{"id":7139,"date":"2014-03-21T10:11:44","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T17:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=7139"},"modified":"2014-03-21T10:11:44","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T17:11:44","slug":"why-the-media-doesnt-cover-jihadist-attacks-on-middle-east-christians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/why-the-media-doesnt-cover-jihadist-attacks-on-middle-east-christians\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Media Doesn’t Cover Jihadist Attacks on Middle East Christians"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0The Torch<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cTo their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting \"cufi\"Him to public disgrace\u201d\u2014Hebrews 6:6<\/p>\n

The United Nations, Western governments, media, universities, and talking heads everywhere insist that Palestinians are suffering tremendous abuses from the state of Israel.\u00a0 Conversely, the greatest human rights tragedy of our time\u2014radical Muslim persecution of Christians, including in Palestinian controlled areas\u2014is devotedly ignored.<\/p>\n

The facts speak for themselves. Reliable estimates indicate that anywhere from 100-200 million Christians are persecuted every year; one Christian is martyred every five minutes. Approximately 85% of this persecution occurs in Muslim majority nations. In 1900, 20% of the Middle East was Christian. Today, less than 2% is.<\/p>\n

In one week in Egypt alone, where my Christian family emigrated, the Muslim Brotherhood launched akristallnacht<\/em>\u2014attacking, destroying, and\/or torching some\u00a082 Christian churches<\/a>\u00a0(some of which were built in the 5th\u00a0century, when Egypt was still a Christian-majority nation before the Islamic conquests).\u00a0\u00a0Al-Qaeda\u2019s black flag<\/a>\u00a0has been raised atop churches.\u00a0 Christians\u2014including priests, women and children\u2014have beenattacked, beheaded, and killed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Nor is such persecution of Christians limited to Egypt.\u00a0\u00a0 From Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east and from Central Asia to the north to sub-Saharan Africa to the south; across thousands of miles of lands inhabited by peoples who do not share the same races, languages, cultures, and\/or socio-economic conditions, millions of Christians are being persecuted and in the\u00a0same exact patterns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Muslim converts to Christianity and Christian evangelists are attacked, imprisoned, and sometimes beheaded; countless churches across the Islamic world are being banned or bombed; Christian women and children are being abducted, enslaved, raped, and\/or forced to renounce their faith.<\/p>\n

Far from helping these Christian victims, U.S. policies are actually exacerbating their sufferings.\u00a0 Whether in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, or Syria, and under the guise of the U.S.-supported \u201cArab Spring,\u201d things have gotten dramatically worse for Christians.\u00a0 Indeed, during a recent U.S. congressional hearing, it was revealed that thousands of traumatized Syrian Christians\u2014who, like Iraqi Christians before them are undergoing a\u00a0mass exodus<\/a>from their homeland\u2014were asking \u201cWhy is America at war with us?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer is that very few Americans have any clue concerning what is happening to their coreligionists.<\/p>\n

Few mainstream media speak about the horrific persecution millions of people are experiencing simply because they wish to worship Christ in peace.<\/p>\n

There, is of course, a very important reason why the mainstream media ignores radical Muslim persecution of Christians: if the full magnitude of this phenomenon was ever know, many cornerstones of the mainstream media\u2014most prominent among them, that Israel is oppressive to Palestinians\u2014would immediately crumble.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Because radical Muslim persecution of Christians throws a wrench in the media\u2019s otherwise well-oiled narrative that \u201cradical-Muslim-violence-is-a-product-of-Muslim-grievance\u201d\u2014chief among them Israel.<\/p>\n

Consider it this way: because the Jewish state is stronger than its Muslim neighbors, the media can easily portray Islamic terrorists as frustrated \u201cunderdogs\u201d doing whatever they can to achieve \u201cjustice.\u201d\u00a0 No matter how many rockets are shot into Tel Aviv by Hamas and Hezbollah, and no matter how anti-Israeli bloodlust is articulated in radical Islamic terms, the media will present such hostility as ironclad proof that Palestinians under Israel are so oppressed that they have no choice but to resort to terrorism.<\/p>\n

However, if radical Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those stronger than them, how does one rationalize away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them\u2014in this case, millions of indigenous Christians?<\/p>\n

The media simply cannot portray radical Muslim persecution of Christians\u2014which in essence and form amount to unprovoked pogroms\u2014as a \u201cland dispute\u201d or a product of \u201cgrievance\u201d (if anything, it is the ostracized and persecuted Christian minorities who should have grievances).\u00a0 And because the media cannot articulate radical Islamic attacks on Christians through the \u201cgrievance\u201d paradigm that works so well in explaining the Arab-Israeli conflict, their main recourse is not to report on them at all.<\/p>\n

In short, Christian persecution is the clearest reflection of radical Islamic supremacism. Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized Christians simply wish to worship in peace, and yet\u00a0still<\/em>\u00a0are they hounded and attacked, their churches burned and destroyed, their women and children enslaved and raped. These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens, in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.<\/p>\n

The only problem is that\u00a0they are Christian\u00a0<\/em>and so, Islamists believe according to their scriptural exegesis, must be subjugated.<\/p>\n

If mainstream media were to report honestly on Christian persecution at the hands of radical Islamists so many bedrocks of the leftist narrative currently dominating political discourse would crumble, first and foremost,\u00a0the idea that radical Islamic intolerance is a product of \u201cgrievances,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and that Israel is responsible for all Jihadist terrorism against it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0The Torch\u00a0 \u201cTo their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace\u201d\u2014Hebrews 6:6 The United Nations, Western governments, media, universities, and talking heads everywhere insist that Palestinians are suffering tremendous abuses from the state of Israel.\u00a0 Conversely, the greatest human rights tragedy 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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[227,145],"tags":[366,192,1027,1043,30,1046,1037,894],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1R9","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7216,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-are-slaughtering-us-like-chickens-muslim-persecution-of-christians-december-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":7139,"position":0},"title":"The Are Slaughtering Us Like Chickens’: Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2013","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0Gatestone Insitute As happens at Christmas every year throughout the Muslim world, Christians and their churches were especially targeted\u2014from jihadi terror strikes killing worshippers, to measures by Muslim authorities restricting Christmas celebrations.\u00a0 Some incidents follow:","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":6357,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/in-egypt-media-sympathizes-with-muslim-brotherhood-persecution-of-christians-ignored\/","url_meta":{"origin":7139,"position":1},"title":"In Egypt, Media Sympathizes with Muslim Brotherhood, Persecution of Christians Ignored","author":"victorhanson","date":"August 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0NRO's The Corner While Western media, following the lead of pro-Brotherhood Al Jazeera, continue demonizing the Egyptian military\u2019s attempts to neutralize the Muslim Brotherhood terror bases \u2013\u00a0where people have been tortured, raped, and killed, all according to Islamist fatwas (yes, including the rape, more on this later)\u00a0the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Muslim Brotherhood"","block_context":{"text":"Muslim Brotherhood","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/muslim-brotherhood\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6716,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/exploiting-christian-persecution-to-demonize-israel\/","url_meta":{"origin":7139,"position":2},"title":"Exploiting Christian Persecution to Demonize Israel","author":"victorhanson","date":"November 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0RaymondIbrahim.com\u00a0 What\u2019s worse than the silence of Western Christians concerning the Muslim persecution of their coreligionists in the Islamic world?\u00a0 Answer: Cynically exploiting that persecution for a political agenda\u2014in the case of a recent\u00a0Daily Beast\u00a0article, to excoriate the state of Israel and its supporters. Titled \u201cWhy Won\u2019t\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Israel"","block_context":{"text":"Israel","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/israel\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6219,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/crucified-again-venn-institute-interviews-raymond-ibrahim\/","url_meta":{"origin":7139,"position":3},"title":"Crucified Again — Venn Institute Interviews Raymond Ibrahim","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Raymond Ibrahim [Note: The following interview was conducted by the\u00a0Venn Institute\u00a0with Raymond Ibrahim] Raymond Ibrahim is a widely published author, public speaker, and Middle East and Islam expert, and author most recently of\u00a0Crucified Again: Exposing Islam\u2019s New War on Christians. 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Thornton \/\/\u00a0Defining Ideas \u00a0 Few people realize that we are today living through the largest persecution of Christians in history, worse even than the famous attacks under ancient Roman emperors like Diocletian\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":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/riot-620x413.jpg?fit=400%2C246&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139"}],"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=7139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7142,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7139\/revisions\/7142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}