by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
Jihad Watch<\/em><\/p>\n Earlier this month in the\u00a0West Bank<\/a>, “settlers attempted to burn two mosques, and vandalized an IDF base as part of the latest ‘price tag’ attacks. The attacks came in response to the demolition of three buildings earlier this week in the West Bank settlement outpost Migron, 14 kilometers north of Jerusalem.”<\/p>\n Accordingly, on September 9, the US State Department unequivocallydenounced<\/a>\u00a0these attacks, calling on those responsible to “be arrested and subject to the full force of the law.” Likewise, when another mosque and copies of the Koran were burned earlier, the\u00a0State Department<\/a>\u00a0said “We condemn this attack in the strongest terms and call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.”<\/p>\n This prompts the following question: If the State Dept. is concerned over places of worship, why do the epidemic attacks on churches in the Muslim world go largely unnoticed?<\/p>\n To be sure, the State Dept. has condemned the bloodiest and most savage of church attacks, including the\u00a0Baghdad, Iraq<\/a>\u00a0attack, which saw at least 58 Christian butchered, and the New Year church bombing in\u00a0Alexandria, Egypt<\/a>, which left 23 Christians dead.<\/p>\n Yet one searches in vain for formal condemnations, let alone acknowledgment, of the majority of church attacks, most of which, if not as deadly as Alexandria or Baghdad, are much more brutal than the West Bank mosque attacks.<\/p>\n For instance, where is the condemnation for the attack in\u00a0Sool, Egypt<\/a>, when a Muslim mob torched a church, even as an imam called for Muslims to “Kill all the Christians?” As for the\u00a0Imbaba attacks<\/a>\u00a0in Egypt, when Muslim throngs torched three churches and killed several Copts, the\u00a0US embassy<\/a>\u00a0issued a statement condemning “sectarian violence” while not once mentioning that any churches were attacked.<\/p>\n During\u00a0last month<\/a>\u00a0alone, two churches were set aflame in Indonesia, two churches were bombed in Iraq, three churches were bombed in Nigeria. Of all these, only one of the Iraq church attacks \u2014 which left 23 worshippers seriously injured \u2014 received a\u00a0condemnation<\/a>\u00a0by the State Dept.<\/p>\n Of course, the issue here is not that the State Department needs to condemn all church attacks (who can keep up with their frequency?); nor do these statements amount to much more than mere words, anyway. Even so, as words, they offer some revelations.<\/p>\n First, the obvious: It seems that the State Dept. mentions attacks on churches only, but not always, when people are killed, whereas the condemnation of the West Bank mosques have only to do with attacks on buildings. In other words, attacks on churches around the Muslim world that do not necessarily lead to the loss of life, are ignored, whereas attacks on West Bank mosques that do not target or kill Muslims are strongly condemned.<\/p>\n The language of the condemnations is also telling: the Alexandria attack killing 23 Copts doesn’t even call on bringing the perpetrators to justice; Kirkuk is treated with “confidence”: “We are confident the government of Iraq will take all necessary steps to bring the people responsible for this horrific act to justice.”<\/p>\n Contrast this with the language used when Jewish settlers vandalize mosques, but kill no one in the process: then the US unequivocally calls for them to “be subject to the full force of the law.”<\/p>\n Yet even now, it might be argued that one is stretching the issue, focusing too much on words and statement frequencies. Perhaps \u2014 until one realizes that many of the most oppressive Muslim nations just got a free pass from the State Dept.<\/p>\n Days ago, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the Annual Report on International Religious Freedom. Amazingly, countries like\u00a0Pakistan<\/a>, notorious for making non-Muslim life a living hell, including through “blasphemy laws,” were not even cited as “countries of particular concern.<\/p>\n