{"id":1300,"date":"2011-12-27T00:04:08","date_gmt":"2011-12-27T00:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=1300"},"modified":"2013-03-08T00:07:19","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T00:07:19","slug":"diplomatic-supping-with-jihadist-devils","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/diplomatic-supping-with-jihadist-devils\/","title":{"rendered":"Diplomatic Supping with Jihadist Devils"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n

FrontPage Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n

While Western diplomats wring their hands over trivial insults to Islam, a slow-motion genocide of Christians has been unfolding in the Muslim world. The latest attack occurred on Christmas day in Nigeria, where the terrorist sect Boko Haram bombed two Catholic churches in the towns of Abuja and Jos, killing at least 39 worshipers. This same group killed 32 Christians last Christmas Eve. In this year alone, Boko Haram has murdered 491 people.<\/p>\n

The killings in Nigeria are just one example of continuous violent\u00a0attacks<\/a>\u00a0on Christians and their churches. Yet our Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been nearly silent about this war on Christianity. When the Egyptian military participated in the murder of 25 Egyptian Copts, her State Department rejected a request from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom to put Egypt on its list of countries that violate religious freedoms. Instead, Secretary Clinton issued a generic warning to the generals ruling Egypt \u201cto ensure that the fundamental rights of all Egyptians are respected, including the rights of religious freedom, peaceful assembly and the end of military trials for civilians, and that efforts be made to address sectarian tensions.\u201d Compare this reflexive diplo-speak to her more passionate reaction to the recent beating of Egyptian women during a demonstration, one of whom was publicly stripped: \u201cThis systematic degradation of Egyptian women dishonors the revolution, disgraces the state and its uniform and is not worthy of a great people,\u201d she said. Apparently, exposing a woman\u2019s blue bra is a more heinous crime than running over a Copt\u2019s head with a military vehicle.<\/p>\n

In fact, our official spokesman for American views on foreign behavior hasn\u2019t had much to say about a modern persecution of Christians redolent of those perpetrated by the Romans. Nor have we heard anything about the sectarian cleansing that has been going on for decades. Christians who date their presence in the Middle East to several centuries before Islam was created are fast disappearing from the region, choosing exile and emigration over harassment and murder. In Iraq, where American blood and treasure were spent to create \u201cdemocracy\u201d and \u201chuman rights,\u201d eighteen priests and two bishops have been kidnapped, and the archbishop of Mosul murdered. In the last six years, mobs have attacked over 70 churches, 42 of them in Baghdad. In October 2010, attackers murdered 58 Christians during evening mass at the Syrian Catholic Cathedral in Baghdad. The Christian population, which once numbered 1.5 million, has dwindled to less than 150,000. The story is the same in Pakistan, Lebanon, the so-called West Bank, Syria, and across the Middle East. A region Christian for six centuries before the rise of Islam will soon be emptied of Christians.<\/p>\n

And what has been Secretary Clinton\u2019s response to this assault on Christians? A conference in December to implement the so-called \u201cIstanbul Process,\u201d itself the mechanism for implementing the UN Human Rights Council Resolution 1618 on religious stereotyping and \u201cstigmatization.\u201d That resolution was a diplomatic effort to keep the Organization of Islamic Cooperation\u2019s ongoing efforts to globalize Islamic blasphemy laws from impinging on free speech. Clinton no doubt thought she was finessing the OIC\u2019s drive to censor speech about Islam, but the OIC saw the meeting differently: \u201cThe upcoming [Washington] meetings \u2026 [will] help in enacting domestic laws for the countries involved in the issue, as well as formulating international laws preventing inciting hatred resulting from the continued defamation of religions.\u201d As the Hudson Institute\u2019s Nina Shea\u00a0reported<\/a>, \u201cBy standing \u2018united\u2019 (as the OIC head put it in a\u00a0Turkish Daily<\/em>\u00a0op-ed) with the OIC on these issues, America appears to validate the OIC agenda, thus demoralizing the legions of women\u2019s rights and human-rights advocates, bloggers, journalists, minorities, converts, reformers and others in OIC states who look to the United States for support against oppression.\u201d Having intimidated most of Europe into legally repressing opinions or even statements of fact about Islam, the OIC is obviously using \u201cdiplomacy\u201d to pressure US government officials into censoring themselves when it comes to Islam.<\/p>\n

Of course, such self-censorship has long been taking place among government officials who take every opportunity to whitewash Islam\u2019s tradition of violence and intolerance. Witness the Department of Defense\u2019s report on Fort Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hassan, which called his murders an instance of \u201cworkplace violence,\u201d and despite copious evidence to the contrary,\u00a0omitted<\/a>any reference to jihadist ideology as a motivation of Hassan\u2019s attack. But this sort of government self-censorship is nothing new. The doctrine of jihad, which for 14 centuries has meant waging war against the enemies of Islam, has been redefined as a vague \u201cstriving in the path of God,\u201d as the National Counterterrorism Center claimed in 2008. Then there\u2019s John Brennan, Obama\u2019s assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, who in 2009 likewise defined jihad as \u201cto purify oneself or to wage a holy struggle for a moral goal.\u201d That would be news to Iran\u2019s Ayatollah Khomeini, who said, \u201cIslam says: Kill all the unbelievers just as they would kill you all,\u201d in line with the Koran\u2019s injunctions to \u201cslay the idolaters wherever you find them,\u201d \u201cfight those who do not believe in Allah,\u201d \u201cfight those of the unbelievers who are near to you and let them find in you hardness,\u201d \u201ckill them [unbelievers] wherever you find them,\u201d and to execute Allah\u2019s threat: \u201cI will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Secretary Clinton seemingly is unaware of these facts of traditional Islamic doctrine. Instead, at the conference she indulged the Western pathology of moral equivalence to avoid facing that truth: \u201cNow, I know that in the world today, intolerance is not confined to any part of the world or any group of people. We all continue to deal with different forms of religious intolerance. That\u2019s true here, that\u2019s true in Europe, that\u2019s true among countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, everywhere in the world. It\u2019s true where people, if they are discriminating or intimidating, they\u2019re doing it against Muslims or Jews or Christians or Buddhists or Baha\u2019is or you name it. There has been discrimination of every kind against every religion known to man.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement is factually false. Clinton cannot point to any modern persecution of Muslims, or violence against them and their holy places, that comes close to the incessant violence against Christians on the part of Muslims. In no nominally Christian country are there formal laws against Muslims akin to those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and other Muslim countries that institutionalize discrimination against Christians and Jews. Nor is there anywhere in the Bible injunctions that legitimize intolerance and persecution of Muslims like those in the Koran and other Islamic scripture that stigmatize Christians and Jews and subject them to poll taxes and Jim-Crow like restrictions on their lives. Yet despite these facts, despite the absence of widespread pogroms against Muslims in the West, we have created and worry over the \u201chate crime\u201d of \u201cIslamophobia,\u201d even while rampant Muslim \u201cChristophobia\u201d is slaughtering Christians to the point of extinction, and threatening Israel with a new holocaust, all with the support and encouragement of government officials and religious authorities.<\/p>\n

Such moral equivalence is not just intellectually bankrupt; it is moral idiocy. And it is dangerous, for it blinds us to the true causes of jihadist terror: the theologically sanctioned intolerance, violence, and chauvinism of Islam that has driven Muslim behavior for 14 centuries.<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a92011 Bruce S. Thornton<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Bruce S. Thornton FrontPage Magazine While Western diplomats wring their hands over trivial insults to Islam, a slow-motion genocide of Christians has been unfolding in the Muslim world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[377,22,116,230],"tags":[366,379,191,192,1035,413,1053,492,1017,528,1061,30,1075,108,1022,1037,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-kY","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":837,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/death-in-churches-targeting-christian-holidays-in-the-islamic-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":0},"title":"Death in Churches: Targeting Christian Holidays in the Islamic World","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Gatestone Institute Last Sunday, many Christians around the world celebrated Easter, taking it for granted that they can congregate and worship in peace. Not so; in the Islamic world, where\u00a0top religious officials call for the destruction of churches, Christian holidays celebrated in church are increasingly a time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Islam"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/islam\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1297,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nigerias-christmas-present-blown-up-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":1},"title":"Nigeria’s Christmas Present: Blown Up Christians","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 29, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York Several churches in northern Nigeria were bombed December 25, in what has been\u00a0described\u00a0as \"Nigeria's blackest Christmas ever.\" The attacks, perpetrated by the Muslim militant group Boko Haram, killed at least 39 people, \"the majority dying on the steps of a Catholic church [in Madalla\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7027,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/new-york-times-biased-coverage-on-muslim-persectution\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":2},"title":"New York Times Biased Coverage on Muslim Persectution","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 The\u00a0New York Times\u00a0has finally found a victim of Islamic aggression in Nigeria worth reporting on: homosexuals. \u00a0 In a big spread complete with pictures appearing last week, the NYT\u2019s Adam Nossiter wrote \u201cWielding Whip and a Hard New Law, Nigeria Tries to \u2018Sanitize\u2019 Itself of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6081,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-administration-calls-for-the-human-rights-of-jihadi-murderers\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":3},"title":"Obama Administration Calls for the ‘Human Rights’ of Jihadi Murderers","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Nigerian government is criticized by the U.S. for going after mass murdering terrorists. by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media It\u2019s well known that whenever jihadis attack and slaughter innocent people \u2014 especially Christians \u2014 the Obama administration tries to ignore or whitewash. Lesser known, however, is that whenever foreign governments try\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Nigeria"","block_context":{"text":"Nigeria","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/nigeria\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1058,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nigerian-new-year-christian-slaughter\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":4},"title":"Nigerian New Year, Christian Slaughter","author":"victorhanson","date":"January 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine The New Year's resolution for \"Sunnis for Da'wa [Islamization] and Jihad\" \u2014 also known as Boko Haram, or \"Western education is forbidden\" \u2014 is to create a Christian-free Nigeria, beginning, naturally, with the north, where Muslims outnumber Christians. Right at the start of 2012, Boko\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7391,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/nigerian-sex-slaves-disrupt-obama-narrative-on-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":1300,"position":5},"title":"Nigerian \u2018Sex-Slaves\u2019 Disrupt Obama Narrative on Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ RaymondIbrahim.com Islamic law permits the possession of concubines, or sex slaves.\u00a0 This has been demonstrated countless times, including through\u00a0Islamic\u00a0clerics\u00a0quoting\u00a0Islamic scriptures, and through ordinary Muslims,\u00a0past and present,\u00a0acting on it. 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