirmed the departure of the state-of-the-art fighter planes to FoxNews.com. Sixteen F-16s and 200 Abrams tanks are to be given to the Egyptian government before the end of the year under a foreign aid deal signed in 2010 with then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally..

Critics, including several in Congress, say it doesn't make sense to follow through with the package, given that new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, elected last summer, has given decidedly mixed signals about relations with the U.S. While he has toned down his rhetoric since his election, in 2010 - the same year the aid package was struck - Morsi attacked Obama for supporting Israel.   [more . . .] 

MORSI'S PROPOSED EGYPTIAN CONSTITUTION: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM OUT THE WINDOW

Read Samuel Tadros'  succinct analysis here.

ANDREW McCARTHY - MORSI LEADING EGYPT TO ADOPT SHARIA LAW

McCarthy has little respect for journalists [almost all in the West] who refuse to see the reality of Morsi's goals for Egypt.  McCarthy writes: 

[...] Nearly three months ago, in my e-book Spring Fever: The Illusion of Islamic Democracy (which is about to be published in paperback), I explained that Morsi’s agglomeration of power — which was already underway only weeks after his election — was just a placeholder. He is an Islamic-supremacist hardliner whose ultimate goal has always been to impose sharia, the real dictatorship. . . 

 Naturally, secularists and religious minorities are grousing. This has the Western media, once again, in full spring-fever flush. For our intelligentsia, the Middle East is a wonderland where Islamists are imagined to be “moderate” (even “largely secular”!) and — to hedge their bets, on the off chance that the Islamists turn out to be, well, Islamists — the population is imagined to be teeming with freedom-loving Jamal al-Madisons who crave American-style civil rights. In reality, supremacist Islam is the predominant ideology of the region. The Muslim Brotherhood is strong because it is the avant-garde of the Islamic masses. Non-Islamist democrats are a decided minority.

Of course, in a place like Egypt, with its population of 80 million people, a decided minority can easily be masqueraded as the majority. The West’s progressive media is good at that — ignoring tea-party throngs while lavishing coverage on five-person Occupy protests as if they were a groundswell. But, you see, the hocus-pocus works here only because we’ve ceded all the leading institutions of opinion to progressives for a half-century. Conditioned to see what they’ve been told to believe, half of our population no longer sees through the smoke and mirrors.

In contrast, the Islamists control and otherwise intimidate Egyptian society’s influential institutions by vigorously enforcing sharia’s repression of discussion and dissent. The public knows the tune is called by the likes of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhood’s powerhouse jurist, not by Wael Ghonim and the young, tech-savvy progressives beloved of the New York Times. In Egypt, the conspiracy theories run against the progressives. The public won’t be snookered into seeing an Islamist uprising as a “democratic” upheaval. They’ll leave that to us.

The Times and the Brotherhood-smitten Obama administration won’t tell you, but Spring Fever will: The constitution was always the prize. That is why the Brothers pursued it with their signature mendacity. . . The Brothers are no fools. They realized that rapidly held elections would favor them, and if they won big, they’d have a hammerlock on the constituent assembly that would write the constitution. They also grasped the disdain in which the West, under progressive regimes, holds military governments. They’d watched how their Islamist ally, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had leveraged American and European pressure to beat down his military — the pro-Western opposition to his anti-Western Islamic supremacism. The Brotherhood knew the U.S. and the EU would be similarly — and self-destructively — supportive of a call for quick elections that would pressure Egypt’s reigning military junta to cede authority to a “democratic” civilian government.

Consequently, the Brothers insisted that parliamentary and presidential elections could proceed promptly if the public just approved a handful of amendments to the current constitution, with a new constitution to be drafted afterwards.

As is its wont, the Brotherhood was deceitful about its intentions. [more. . .]

THE CHRISTIAN EXODUS FROM EGYPT

Samuel Tadros' subtitles his article,  "For Copts, a persecuting dictator was preferable to the Islamist mob."  He writes: [the bolding is my own]

Visit any Coptic church in the United States and you immediately recognize the newcomers. You see it in their eyes, hear it in their broken English, sense it in how they cling to the church in search of the familiar. They have come here escaping a place they used to call home, where their ancestors had lived for centuries.

Waves of Copts have come here from Egypt before, to escape Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalizations or the growing Islamist tide. Their country's transformation wasn't sudden, but every year brought more public Islamization. As the veil spread, Coptic women felt increasingly different, alien and marked. Verbal abuse came from schoolteachers, bystanders in the bus station who noticed the cross on a wrist, or commentators on state television.

But life was generally bearable. Hosni Mubarak crushed the Islamist insurgency of the 1980s and '90s. He was no friend to the Copts, but neither was he foe. His police often turned a blind eye when Coptic homes and shops were attacked by mobs, and the courts never punished the perpetrators—but the president wasn't an Islamist. He even interfered sometimes to give permission to build a church, or to make Christmas a national holiday.

To be sure, Copts were excluded from high government positions. There were no Coptic governors, intelligence officers, deans of schools, or CEOs of government companies. Until 2005, Copts needed presidential approval to build a new church or even build a bathroom in an existing one. Even with approval, state security often blocked construction, citing security concerns.

Those concerns were often real. Mobs could mobilize against Copts with the slightest incitement—rumor of a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, a church being built, reports of a Christian having insulted Islam. The details varied but the results didn't: homes burned, shops destroyed, Christians leaving villages, sometimes dead bodies. The police would arrive late and force a reconciliation session between perpetrators and victims during which everything would be forgiven and no one punished. What pained the Copts most was that the attackers were neighbors, co-workers and childhood friends.

PRAYING THROUGH THE MUSLIM FILM CRISIS

Elizabeth Kendal offers helpful analysis on how to "pray through the [Muslim] riots."

Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin | RLPB 177 | Wed 19 Sep 2012

PRAYING THROUGH THE RIOTS

By Elizabeth Kendal

The current 'Film riots' bear many similarities to the 'Cartoon Intifada' of February 2006. The Danish cartoons had been published months earlier -- even republished in Cairo during Ramadan (Nov 2005) -- to no effect. Similarly, the offensive film, 'Innocence of Muslims', has been available on Youtube for many months. The 'Cartoon Intifada' was incited by Arab-Islamic leaders ahead of the scheduled April 2006 sitting of the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC). It was anticipated that at that sitting the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance would present his conclusion as to whether or not defamation of religion should be banned. Similarly, the 'Film riots' were initially incited (so it seems) by Islamists, as a cover for planned 9/11 'revenge' attacks on US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi. Because decades of radicalisation have created a tinderbox, Islamists only need to strike a spark to get the fire of arrogant, hateful rage burning. Fanned by social media, it spread quickly around the globe.

As with the cartoons, the film is far less offensive than much of the anti-Christian material that offends, hurts and sickens Christians -- who do not riot. Indeed, the internet is full of anti-Islamic material that is far more offensive than the Danish cartoons or 'Innocence of Muslims'. For rioters, this is less about offence and more about the fact that Islam demands universal respect and criminalises non-submission. Meanwhile fear motivates the appeasers.

In praying through this crisis, there are three things we should particularly remember.

1. CHRISTIAN SECURITY
As security is tightened around embassies and US economic interests, Islamists may well turn their anger to softer targets with perceived US ties and/or sympathies such as Christians and churches. The riots could evolve into a grinding, communal jihad or terror campaign. We must pray concerning Christian security in these times, especially in places where Christians are already a persecuted, vulnerable minority. The situation for the Copts, Egypt's indigenous Christians, is especially perilous.

2. FREEDOM OF SPEECH
Islam's totalitarian, apostaphobic, religious dictators live in constant fear that, given a chance, the masses will apostasise (leave Islam). These religious dictators will doubtless seek to exploit the crisis to advance their goal of having criticism of Islam criminalised internationally. As was done after the Cartoon Intifada, the riots are being put forward as the reason why criticism of Islam must be banned. Muslims should regard this as profoundly offensive as it implies that they are easily provoked and incapable of responding in a civilised manner. On the other hand, non-Muslims should regard this as an Islamic threat.

The Grand Sheikh of Cairo's al-Azhar University, Professor Dr Ahmad at-Tayyib, has already released a statement calling on the UN to enact international laws that will punish those who insult or defame Islam. Egypt has issued arrest warrants for eight Americans (including seven Copts) who they charge have defamed Islam. They will be tried in absentia and may well be sentenced to death, possibly heralding a new wave of 'Salman Rushdies'. (On 16 September, Iran increased the bounty on Rushdie's head by half a million dollars to $US 3.3 million.) Egypt wants Interpol to issue wanted  notices [Red Notices] for the accused. Pakistan also has appealed to Interpol: for legislation that would ban 'sacrilegious [specifically anti-Islamic] materials' from the Internet. Pakistan aims to present draft legislation to the forthcoming UN General Assembly. We can also expect to see renewed efforts by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation (OIC) for implementation of UN Resolution 16/18, 'Combating intolerance . .  . ', which equates 'defamation' with 'incitement'.

3. AWAKENING
If the terror attacks of 11 September 2001 left many nominal Muslims profoundly confused and conflicted, the Cartoon Intifada of February 2006 compounded those feelings into deep disillusionment. So revolted and embarrassed were most nominal Muslims by the sanctimonious hysteria, barbarity and uncivilised behaviour of hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the world that the trend of apostasy increased markedly through 2007. (See Religious Liberty Trends 2007-2008, 15 Feb 2008) We can pray for a similar awakening now.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT --

* the Holy Spirit will draw vulnerable, threatened Christians to find shelter under the 'wings' of the LORD. ' . . .  in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.' (Psalm 57:1b ESV)

* God will use the struggle over free speech to expose hidden evil and awaken the world to the value of truth.  'Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.' (Proverbs 19:21 ESV)

* the current crisis will serve to awaken many Muslims and further accelerate the exodus from Islam. 

'The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest'. (Matthew 9:37,38 ESV)

SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
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PRAYING THROUGH THE RIOTS

Whilst the 'Film riots' may well have been incited by Islamists as a cover for planned 9/11 revenge attacks on US embassies in Cairo and Benghazi, they have spread around the world like 'fire'. For the rioters, this is less about offence and more about the fact that Islam demands universal respect and criminalises non-submission. Meanwhile fear motivates their appeasers. In this climate, Christian minorities are profoundly at risk. Freedom of speech is also at risk. We should expect to see efforts being made to punish those who have offended Islam, and to criminalise criticism of Islam internationally. Most critically, we must pray for an awakening amongst nominal Muslims who are appalled by the hysteria and uncivilised behaviour of hundreds of thousands of Muslims around the world.

CAROLINE GLICK - THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD WILL MORE AND MORE CONTROL EGYPT

(Note: See updates at the end of this post)

- As usual, Caroline Glick offers clear-headed analysis of recent events in Egypt.   She ferrets out facts while others dither and delude themselves.  [Bolding on the extended page is mine]

You have to hand it to the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. They know how to play power politics. They know how to acquire power. And they know how to use power.  . . . 

THE DIFFERENCE between the Brotherhood and the secularists is a fundamental one. The Brotherhood has always had a vision of the Egypt it wants to create. It has always used all the tools at its disposal to advance the goal of creating an Islamic state in Egypt.

For their part, the secularists have no ideological unity and so share no common vision of a future Egypt. They just oppose the repression of the military. Opposing repression is not a political program. It is a political act. It can destroy. It cannot rule. . . .

By permitting the Brotherhood to participate in the elections for parliament and the presidency, the military signed the death warrant of its regime. The Brotherhood will rule Egypt. The only thing left to be determined is whether its takeover will happen quickly or slowly.

To understand why this is the case, it is important to notice what happened in Turkey. When the Islamist AKP party won the 2002 elections, the Turkish military was constitutionally authorized to control the country. As the guardians of Turkey's secular state, Turkey's military was constitutionally empowered to overthrow democratically elected governments.

Ten years later, Turkey is a populist, authoritarian, Islamic state. Half the general officer corps is in prison, held without charge or on trumped up charges. Turkey's judiciary and civil service are controlled by Islamists. The AKP is filling the military's officer corps with its loyalists.

When you know what you want, you use all the tools at your disposal to achieve your goals. When you don't know what you want, no matter what tools you hold, you will fail to achieve your goals.

QUICK TAKES

Headline stories from Jim Loft's "Gateway Pundit." Click through for details.

        **  Arab Spring… Egyptian Lower House of Parliament Approves Text Declaring Israel the Number One Enemy

        **   Thanks Barack… 80% of Americans Say They Are Not Better Off Today Than 4 Years Ago

        **  It’s Official… Despite Obama’s Many, Many Promises, Obamacare Funds Abortion After All

        **  Game On!… Sarah Palin Takes Obama to Woodshed Over His Shameless Attack Ad – Challenges Him to Debate

Sarah has a way of putting things.  From her Facebook account:

The far Left continues to believe American voters are not smart enough to grasp the diversionary tactics it employs to distract us from the issues our President just doesn’t want to talk about – issues that affect us all every day and must be addressed.

Exhibit A in these diversionary tactics is an absurd new attack ad President Obama has released taking my comments out of context. I’m not running for any office, but I’m more than happy to accept the dubious honor of being Barack Obama’s “enemy of the week” if that includes the opportunity to debate him on the issues Americans are actually concerned about. (Remember when I said you don’t need a title to make a difference?)

The following paragraph is particularly excellent:

Just off the top of my head, a few of these concerning issues include: a debt crisis that has us hurtling towards a Greek-style collapse, entitlement programs going bankrupt, a credit downgrade for the first time in our history, a government takeover of the health care industry that makes care more expensive and puts a rationing panel of faceless bureaucrats between you and your doctor (aka a “death panel”), $4 and $5 gas at the pump exacerbated by an anti-drilling agenda that rejects good paying energy sector jobs and makes us more dependent on dangerous foreign regimes, a war in Afghanistan that seems unfocused and unending, a global presidential apology tour that’s made us look feeble and ridiculous, a housing market in the tank, the longest streak of high unemployment since World War II, private-sector job creators and industry strangled by burdensome regulations and an out-of-control Obama EPA, an attack on the Constitutional protection of religious liberty, an attack on private industry in right-to-work states, crony capitalism run amok in an administration in bed with their favored cronies to the detriment of genuine free market capitalism, green energy pay-to-play kickbacks to Obama campaign donors, and a Justice Department still stonewalling on a bungled operation that armed violent Mexican drug lords and led to the deaths of hundreds of innocent people.

THE WEST'S REFUSAL TO SPEAK AGAINST RELIGIOUS APARTHEID IN MUSLIM LANDS IS IMMORAL

Elizabeth Kendal writes:  [my emphases]

The West's reluctance to challenge the immoral religious aparthide inherent in Islam is both immoral and short-sighted. If the West truly believes in the principle of universal human rights, then religious and cultural rights can never trump human rights. Furthermore, silence in the face of Islamic religious aparthide is discriminatory; for why should these victims be less worthy of our moral outrage? Anyone who maintains that the systematic religious aparthide inherent in Islam is the religious right of Muslims, is clearly no defender of universal human rights.

See also:  A Double-Bind Upon the Copts: dhimmitude in action.
Rev Dr Mark Durie, Monday, October 10, 2011

Quote: "The Copts are in a double bind. If they protest against the abuses brought upon their heads by the dhimma system, they are treated as rebels, and the value of their blood and possessions discounted accordingly: the more they protest, the less right they have under Islamic law even to exist. On the other hand, the more they acquiesce, the more voracious and emboldened their persecutors will become. [. . .] The international community will be held accountable if they do not act swiftly on the brutal attacks towards Egypt’s Coptic Christians who are suffering under a modern day form of apartheid where institutionalised discrimination and deadly attacks have a become a way of life for Egypt’s 15 million Copts."

The forgotten Christians of the East
By Caroline B. Glick, Jerusalem Post, 10 Oct 2011

Quote: "JUST AS the Jews of the Islamic world were forcibly removed from their ancient communities by the Arab rulers with the establishment of Israel in 1948, so Christians have been persecuted and driven out of their homes. Populist Islamic and Arab regimes have used Islamic religious supremacism and Arab racial chauvinism against Christians as rallying cries to their subjects. These calls have in turn led to the decimation of the Christian populations of the Arab and Islamic world. [. . .] It is unclear what either Western governments or Western churches think they are achieving by turning a blind eye to the persecution and decimation of Christian communities in the Muslim world. As Sunday’s events in Egypt and other daily anti-Christian attacks by Muslims against Christians throughout the region show, their behavior is not appeasing anyone. What is clear enough is that they shall reap what they sow."

ISLAM MUST BE UNDERSTOOD AS A POLITICAL RELIGION

In addition: Robert Spencer argues there is no meaningful distinction between "Islam" and "Islamist."  Such is an artificial distinction imposed by the West without substance or merit.

(Original Post) - It seems many people fail to understand that Islam is a "political religion." Elizabeth Kendal, the editor of the "Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin," has produced one of the finest,  succinct statements of that fact I have come across:

"Islam is a political religion that aims to achieve dominance -- demographically or through military or political conquest -- so that Muslims might rule and Sharia (Islamic Law / the law of Allah) might be applied. Where Islam is dominant, atheists and polytheists have two choices: convert to Islam or die. Jews and Christians (the People of the Book), however, have a third choice: dhimmitude -- they may pay for their 'protection' (i.e. their right to life) with 'jizya' ('tax': religiously sanctioned extortion) and by submitting to total subjugation and abject humiliation (Sura 9:29 http://quran.com/9/29 ). This state of subjugation is one of immense insecurity, vulnerability, perpetual anxiety and psychological trauma. The people subjugated are known as dhimmi (singular) and dhimma (plural). The agreement between Muslims and the dhimma is known as the dhimma pact. If the dhimma pact is violated, then 'protection' ends and jihad resumes. Europe's rise and Islam's decline -- commencing in the late 17th Century and culminating in defeat for Islamic forces in the 20th Century's two world wars -- saw dhimmitude wane. Today, however, Islam is back and so too is dhimmitude -- and nowhere is this more evident than in Egypt."

I learned from reading Kendal's latest blog post that 19,000 Coptic Christians have fled Egypt since March 19, 2011.  "This figure," she writes, "comes from a report by the Egyptian Federation of Human Rights (EFHR). Furthermore, Naguib Gabriel, the head EFHR, estimates that the figure could increase to 250,00 by the end of 2011.  NGO report: 93,000 Copts left Egypt since March

Kendal offers a strategic collection of materials related to the recent horrible "Maspero Massacre." 

EGYPT TO OPEN BORDER CROSSING TO GAZA WHICH WILL ENABLE ARMS SHIPMENTS TO HAMAS

Andrew C. McCarthy reports:

Democracy has not even placed the Muslim Brotherhood in power yet, but the organization is powerfully influencing events. Over Israeli objections, Egypt’s military government has announced that it will reopen the Rafah crossing — the country’s border with Hamas-controlled Gaza. [H/T The Snow Report] The move will enable Hamas to defeat Israel’s blockade. Gaza’s other land crossings border Israel, which also patrols Gaza’s Mediterranean coast, but without Egypt’s cooperation, Israel cannot stop major arms shipments and jihadists from getting through to Hamas (the Palestinian branch of the Brotherhood).  

As someone once said, it is very foolish to believe the Egyptian military can be relied on to keep the peace with Israel against the wishes of the Brotherhood and Egypt’s heavily fundamentalist Muslim population. Oh, and did I mention that Saif a-Adel, the new head of al-Qaeda, used to be a special forces officer in the Egyptian army?

Me:  Fine and Dandy.  Some Arab spring.   Further proof of the worthless -- indeed, dangerous -- foolishness of Western elite opinion.

NYC: HUNDREDS PROTEST ISLAMIC SLAUGHTER OF CHRISTIANS IN EGYPT

The following words and pictures are from Pamela Geller's Atlas Shrugged website, the place to go to stay abreast of the Islamisation of the world.  Geller writes:

Today in Manhattan, within a stone's throw of that collective negation of humanity, the UN, hundreds came out in protest of the Muslim slaughter of the Coptic Christians in Egypt, more of the bloody fruit borne of the "Muslim Spring."

EGYPT'S CHRISTIANS: A DYING POPULATION?

Excellent (if depressing) CBN report: Video and text

Update: Video below - 

 

EGYPT'S COPTS SUFFER MORE ATTACKS

From Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom:

Copts in Egypt are begging for Egyptian Armed Forces protection today after a Muslim mob of several thousand attacked their church in the village of Soul, about 30 kilometers from Cairo, last night. The Church of St. Mina and St. George was torched, and its clergy are unaccounted for. The fire department and security forces failed to respond to Coptic pleas for help during the arson attack.

According to a report from the Washington-based Coptic American Friendship Association, the mob, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” pulled down the church’s cross and detonated a handful of gas cylinders inside the structure. The ensuing fire destroyed the church and all its contents, including the sacred relics of centuries-old saints. It is reported that a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, which sharia forbids, and the refusal of the woman’s father to kill her to restore the community’s “honor,” aroused the Muslim ire. An account of this incident is here. (I also received a message from a Coptic friend that this week members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed a Christian school on Thabit Street in downtown Asyut and attempted to take it over. Egyptian security forces, including an army unit, intervened and routed out the Brotherhood members. The school had been built by Presbyterian missionaries in the early 1900s, and is now directed by Presbyterian Pastor Naji. Christian leaders from this southern area expressed a deepening sense of insecurity as the Muslim Brotherhood emerges from the underground.)

This incident follows separate brutal attacks by armed forces using heavy machine-gun fire against two monasteries, ostensibly for zoning problems, on February 23. Compass Direct, an American-based Christian news agency, reported that one monk and six church workers were shot and wounded when the Egyptian Army attacked the Coptic Orthodox Anba Bishoy Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun, 110 kilometers north of Cairo, in order to destroy a wall monks had built to defend their property from raiders. On the same day, it reported that, in a similar incident, the army also attacked the Anba Makarious Al Sakandarie Monastery in Al Fayoum, 130 kilometers southwest of Cairo. Under an Egyptian law carried over from Ottoman times, state permission is required to build or repair church property and such permits are rarely issued.

There are growing concerns that Egypt’s 10 million or so Coptic Christians are being targeted under the cloak of political chaos during these uncertain times. A friend reports that the local Egyptian police have abandoned their posts in the provinces and thus many churches no longer have armed guards protecting them as they did following the al-Qaeda-inspired church bombing of New Year’s Day in Alexandria. Egypt’s army is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid.

HARVARD HISTORIAN NIALL FERGUSON RIPS AMATEURISM OF OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY

From Pamela Geller -

This is, by far, the video of videos. Thanks to Dan F, who opines, "Someone didn’t do his homework and allowed brilliant Harvard historian Niall Ferguson to deviate from the script he was handed at MSNBC. This is surely a one-off and a mistake they won’t allow to be repeated. I urge you to enjoy this precious video now, before the dumbstruck folks on Morning Joe recover and MSNBC has it taken down."

 

ANDY McCARTHY- WILL EGYPT FOLLOW TURKEY'S PATH TOWARD ISLAMISM?

Andy McCarthy makes important points in suggesting Egypt could well be in danger of following Turkey's path, that of moving from a long-established secular government to Islamist.   McCarthy writes:

The question in Egypt is not what happens at noon tomorrow but what happens, incrementally, over the next several years. While some analysts look at Iran 1979 as their guide, mine is present-day Turkey.

He goes on to say:

There, by law, the military is the guarantor of Atatürk’s secular Muslim society. Like Egypt’s armed forces, Turkey’s military is highly professional — indeed, it is still (nominally) a NATO ally and until recently had strong ties to the Israeli defense forces. Yet now, after 80 years, Turkey is back in the Islamist fold and overtly hostile to Israel.

This did not happen overnight. The Justice and Development Party (AKP), a disciplined, well-organized Islamist faction with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, managed to squeeze into power in 2002, even though it was a minority opposed by millions of pro-Western, secular Muslims. It increased its popularity by foreswearing any intention to impose sharia, avoiding the taint of financial corruption, adopting responsible economic policies, and only gradually enacting items on the Islamist punch-list — beginning with the ones that enjoyed broad support. Behind the scenes, it used its power both to infiltrate the military and to install its loyalists in important institutions (e.g., the banks, bureaucracy, judiciary, and education system).

JOEL ROSENBERG - ELBARADEI A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING

Joel Rosenberg, author of the 2009 book, Inside The Revolution has this to say about Mohamed ElBaradei:

Last week, few Westerners knew the name Mohamed ElBaradei. Today, this calm, genteel-sounding, Nobel laureate has suddenly emerged as the face of the protest movement in Egypt. But who is he really, and is he a force for genuine, positive change? The New York Times reported this morning that U.S. officials are trying to assess this very question.

At first glance, ElBaradei’s credentials suggest he could be a leader the West could support. Born to a middle-class family in Cairo in 1942, ElBaradei was largely educated in the West. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cairo, he went on to earn an advanced degree in Switzerland and later a Ph.D. in international law from New York University. He is fluent in English, French, and German, aside from his native Arabic. He lived in the U.S. for some fifteen years, and more recently has resided in Vienna. He has served in various capacities for the Egyptian Foreign Ministry, as a United Nations diplomat, and as a speaker and lecturer in the U.S. and Europe.

However, the closer one looks at ElBaradei’s career and public statements, the more troubling the image becomes. Indeed, three clues tell us the answer is “no,” ElBaradei is not someone we can trust, and certainly not someone we want running Egypt. To the contrary, he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing and we must not let him gain power.

QUOTES ON THE MIDDLE EAST

Bernard Lewis, the dean of Middle East historians, says:  [my bolding]

The Obama administration should ponder something, as should we all: “At the moment, the general perception, in much of the Middle East, is that the United States is an unreliable friend and a harmless enemy. I think we want to give the exact opposite impression”: one of being a reliable friend and a dangerous enemy. “That is the way to be perceived.”

On the prospects of Egyptian democracy, Stanley Kurtz opines:

Successful democratic change like we saw in, say, South Korea, is based on the slow development of a substantial middle class with liberal mores. What’s brought Mubarak down is not the middle class thirst for democracy, but massive unemployment, corruption, and inflation, in a system whose traditional roots have long blocked modernization. This is not a scenario for successful democratization. Everywhere we’ve seen to date, it is a scenario for expanding Islamism.

Michael Walsh cites history to justify his pessimism:

Anyway, when you look at the course of revolution in the modern era, it’s always the same-old same-old:

•  
  • Czar Nicky — Kerensky — Lenin
  • Kaiser Willie — Weimar Republic — Hitler
  • Shah Pahlavi — Mr. Bani Sadr — Khomeini

Heck, we can even take it one step further:

•  
  • Gorbachev — Yeltsin — Putin

In other words, no matter the high intentions and democratic slogans, it always turns out badly in the end, especially in countries with, shall we say, a natural affinity for despotism.

Me: Let us hope and pray Egypt will be an exception 

UPDATE 2/2/11 - Amir Taheri offers a more optimistic take worth noting.  Mark Levin interviews the great Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick here (audio).   Sobriety and fear can be heard in her voice.  Egypt is now a huge military powerhouse.  Actually, I think Fred Grandy's earlier audio interview with Caroline Glick is even more poignant.  In her MUST READ column, "Clueless in Washington", she writes:  (my emphases)

THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD AND THE EGYPTIAN UPRISING

Andy McCarthy, author of  The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, and a man I respect for his knowledge of things Islamic, writes in a National Review Online article :

To this day, the Brotherhood’s motto remains, “Allah is our objective, the Prophet is our leader, the Koran is our law, Jihad is our way, and dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope. Allahu akbar!”

Still, our see-no-Islamic-evil foreign-policy establishment blathers on about the Brotherhood’s purported renunciation of violence — and never you mind that, with or without violence, its commitment is, as Qaradawi puts it, to “conquer America” and “conquer Europe.”

McCarthy's article represents an important counter-balance to writers such as Bruce Riedel ("Don't fear Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood"), which McCarthy calls "the classic, conventional-wisdom response to the crisis in Egypt."   Read McCarthy to get the full scoop.

- George Weigle writes cogently, "Egypt's Coptic Christians Deserve a Word from President Obama."  Weigle says:

BARRY RUBIN - "THE REVOLT IN EGYPT AND U.S. POLICY"

As of this writing, I think Barry Rubin's piece is the most thoughtful, informed, and accurate of anything I have read.  He's the director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.   In 2010 he published The Muslim Brotherhood: A Global Islamist Movement (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010) and before that Islamic Fundamentalism in Egyptian Politics, Second Revised Edition Palgrave Press (2002, 2008).

He writes in his current article saying:

There is no good policy for the United States regarding the uprising in Egypt but the Obama Administration may be adopting something close to the worst option. This is its first real international crisis. And it seems to be adopting a policy that, while somewhat balanced, is pushing the Egyptian regime out of power. The situation could not be more dangerous and might be the biggest disaster for the region and Western interests since the Iranian revolution three decades ago.

Experts and news media seem to be overwhelmingly optimistic, just as they generally were in Iran's case. Wishful thinking is to some extent replacing serious analysis. Indeed, the alternative outcome is barely presented: This could lead to an Islamist Egypt, if not now in several years.

What's puzzling here is that a lot of the enthusiasm is based on points like saying that the demonstrators are leaderless and spontaneous. But that's precisely the situation where someone who does have leaders, is well organized, and knows precisely what they want takes over. . . .

This is the article to read if you read no other.  Read the whole thing.  It's important.   (HT: Powerline via Jim Hoft)

Update 2/2/11 - Kathryn Jean Lopez conducts a follow-up interview with Rubin here.  Again, this man strikes me as one of the most experienced, sober-minded commentators available.  Excerpt:

[...] And I also have seen that many of the people proclaiming there is nothing to worry about now have been wrong over and over again in the past. They were wrong about the Iranian revolution, the PLO, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Turkish regime, Hamas, Algeria, al-Qaeda, and much more. A few days before the September 11 attack, an article came out in a magazine criticizing me for warning of the threat from revolutionary Islamist terrorist groups, saying that this was a fantasy.

And finally, another ignored or misunderstood factor is the regional situation. On one hand, I constantly hear from Arabs, Turks, and Iranians, as well as Israelis and people from other countries, that they have lost faith in the United States as a reliable ally Have no doubt, this will further undermine that feeling. Those who can are moving toward making deals with Iran or at least avoiding conflict with those they think are destined to be victorious. . . .

CAR BOMB KILLS 7 CHRISTIANS LEAVING CHURCH IN EGYPT AFTER NEW YEAR'S MASS

UPDATE: Death toll mounts. Suicide  bomber, not car bomb:

A bomb that killed 21 people outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria may have been carried by a suicide bomber and not caused by a car bomb, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday.

Jim Hoft says "Sick.  Obama is making up Muslim victims in Egyptian terror attack.

- (Original post) THIS IS DISGUSTING!  When is the world going to say ENOUGH!??

From Gateway Pundit:

Bringing In The New Year–
At least seven Christians were killed today when a car bomb exploded outside a Christian Coptic Church in Alexandria, Egypt.
This video was taken outside the church after the blast.

The worshippers were leaving mass when the bomb went off.
France 24 reported:

At least seven people died and 24 were injured early Saturday in an attack on a Christian church in the northern Egyptian city of Alexandria, rescue workers told AFP.

The toll was expected to rise as a number of victims were taken away by car from the scene of the explosion, they said.

The attack, apparently caused by a car bomb, took place as the faithful left the church in the Sidi Bechr district at around half past midnight on New Year’s Day. The witnesses said a burnt-out car was in front of the entrance to the church.

Many Christians were demonstrating in front of a nearby mosque, the witnesses told AFP.

Worshippers shout around an exploded car in front of a Coptic Christian church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Egypt, early Saturday Jan. 1, 2011. The car exploded in front of the church as worshippers emerged from a New Year’s Mass in the Mediterranean port city early Saturday, killing at least seven people, officials said. (AP/Tarek Fawzy)

Pamela Geller reminds us:

Bombings in Iraq Target Homes of Christians

Christians Are Casualties of 10 Baghdad Attacks‎ -- New York Times

Two Christians killed in Baghdad attacks‎ -- AFP

Al-Qaeda Targeting Christians in Canada, Austria

See my earlier post, "Chistians are the Most Persecuted Religion in the World."

EGYPT'S PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS

I wonder how many Americans have any concept of the unrelenting persecution that Christians (not to mention Jews), face in Egypt.  Fortunately, Moheb Zaki has written an article in the Wall Street Journal that I hope will generate wide readership. It is subtitled,"Violence against Copts is on the rise and all but ignored by the state." It begins --

A few weeks ago in the coastal city of Marsa Matrouh, an enraged mob of some 3,000 angry Muslims gathered after Friday prayers. After the mosque's imam exhorted them to cleanse the city of its infidel Christians, called Copts, they went on a rampage.

The toll was heavy: 18 homes, 23 shops and 16 cars were completely destroyed, while 400 Copts barricaded themselves in their church for 10 hours until the frenzy died out.

This was only the latest of more than a dozen such attacks during the past year. . .

Things have gotten steadily worse, it seems.

Although the Copts have long been the target of sporadic attacks, the violence of the last few years is more like a purge, as waves of mob assaults have forced hundreds, sometimes thousands of Christian citizens to flee their homes. In each incident the police, despite frantic appeals, invariably arrive after the violence is over. Later the injured are coerced by the special security police forces into accepting "reconciliation" with their attackers, in order to avoid the prosecution of the guilty. No Muslim to date has been convicted for any of these crimes.

The state's lack of regard for the Copts has encouraged anti-Christian feelings among many Muslims in all walks of life.  (more . . .)

WAR AGAINST "INFIDELS" TAKING PLACE IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

- Update 1/23/10 from CNS News via Wintery Knight blog: "One Year Later, Obama Administration's Top Religious Post Still Vacant.  Excerpt:

One year after President Obama took office, the administration’s top international religious freedom post remains empty, at a time when a wave of religious persecution is troubling veteran campaigners.

“President Obama has not yet named an ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom,” a State Department press officer confirmed by phone late Wednesday.

The Christian advocacy organization Open Doors USA launched a petition Wednesday urging Obama to appoint an ambassador immediately, saying that leaving the position unfilled violated U.S. law.

“By not having an ambassador-at-large for the past 12 months, the U.S. has failed to demonstrate the importance of religious freedom,” said advocacy director Lindsay Vessey.

- (Original Post) - Cliff May asks why the rest of the world refuses to pay attention and express outrage:

Connect these dots: In Nigeria this week, Muslim youths set fire to a church, killing more than two dozen Christian worshippers. In Egypt, Coptic Christians have been suffering increased persecution including, this month, a drive-by shooting outside a church in which seven people were murdered. In Pakistan, Christian churches were bombed over Christmas. In Turkey, authorities have been closing Christian churches, monasteries, and schools, and seizing Christian properties. Recently, churches in Malaysia have been attacked, too, provoked by this grievance: Christians inside the churches were referring to God as “Allah.” How dare infidels use the same name for the Almighty as do Muslims!

In response to all this, Western journalists, academics, diplomats, and politicians mainly avert their eyes and hold their tongues. They pretend there are no stories to be written, no social pathologies to be documented, no actions to be taken. . .  [more . . .]

On Tuesday, Coptic Christians took to the streets in front of the UN to protest the killing of Christians by Muslims in Egypt.  Pamela Geller offers commentary and a gallery of pictures of which the following are samples:

It is time for America, for President Obama to demand that President Mubarak end this genocide.

Colson - The American Press doesn't cover religion well at all!

Interview with John R. Bradley, Author of "Inside Egypt"

Frontpagemag offers an insightful interview with John R. Bradley, a British journalist and author of Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution.

I learned a lot from this interview and am placing it in my Egypt file.

COPTIC PRIEST ZAKARIA BOTROS: ISLAM'S "PUBLIC ENEMY #1"

Raymond Ibrahim writes a fascinating article that needs to be read in its entirely.

Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East. 

Egypt Enables Hamas to Train in Iran

Click here.   And note, incidentally, how Jordan, contrasts with Egypt.  It doesn't allow weapons or smuggling into Israel or the disputed territories.

Anti-Semitic Publishing Industry Flourishes in Egypt

Egypt publishes really awful stuff.  P. David Hornik writes:

Egypt is “the Arab world’s biggest center of publishing anti-Semitic literature.” So says a new report by the Tel Aviv-based Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

This literature that Egypt puts out, says the Center, “is marketed across the Arab and Muslim world, distributed through the Internet, and sold every year at the Cairo International Book Fair.” The Egyptian government, “despite its ability to impose strict censorship,” allows all this to go on.

Read on for detailed examples.

Muslim Persecution of Christians Around the World

(Note: Most of the links below do not work properly.  I am working to remedy the situation)

Robert Spencer reviews the situation:

Traditional Islamic law mandates the death penalty for Muslims who leave Islam, in accordance with Muhammad’s command: “Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.” This is still the position of all the schools of Islamic jurisprudence, although there is some disagreement over whether the law applies only to men, or to women also.

Many Muslims take this dictum quite seriously even today. In August 2007, Mohammed Hegazy, an Egyptian convert from Islam to Christianity, was forced to go into hiding after

Egyptian TV Telecasts Anti-Semitic Propaganda Movie: "A Girl From Israel"

Read Nonie Darwish's description and review.  If you are not  yet up to speed on Arab hatred towards Jews, you will find it shocking.  Even if you are up to speed on Arab hatred towards Jews, you will still find it shocking.   At least I did.   Raw propaganda like this reminds one of Nazi propaganda.  It can't help but do so. 

Egypt's Mubarak Seeks to Prevent a Power Grab by Islamists

Update: 3/27/07 - The constitutional amendments passed by 75.9%, albeit by a very low voter turnout - only 27%.    See the BBC-News report here and Newsvine's report here.

**
Egypt holds a constitutional referendum today.  Amir Tahiri titles his analysis  "Egypt's Mixed Reform Bag."

Free Speech for Bloggers Denied in Egypt

Michelle Malkin has the sad update on the imprisoned blogger in Egypt.  An appeals court has upheld a four year prison sentence.

Malkin has the full report: 

Bad news:

An Egyptian appeals court endorsed a verdict sentencing a blogger to 4 years in prison on charges of insulting Islam and the president.

Judicial sources said Monday an appeals court in the Mediterranean city of Alexandria approved the verdict issued last month against 22-year-old Abdul Karim Nabil Amer. He was convicted on charges of "ridiculing Islam and insulting" President Hosni Mubarak.

Arrested last November, Amer is the first blogger to be sentenced to prison in Egypt.

The Free Kareem website has just issued this press release:

The Free Kareem Coalition is saddened by the Egyptian appeals court’s decision to uphold the four-year sentence handed

No Freedom of Speech in Egypt

Update 3/5/07 - Reuters has a follow-up story on the dangers of blogging in Egypt.  Click here.

***

Cliff May reports the following:

Our Moderate Ally in the Middle Eastern [sic]?   

Here’s what prolonged diplomatic engagement and about $2 billion a year in aid can achieve:

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) - An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to