by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
FrontPageMagazine.com<\/p>\n
On March 5, Muslims attacked, plundered, and set ablaze\u00a0an ancient Coptic church<\/a>\u00a0in Sool, a village near Cairo, Egypt. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building and pounded its walls down with sledge hammers \u2014 to cries of “Allahu Akbar!<\/a>” Adding insult to injury, the attackersplayed “soccer”<\/a>\u00a0with the relic-remains of the church’s saints and martyrs and transformed the desecrated church into a mosque (a live example of history, which witnessed countless churches seized and transformed into mosques). As a result of Christian girls being abducted and raped and overall terrorization of the Coptic community, thousands fled the village. (See\u00a0this letter<\/a>\u00a0to Egypt’s military leadership signed by twenty congressmen discussing this and similar anecdotes.)<\/p>\n This latest\u00a0church rampage<\/a>\u00a0was initiated by Muslims killing each other over an affair between a Christian man and a Muslim woman \u2014 and then transferring their violence onto the Copts of the region and their church.<\/p>\n Radical sheikh Muhammad Hassan, who was commissioned to investigate the incident, recently shared his “findings” on Egyptian TV. After insisting to Coptic viewers that “Islam is a religion of peace, mercy, and justice,” he said that the “Muslim youth” who attacked the church never intended to do so; rather, they went there searching for a Coptic man. After invading the church, they discovered ancient liturgical books in the Coptic script, and papers with the names of Muslims. These were interpreted as “sorcery” \u2014 hence, they destroyed the church. (The fact is, some Muslims venerate St. Mary and often submit their names at churches for intercession.)<\/p>\n Not once did Hassan condemn the Muslim perpetrators. He even referred to the Copts as “dhimmis<\/em>” and “pact-holders,” prompting outrage among Egypt’s indigenous Christian population, or as\u00a0one Copt put it<\/a>: “Hassan wants to makedhimmis<\/em>\u00a0out of us\u2026 I thought we were living in [a] country with a constitution and a police force and not in Mecca or Medina 14 centuries ago. Or maybe this is a first step to later subject Christians to\u00a0jizya<\/em>\u00a0for protection.”<\/p>\n As medieval as this entire anecdote is \u2014 and as anachronistic as Hassan’s rationale of “sorcery” is \u2014 none of this is surprising. What is disappointing, however, is that the Egyptian army \u2014 recently touted as the noble “savior” of the Egyptian people \u2014 and the Arabic media \u2014 which provided 24-hour coverage of the Tahrir Square protests \u2014 have both blatantly demonstrated their bias against Egypt’s Christians.<\/p>\n Portrayed in the Western media as magnanimous for restraining itself against Egypt’s civilians during the recent uprisings, not only did the Egyptian army allow the wanton destruction of the church to go unfettered, but it also\u00a0opened fire on Christians protesting<\/a>\u00a0the burning of the church, killing nine and seriously wounding at least a hundred, some beaten with electric batons. Coptic activist lawyer\u00a0Sherif Ramzy<\/a>, who was among those assaulted, said that the soldiers also cried “Allahu Akbar” before attacking the Copts, adding, “This only shows that the army is infiltrated by Islamists.”<\/p>\n Nor was this the first time since Mubarak was ousted that the military attacked Copts: in late February, armed forces, including tanks,\u00a0opened fire on a 5th century monastery<\/a>\u00a0(as churches are accused of “sorcery,” monasteries are accused of\u00a0stockpiling weapons<\/a>). Likewise, as Muslims spent some twenty hours pulverizing the church at Sool with sledge hammers, neither the military, nor state security ever appeared \u2014 and this near Cairo, Egypt’s capital, not some inaccessible village.<\/p>\n Where has the Egyptian and Arab media been in all this? Not only have they tried to bypass all of these unpleasantries with scant or euphemistic mention (“sectarian strife”); but they also failed to cover the massive protests in front of Egypt’s State TV building in Maspiro, where Copts rallied in an effort to get the world’s attention, demanding the return of the church (which is now called “Mercy Mosque”) and the return of the Copts back to their village. By some accounts, there were nearly\u00a0two million protestors<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 including many Egyptian Muslims who rose up in support of their Christian countrymen. One would have thought all this newsworthy. As Wahid of the Arabic show\u00a0Al Dalil<\/a>\u00a0put it:<\/p>\n Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0focused on every detail of Tahrir Square for twenty days. Where isAl Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0when Christians are attacked in Egypt, protesting and sleeping in the streets for ten days \u2014 or are they infidels, no good, or irrelevant\u00a0dhimmis<\/em>? You claim that you represent an objective and fair media in the Middle East \u2014 but where were you regarding what happened in Maspiro in Egypt? This confirms to us that you are one of the most terrible medias \u2014 a discriminating organization that treats events based on whether they deal with Muslims or not. But if it’s about Christians, then we [i.e.,\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>] don’t deal with it. This is a media crisis of huge proportions. Till this day we do not have any media in the Middle East that is objective and that portrays the news as it truly is. (My translation.)<\/p>\n Aside from what all this bodes for the Copts, Western observers should also be concerned. For starters, that the Western media closely followed\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>‘s lead during the Tahrir Square protests, while being virtually clueless of these massive Christian uprisings, suggests that, when it comes to information on the Middle East, the Western mainstream media is heavily dependent on the Arab media, especially\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>. This is not to say that the West agrees with the point of view put forth by\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>. But it is to say that whether an issue even makes it to the Western media \u2014 makes it to the West’s knowledge \u2014 is very much dependent on whether Islamist-leaning\u00a0Al Jazeera<\/em>\u00a0wants to publicize it or not.<\/p>\n More troubling, these events unequivocally betray the Egyptian military’s Islamist inclinations. This should not be surprising: as a grassroots movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has long been infiltrating Egypt’s culture so that some of the youth \u2014 who make up the bulk of the army \u2014 have naturally been indoctrinated in an Islamist worldview. Indeed, the military, which keeps imprisoned some of the secular youth who initiated the original revolution, has just released a number of jihadists, including\u00a0al-Zomar<\/a>, who reasserted in his first\u00a0interview<\/a>\u00a0the need for Egypt’s Christians to pay the\u00a0jizya<\/em>\u00a0tax, thereby confirming their inferior status under Muslim rule. Al-Zomar, of course, was not imprisoned because of his anti-Christian views, but because he was closely involved in the assassination of former President Sadat for making peace with Israel.<\/p>\n Thus the Egyptian military’s Islamist leanings suggest that changes for the worse are coming \u2014 not just for the Copts, but internationally as well. Because the Islamist worldview is interrelated, Egypt’s leadership may well prove to be as anti-American and anti-Israel for the very same reason it is anti-Christian \u2014 all are infidels, all are the enemy. The only difference is that the Copts are weak, whereas America and Israel are currently not \u2014 thus unabashed animosity for the former, latent hostility for the latter.<\/p>\n \u00a92011 Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPageMagazine.com On March 5, Muslims attacked, plundered, and set ablaze\u00a0an ancient Coptic church\u00a0in Sool, a village near Cairo, Egypt. Afterwards, throngs of Muslims gathered around the scorched building and pounded its walls down with sledge hammers \u2014 to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Adding insult to injury, the attackersplayed “soccer”\u00a0with the relic-remains of […]<\/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":[118,225,227],"tags":[366,229,192,1035,1017,30,1060,58,1018],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-T2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7398,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/egypt-christian-arrested-for-using-home-as-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":3412,"position":0},"title":"Egypt: Christian Arrested for Using Home as Church","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com A Coptic Christian man in Egypt has been arrested on complaints from local Muslims that, without a permit, he has\u00a0converted his home into a church\u00a0and is supposedly even holding religious rituals. The 55-year-old man, known only by his initial, \u201cBH,\u201d is a laborer in the al-Minya\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The Middle East"","block_context":{"text":"The Middle East","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/dresden-frauenkirche-10095811.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2448,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-are-christian-girls-converting-to-islam-in-egypt\/","url_meta":{"origin":3412,"position":1},"title":"Why Are Christian Girls Converting to Islam In Egypt?","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Jihad Watch Few things in Islam are as liable to provoke passion and violence as the issue of conversion. The health hazards involved in converting out of Islam \u2014 apostatizing \u2014 are well known. But even the issue of converting\u00a0to\u00a0Islam is fraught with drama. Consider Egypt alone:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","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":6194,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-brotherhood-out-killing-christians-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":3412,"position":2},"title":"Muslim Brotherhood Out, Killing Christians In","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 11, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/ Gatestone Institute \"I tell the Christians one word: We will set you on fire!\" \u2014 Egyptian Muslim lady \"In scattered locations across Egypt, mobs of hard-line Muslims,\" according to\u00a0Morning Star News, \"enraged over the deposing of the country's Islamist president [Muhammad Morsi] this week attacked Christian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The_Great_Umayyed_Mosque_of_Damascus_Syria_-_9.jpg?fit=947%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The_Great_Umayyed_Mosque_of_Damascus_Syria_-_9.jpg?fit=947%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The_Great_Umayyed_Mosque_of_Damascus_Syria_-_9.jpg?fit=947%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/The_Great_Umayyed_Mosque_of_Damascus_Syria_-_9.jpg?fit=947%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1954,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/destroying-churches-one-at-a-time-muslim-brotherhood-wants-no-more-churches\/","url_meta":{"origin":3412,"position":3},"title":"Destroying Churches, One at a Time: Muslim Brotherhood Wants “No More Churches”","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 14, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York What clearer sign that Egypt is turning rabidly Islamist than the fact that hardly a week goes by without a church being destroyed, or without protesting Christians being attacked and slaughtered by the military? 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