{"id":3349,"date":"2011-04-12T18:08:06","date_gmt":"2011-04-12T18:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com.108-166-28-151.mdgnetworks.com\/wordpress\/?p=3349"},"modified":"2013-03-26T18:11:21","modified_gmt":"2013-03-26T18:11:21","slug":"destroying-one-koran-or-many-christians-which-is-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/destroying-one-koran-or-many-christians-which-is-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Destroying One Koran or Many Christians: Which is Worse?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<p>FrontPageMagazine.com<\/p>\n<p>The now infamous Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including UN workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of &#8220;Allahu Akbar!&#8221; Western leaders around the globe \u2014 including Obama and members of Congress \u2014 have unequivocally condemned Jones&#8217; actions (without bothering to point out that freedom of expression is a prized American liberty). <!--more-->Many are even blaming the deaths in Afghanistan directly on Jones; Bill O&#8217;Reilley says Jones has &#8220;blood on his hands.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yet, as Western leaders rush to profess their abhorrence at what\u00a0<em>one<\/em>\u00a0American did to\u00a0<em>one<\/em>\u00a0inanimate book, let&#8217;s take a quick look at what\u00a0<em>many<\/em>\u00a0Muslims are doing to\u00a0<em>many<\/em>\u00a0living and breathing Christians around the Islamic world \u2014 to virtually no media coverage or Western condemnation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Afghanistan<\/em>: A Muslim convert to Christianity was seized and, according to sharia&#8217;s apostasy laws,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.worthynews.com\/10150-detained-afghan-christian-fears-execution\">awaits execution<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Bangladesh<\/em>: A Christian man was arrested for\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/bangladesh\/article_99015.html\">distributing Bibles<\/a>\u00a0near Muslims. Since Wednesday, thousands of Muslims have been rioting, injuring dozens \u2014 not because of Jones, but in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2011\/WORLD\/asiapcf\/04\/05\/bangladesh.protests\/index.html\">protestation of women&#8217;s rights<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Egypt<\/em>: A Muslim mob\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.meforum.org\/2855\/no-revolution-for-egypt-christians\">burned down another Coptic church<\/a>\u00a0and dozens of Christian homes; when Christians protested, the military opened fire on them while crying &#8220;Allahu Akbar,&#8221; killing nine. Another mob\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aina.org\/news\/20110405211926.htm\">cut<\/a>\u00a0a Christian man&#8217;s ear off &#8220;according to sharia.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li><em>Ethiopia<\/em>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.meforum.org\/2855\/no-revolution-for-egypt-christians\">Muslims went on a rampage<\/a>\u00a0burning down nearly 70 churches, killing at least one Christian, and dislocating as many as 10,000. Christians living in Muslim majority regions are being warned to either convert to Islam, abandon their homes, or die.<\/li>\n<li><em>Malaysia<\/em>: Authorities\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/news.in.msn.com\/international\/article.aspx?cp-documentid=5049019\">detained and desecrated<\/a>\u00a0thousands of Bibles.<\/li>\n<li><em>Pakistan<\/em>: Two Christians were\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/pakistan\/article_98906.html\">shot to death<\/a>\u00a0as they exited church; a Christian serving life in prison for &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/pakistan\/98521\">blasphemy<\/a>&#8221; died in his cell under suspicious circumstances and appears to have been murdered.<\/li>\n<li><em>Saudi Arabia<\/em>: An Eritrean Christian was arrested for sharing his faith with Muslims and is facing the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/barnabasfund.org\/Christian-evangelist-faces-death-penalty-in-Saudi-Arabia.html\">death penalty<\/a>; other missionaries continue to languish in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/saudiarabia\/article_99127.html\">Saudi prisons<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><em>Somalia and Sudan<\/em>:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/somalia\/\">Christian<\/a>\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.compassdirect.org\/english\/country\/sudan\/33341\">girls<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 including a mother of four \u2014 were recently abducted, raped, and killed for embracing Christianity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It should be borne in mind that none of these atrocities were performed in retaliation to Jones&#8217; Koran burning; they&#8217;re just business as usual in the Muslim world. Moreover, the above list is but a quick and cursory sampling of the very latest in Christian suffering under Islam. Were one to include persecution from just a few months back, one could also mention the jihadist attack on\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/8427\/islamists-target-christians-wherever-they-can\">a Baghdad church<\/a>, killing 52 Christians; the New Year&#8217;s eve\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholic.org\/international\/international_story.php?id=39779\">Coptic church explosion<\/a>, killing 21; Muslim rampages that destroyed several churches in<a href=\"http:\/\/www.asianews.it\/news-en\/North-Sumatra,-two-Protestant-churches-burnt:-too-many-faithful-and-too-many-prayers-17427.html\">Indonesia<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jihadwatch.org\/2010\/12\/nigeria-pastor-killed-in-front-of-his-church-other-churches-targeted-in-arson-rampage.html\">Nigeria<\/a>, and the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.khaleejtimes.com\/DisplayArticle09.asp?xfile=data\/international\/2010\/December\/international_December1052.xml%C2%A7ion=international\">Philippines<\/a>; Iran&#8217;s &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/news.yahoo.com\/s\/ap\/20110111\/ap_on_re_mi_ea\/ml_iran_christian_crackdown\">round up<\/a>&#8221; of some 70 home-worshipping Christians; and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.memri.org\/report\/en\/0\/0\/0\/0\/0\/0\/4827.htm\">Kuwait&#8217;s<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 a nation that owes its very existence to US war sacrifices \u2014 rejection of a request to build a church.<\/p>\n<p>Then there are the countless atrocities that never make it to any media \u2014 the stories of persistent, quiet misery that only the victims and local Christians know.<\/p>\n<p>One would have thought that all this was at least equally deserving of media attention and Western condemnation as the burning of a Koran. Worse, whereas only Jones is responsible for his actions, many of the aforementioned savageries \u2014 arresting and executing Christian missionaries and Muslim apostates, destroying or outlawing churches, seizing and desecrating not one but thousands of Bibles \u2014 are carried out at the hands of Muslim authorities and governments deemed US &#8220;friends-and-allies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Such is the surreal and increasingly irrational world we live in, where irate Muslims and groveling Westerners obsess over the destruction of one book while ignoring the destruction of many human lives; where a guaranteed and hard-earned American right \u2014 freedom of expression \u2014 receives a lot of condemnatory huffing and puffing from those charged with protecting it, while murderous and barbarous \u2014 in a word, evil \u2014 behavior is devoutly ignored.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\">\n<p>\u00a92011 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPageMagazine.com The now infamous Koran burning by Florida pastor Terry Jones has created hysteria in the Muslim world. In Afghanistan alone, some twenty people, including UN workers, have been killed and beheaded to screams of &#8220;Allahu Akbar!&#8221; Western leaders around the globe \u2014 including Obama and members of Congress \u2014 have unequivocally [&hellip;]<\/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":[225,227],"tags":[319,540,742,192,1035,529,431,486,30,1060,1077,545,58],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-S1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2421,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-disloyalty-to-americans-the-case-of-pfc-naser-jason-abdo\/","url_meta":{"origin":3349,"position":0},"title":"Muslim Disloyalty to Americans: The Case of Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 25, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media To anyone familiar with Muslim doctrine, Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo's actions \u2014 from refusing to deploy to Afghanistan lest he kill fellow Muslims, to plotting a terror attack to kill fellow Americans \u2014 make perfect sense and accord especially well with Islam's dichotomous doctrine of\u00a0wala\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Religion&quot;","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":430,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/religious-defamation-laws-would-ban-islam\/","url_meta":{"origin":3349,"position":1},"title":"&#8216;Religious Defamation&#8217; Laws Would Ban Islam","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Frontpage Magazine As the Islamic world, in the guise of the 57-member state Organization of Islamic Cooperation, continues to push for the enforcement of \"religious defamation\" laws in the international arena \u2014 theoretically developed to protect all religions from insult, but in reality made for Islam \u2014\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Islam&quot;","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":6796,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-jesus-demands-sharia-law-and-jizya-tribute\/","url_meta":{"origin":3349,"position":2},"title":"&#8216;Muslim&#8217; Jesus Demands Sharia Law and Jizya Tribute","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 26, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 Time and again, Muslims, especially those in Egypt,\u00a0project Islamic thinking onto Christians: thus the Coptic church has been\u00a0accused\u00a0of smuggling and storing weapons in its churches to take over the nation (when in fact mosques are regularly exposed housing illegal weapons for the jihad); of kidnapping and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Egypt&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7282,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/raymond-ibrahim-on-cbn-news-will-egypts-el-sisi-protect-christians\/","url_meta":{"origin":3349,"position":3},"title":"Raymond Ibrahim on CBN News: &#8216;Will Egypt&#8217;s el-Sisi Protect Christians?&#8217;","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ CBN News\u00a0 On April 24, CBN News Senior International Reporter Gary Lane interviewed me about Egypt. 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According to\u00a0Fox News: Thousands of Christians have been forced\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Religion&quot;","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":2134,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/lethal-weapon-islamist-perfidy-or-western-naivety\/","url_meta":{"origin":3349,"position":5},"title":"Lethal Weapon: Islamist Perfidy or Western Naivety?","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 23, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media In a blog entry for\u00a0Islamist Watch, David J. Rusin shows how the word \u201cjihad\u201d continues to be euphemized in the West. Despite Islamic law\u2019s unequivocal portrayal of it as a military endeavor to empower Islam, jihad is still being peddled as \u201cnothing more than a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Raymond Ibrahim&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3350,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3349\/revisions\/3350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}