Yet more Christian victims of the religion of peace 66
The persecution of Christians by Muslims in the Middle East is not news. It is a continuous state of affairs, as much to be expected as unpleasant news is anywhere. It could even be said to be normal.
Among the few journalists who do not ignore it is Raymond Ibrahim. He reports on it frequently.
He recently wrote, at Canada Free Press, about a wave of attacks on Christians in Egypt:
Yet another murderous wave is taking Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority by storm, leading to yet another exodus from their homes.
Last week in al-Arish, Sinai, Islamic State affiliates killed a 65-year-old Christian man by shooting him in the head; they then abducted and tortured his 45-year-old son, before burning him alive and dumping his charred remains near a schoolyard.
The worshipers of “Allah the Merciful” gouged out his eyes, according to witnesses.
Perhaps because of its sensationalist nature — burning a human alive — this story was reported by some Western media. Yet the atrocities hardly begin or end there. Below is a list of Christians murdered in al-Arish in recent days and weeks:
- January 30: A 35-year-old Christian was in his small shop working with his wife and young son when three masked men walked in, opened fire on him, instantly killing the Copt. The murderers then sat around his table, eating chips and drinking soda, while the body lay in a pool of blood before the terrified wife and child.
- February 13: A 57-year-old Christian laborer was shot and killed as he tried to fight off masked men trying to kidnap his young son from off a crowded street in broad daylight. After murdering the father, they seized his young son and took him to an unknown location (where, per precedent, he is likely being tortured, possibly already killed, if a hefty ransom was not already paid).
- February 16: A 45-year-old Christian schoolteacher was moonlighting at his shoe shop with his wife, when masked men walked in the crowded shop and shot him dead.
- February 17: A 40-year-old medical doctor was killed by masked men who, after forcing him to stop his car, opened fire and killed him. He too leaves a widow and two children.
… This recent uptick in Christian persecution is believed to be in response to a video earlier released by the Islamic State in Sinai. In it, masked militants promise more attacks on the “worshipers of the cross”, a reference to the Copts of Egypt, whom they also referred to as their “favorite prey” and the “infidels who are empowering the West against Muslim nations”.
As a result of the recent slayings and threats of more to come, at least 300 Christians living in al-Arish have fled their homes, with nothing but their clothes on their backs and their children in their hands. Most have congregated in a Coptic church compound in neighboring Ismailia by the Suez Canal. …
Now here is a short list of measures NOT being taken to help Christian victims of religious persecution by Muslims:
The Pope is speaking out often, loud, and clear against the states that order, promote, sanction, allow, or tolerate the capture, rape, murder, enslavement and displacement of Christians.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is doing the same, and vigorously pressing the British government to demand that the governments of Islamic states put an end to this practice under threat of stopping financial aid. (Only 1% of Egypt’s aid comes from Britain, but the top recipients of British tax-payers’ money include the Islamic states of Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Afghanistan, Bangladesh. Nigeria is the country where Boko Haram – an affiliate of ISIS – has been burning, raping, abducting and mass-slaughtering Christians for years. We have posted often about Boko Haram. In particular, see here.)
The Evangelical Christians of America are pressing the US government to do likewise. (US aid to Egypt = $1.5 billion.)
The United Nations is passing resolutions against it, both in the General Assembly and the Security Council, and taking action to prevent and punish it wherever it is occurring.
*
Here’s a little more about what the Pope is doing in regard to this matter.
Robert Spencer writes at Jihad Watch:
AP reported … that Pope Francis “embraced the grand imam [Ahmed al-Tayeb] of Al-Azhar, the prestigious Sunni Muslim center of learning, reopening an important channel for Catholic-Muslim dialogue after a five-year lull and at a time of increased Islamic extremist attacks on Christians.” …
Muslims have massacred, exiled, forcibly converted or subjugated hundreds of thousands of Christians in Iraq and Syria. Have these “improved ties” [between the Vatican and the grand imam] saved even one Christian from suffering at the hands of Muslims? No, they haven’t. All they do is make the “dialogue” participants feel good about themselves, while the Middle Eastern Christians continue to suffer. In fact, the “dialogue” has actually harmed Middle Eastern Christians, by inducing Western Christian leaders to enforce silence about the persecution, for fear of offending their so-easily-offended Muslim “dialogue” partners.
Has the Pope welcomed any of the persecuted Christians to the Vatican? Or is that honor reserved only for this man, who will allow for “dialogue” only when his Christian “dialogue” partners maintain a respectful silence about Muslim massacres of Christians?
The Pope has not welcomed Christian refugees. He invited a pair of Syrian Christian refugee siblings to move to Rome, but changed his mind, disinvited them, and welcomed three Muslim families instead.
Women without compassion 137
Trump seems determined to fight radical Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to the dignity and freedom of women all around the world. That already shows his commitment to liberty – especially liberty for women. Radical Islamic ideology is a universal threat. Wherever it is weakened or defeated, this helps liberate victims in other parts of the world, as well.
To so many persecuted peoples in the Middle East, Trump’s presidency represents hope for a positive change.
From Gatestone, by Uzay Bulut:
On January 21, some women’s rights groups organized “Women’s Marches” in many cities across the Unites States and around the world. The rallies largely targeted recently-inaugurated U.S. President Donald Trump.
There were many speakers and participants. One, the actress Ashley Judd, read a poem in Washington D.C. that asked why “tampons are taxed when Viagra and Rogaine are not”.
As Ms. Judd talked about her devastating tragedy, thousands of Yazidi children and women were being forced into sexual slavery in Iraq and Syria at the hands of Islamic State (ISIS), and [made] available for purchase at sex-slave markets.
See our post, Who are/were the Yezidis, here. (The name can be transliterated as either “Yezidi” or “Yazidi”.)
ISIS attacked the Yazidi homeland of Shingal in Iraq on August 3, 2014; more than 9,000 Yazidis were killed, kidnapped, or sexually enslaved. Yazidis are a historically persecuted religious minority in the Middle East.
The Islamic State has institutionalized a culture of rape and sex-slavery. ISIS is waging a literal war against women. It has even published a “price list” of Yazidi and Christian girls – as young as one to nine years of age.
Picture via The Religion of Peace, where it is captioned:
The plight of Yazidi sex slaves and migrant rape victims was
overlooked by the recent “Women’s March” on Washington
– an ironic protest against Trump, partly for his views on
Sharia (which supports slavery) and Muslim migration.
Middle East scholar Raymond Ibrahim wrote about one Yazidi girl enslaved when she was 15 years old and endured months of captivity before she managed to escape:
I remember a man who looked at least 40 years old coming and taking a ten-year-old girl. When she resisted him, he beat her severely, using stones, and would have opened fire on her if she had not gone with him. Everything against her will. They used to come and buy the girls without a price, I mean, they used to tell us Yazidi girls, you are sabiya [spoils of war, sex slaves], you are kuffar [infidels], you are to be sold without a price,” meaning they had no base value. Some Yazidi girls were sold for a few packs of cigarettes. Every day I died 100 times over. Not just once. Every hour I died, every hour. … From the beating, from the misery, from the torture.
Mirza Ismail, founder and chairman of the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International, said in his speech at the U.S. Congress:
According to many escaped women and girls to whom I spoke in Northern Iraq, the abducted Yazidis, mostly women and children, number over 7,000. Some of those women and girls have had to watch 7-, 8-, and 9-year-old children bleed to death before their eyes, after being raped by ISIS militia multiple times a day. ISIS militias have burned many Yezidi girls alive for refusing to convert and marry ISIS men. Why? Because we are not Muslims …
In December 2015, reports disclosed that ISIS was selling Yazidi women and children in the southeastern city of Gaziantep (or Antep), Turkey. Gaziantep has come to be known for the widespread Islamic State activities in the city.
Turkey, it needs to be mentioned, is a member of NATO.
However, this and many other threats did not stop women’s rights defenders in Gaziantep from protesting the Turkish government’s inaction in the face of IS activities.
An activist from the group “Gaziantep Democratic Women’s Platform”, Fatma Keskintimur, read a statement to the press, which said in part:
That the jihadi gangs fighting in Syria has received the biggest support from Turkey and that the cell houses they use… [are] known by everybody. Given what kind of a danger this situation creates for those who live in Antep, the uneasiness of people is intensifying every day.
Even under these conditions, women’s rights defenders in Turkey — particularly Kurds — kept struggling and protesting the government.
Last year, for example, the “Yazidi Women’s Assembly” commemorated August 3rd as “the day of international action against massacres against women and genocide”. Members of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) organized protests in many cities across Turkey to condemn the Yazidi genocide and show solidarity with the victims.
Safak Ozanlı, a former MP from the HDP, said that ISIS still held 3,000 Yazidi women as sex slaves:
ISIS sees women in Shingal and Kobane as war booty. The women who remain alive are sold to Arab sheikhs. We – as women – will stand united against ISIS and all dictators.
Members of the Alevi religious minority also supported the protest in Mersin. Zeynep Kaya Cavus, a leading Alevi activist, said that the Yazidi women are “kidnapped and enslaved as war booty and exposed to systematic sexual assaults and this is genocide against women”.
There are a few Americans, too, who are doing their best to help Yazidis, such as Amy L. Beam, a human rights activist who has been living with and advocating for Yazidis full time since 2014. Her book The Last Yezidi Genocide, is to be published shortly, and she is the executive director of “Amy, Azadi and Jiyan” (AAJ — “Friend, Freedom, and Life”), a humanitarian organization in Iraqi Kurdistan.
From which this is quoted:
Thousands of Yezidis have a long list of dead or missing family members under ISIS control in Iraq or Syria. Their psychology is very bad as they see very little international help on the one-year anniversary of the attack. Yazidi girls and women with their children … are subjected to repeated beatings and rape by ISIS fighters who each was given one girl as a war trophy. …
“One wishes that the women activists in the U.S. would raise their voices against the genocidal attacks on Yazidi women and children. But they have not. Women’s rights groups in the U.S. have not supported the women in Iraq and Syria who really are oppressed, kidnapped, and raped,” Beam told Gatestone.
Some of the participants of the women’s march in Washington claim that Trump will “take away their rights” – an accusation that many women who suffer under Islamist governments or organizations would find laughable. They are worried about being able to get an abortion … But it is not ayatollahs that have come to power in the U.S. Moreover, Trump seems determined to fight radical Islamic terrorism, the greatest threat to the dignity and freedom of women all around the world. That already shows his commitment to liberty – especially liberty for women.
Radical Islamic ideology is a universal threat. Wherever it is weakened or defeated, this helps liberate victims in other parts of the world, as well.
To so many persecuted peoples in the Middle East, Trump’s presidency represents hope for a positive change.
On November 7, the Yezidi Human Rights Organization-International issued a public statement titled “Yezidis look forward to a Trump presidency to help them wipe out ISIS”.
A Yazidi woman in Iraq has recently named her newborn baby boy “Trump”.
The Women’s March … violated the core principle of human rights: “The worst first”.
Sadly, many of the organizers and participants of the march chose to stand by and ignore women being tortured and exterminated by Islamic terrorists, and in other parts of the world, not being able to receive an education or even leave the house without the permission of a male.
If only these women felt as motivated to protest about the enslavement, rape and torture of Yazidi women and children, as about the cost of tampons.
Acting like self-serving, delusional fanatics, whose sheer hatred of an elected president blinds their eyes to the real problems of the world, does not help anyone. There have been just as many people who might have hated other presidents.
Let us with our actions remind women in the Middle East that we take their plight to heart.
No feminist will ever do that. They are narrow-minded self-pitying persons who defend Islamic practices and sharia law when they are asked why they don’t speak up for the appalling treatment most Muslim women endure. They apparently don’t have the imagination, the character, the heart, or the intellect to take notice of what Islam is doing to Yezidi and Christian women.
American women are the most privileged group of people who have ever existed. Yet hundreds of thousands of them marched, the day after President Trump’s inauguration, to protest their fate! They invent complaints. They pretend they are victims.
They are despicable.
Darkness looms over us 116
In the picture above, an IS member unsheathes his sword as he prepares to behead an ancient Babylonian statue. His sheath is the Koran and the sword is covered with verses from the Koran. The caption states: “With this sword is civilization and humanity slaughtered.”
We quote Raymond Ibrahim, above and below:
The Daily Mail reports:
Islamic State thugs have destroyed a collection of priceless statues and sculptures in Iraq dating back thousands of years.
Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artwork as they rampaged through a museum in the northern city of Mosul.
Video footage shows a group of bearded men in the Nineveh Museum using tools to wreck 3,000-year-old statues after pushing them over.
Extremists used sledgehammers and power drills to smash ancient artifacts at a museum in the northern city of Mosul
Militant uses a power tool to destroy a winged-bull Assyrian protective deity at the Ninevah Museum in Mosul, Iraq. The statue dates back to the 9th century B.C.
A man shown in the video said the items were being destroyed because they promoted idolatry.
“The Prophet ordered us to get rid of statues and relics, and his companions did the same when they conquered countries after him,” the unidentified man said.
The articles destroyed appeared to come from an antiquities museum in the northern city of Mosul, which was overrun by Islamic State last June, a former employee at the museum told Reuters.
The extremist group has destroyed a number of shrines – including Muslim holy sites – in a bid to eliminate what it views as heresy.
Militants are also believed to have sold ancient artwork on the black market in order to finance their bloody campaign across the region.
ISIS destroy artifacts with sledgehammers at Mosul museum
Yesterday it was revealed how terrorists had blown up the Mosul Public Library, sending 10,000 books and more than 700 rare manuscripts up in flames.
Leading members of Mosul society reportedly tried to stop the fanatics destroying the building, but failed.
The director of the library, Ghanim al-Ta’an, said that the extremists used homemade bombs in the attack, which took place on Sunday.
He told Middle Eastern website Geran: “ISIS militants bombed the Mosul Public Library. They used improvised explosive devices.”
Presumed destroyed are the Central Library’s collection of Iraqi newspapers dating to the early 20th century, maps and books from the Ottoman Empire and book collections contributed by around 100 of Mosul’s establishment families.
Large segments of the priceless winged-bull Assyrian protective deity are hurled to the ground as militants smash it to pieces
Isis first invaded the Central Library in January. Residents say the extremists smashed the locks that had protected the biggest repository of learning in the northern Iraq town, and loaded around 2,000 books – including children’s stories, poetry, philosophy and tomes on sports, health, culture and science – into six pickup trucks. They left only Islamic texts.
“These books promote infidelity and call for disobeying Allah. So they will be burned,” a bearded militant in traditional Afghani two-piece clothing told residents, according to one man living nearby who spoke to The Associated Press.
The enlightened West is doing nothing to stop them.
“Our evening is over us; our night whelms, whelms and will end us.”
– Gerard Manley Hopkins: Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves. ( He was a Jesuit. But even so, a very good poet.)
Muslims are happy – okay? 13
This is from The Independent:
They are male and female, young and old, black, white and Asian, with hijab and without, but they are all Muslims. And they are all happy.
That’s the message of a new video which shows dozens of British Muslims dancing their hearts out, laughing, singing and smiling along to Pharrell Williams’ hit single “Happy”.
Produced by a group of young Muslims called Honesty Policy, the four-minute video is infectious and its unashamedly positive message has gone viral more than 300,000 hits (and rising) on YouTube this week. Just try and watch it without smiling – you’ll fail.
Aside from making you grin, the point of the video, according its creators, is to show that British Muslims are just as happy, eclectic, cosmopolitan, diverse, creative, fun and outgoing as anyone else. “This video was joining the global movement of happiness inspired by Pharrell,” the Honesty Policy group tells me in an email. “It’s part of something that we as Muslims could find ourselves relating to: happiness. We, too, are happy people, and we promote a message of happiness.”
Here are some more pictures of happy fun-loving Muslims, from Raymond Ibrahim’s website, Islam Translated:
In Idlib, northwest Syria, seven soldiers were recently captured by “rebel” forces. They were tortured and executed, by beheading, echoing Koran 47:4: “So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve [or “infidels”], then smite the necks [decapitate] until when you have overcome them… That is the command.”
Today [April 18, 2014], Al Hadath News published the following pictures of the aftermath, to document the atrocity — and the nature of the “rebellion,” so frequently portrayed in the West as a fight for “freedom and democracy.”
The silence of the shepherds 298
Are the Christian churches doing anything about the bloody, growing, relentless persecution of Christians in Arab and other Islamic countries?
No.
The Pope?
No.
The Archbishop of Canterbury?
No.
Some at least of the innumerable Christian denominations in America?
No.
The primates of the Russian Orthodox Church?
No.
Are priests and parsons at least preaching against it from their pulpits?
No report or even a rumor of any such sermon has reached our ears.
Why not, we wonder. And then we recall that Christians make a virtue out of being persecuted. But of retribution, judgment of the persecutors, stopping the evil – nothing. Maybe because their man-god, in a sermon on a mountain or a plain, reputedly enjoined them not to resist evil. Thus giving evil a completely free hand.
Surely the United States is doing something about it? At least objecting to it verbally?
No.
What about diplomats and churchmen in the countries where the persecution is happening?
Never! No Western diplomat would risk being caught criticizing anything Muslims do. And Middle Eastern churchmen, who cannot help noticing the dwindling numbers of their flocks and even hear cries in the endless night of their consciences, have found ingenious ways to blame Israel – ie the Jews. It’s an old tradition that they’re comfortable with.
Try Googling the subject. Dig hard and you’ll find some crumbs.
You’ll find Pakistani Christians have protested recently over the massacre of some 85 of their number, killed coming out of church by a couple of Muslim suicide bombers. Some of the protestors have since been beaten up by their Muslim neighbors for daring to complain.
And you can, if you search, find reports of thousands of Nigerian Christians being killed by Muslims in regular weekend raids – and on some week days too. The Muslims – who are passionately against literacy – cut up their victims with machetes and throw small children on to fires. (See also our posts: Christians murdered by Muslims, March 9, 2010; Muhammad’s command, March 30, 2010; Suffering children, May 11, 2011; Victims of religion, October 16, 2011; Acts of religion in Nigeria revisited, October 16, 2011; Christians slaughtered by Muslims in Nigeria, October 17, 2011; Boko Haram, the Muslim terrorists of Nigeria, November 10, 2011; More acts of religion in Nigeria, January 19, 2012; More Christians burnt to death by Muslims, July 11, 2013.)
What about those great humanitarians, the Communists, who fill Western universities and run a few countries? After all, the professed essence of their creed is concern for the underdog. But no, the butchery, the torture, the abduction of children – none of it bothers them. To their way of thinking, Christians can never be authentic underdogs. But all Muslims are, however rich and powerful many of them may be.
What about the media? At least the Christian media surely …?
Here’s a fine example from a Christian website. It starts off promisingly, but soon gets round to denying that the persecutions are due only to religious intolerance and explaining that the police who should protect Christians are unfortunately otherwise engaged; then seems to criticize Western Churches for find a Christian bright side to look on – the mistaken idea that converts can be won from among observers of the tortures and killings – but drops suddenly into pious reflections of its own.
I have been surprised that the media has actually covered many of the church burnings that have taken place. The reason that I am surprised is because in most of the uprisings and protests that have taken place throughout the Middle East, church burning and persecution of Christians has taken place without the media reporting on it. In Egypt’s case, the Muslim Brotherhood has used the crackdown on the protests as an opportunity to loot and burn churches and Christian businesses. The Daily Star, Lebanon’s English language newspaper said attacks on churches coincided with assaults on police stations, leaving most police “pinned down to defend their stations or reinforcing others rather than rushing to the rescue of Christians under attack”.
The reality is that the persecution in Egypt is just the most popular of a long list of these things happening currently all over the world. Statistics show that this year alone 163,000 people will die because of their faith. It is estimated that by 2025 that number could rise to 210,000 per year.
So they’re expecting a further increase in the productivity of this appalling industry? Is this an example of pessimism or optimism?
There is any number of reasons for persecution, and it is not just because of religious differences, although that usually plays a major role. Other reasons include politics, finances, anti-Western bias, and racism. Many times all of these issues are rolled up into one that supports the persecution taking place. There is also a disturbing myth among Western Christians that persecution causes the church to grow. In fact, since persecution in the country of Turkey began the percentage of Christians has dropped from 32% to 0.2%. Syria has seen a drop from 40% to 10%. Iran saw a drop of 15% to 2%. Persecution is something that will always be with the church and will even ramp up as the Great Commission comes to completion, but it is not good. Persecution is the result of a fallen world and a real enemy that must be fought against. This enemy is not flesh and blood, though, so our fight must take place in the heavenly realm through prayer.
Yeah, good idea. That always helps.
The atrocities that we are seeing on television should prompt us to fight the spiritual battle. We must first pray that God would be glorified. God is not surprised by what is taking place in Egypt. We need to pray that the believers and Christian workers there would have faith and use this as an opportunity to share the love of Christ with others. We also need to use this as motivation for ourselves individually to get better informed and learn about the persecuted church so that we would know how to pray. Lastly, I would challenge you to consider going to these places. There is nothing quite like a real, physical hug to encourage our brothers and sisters in Christ. It could be your visit and encouraging words that gives strength to the church to continue fighting the good fight.
So if prayer fails, a hug may do it.
There are a few honorable exceptions among journalists. Raymond Ibrahim, the Front Page Magazine columnist, and himself a Copt from Egypt, is keeping the record and writing regularly and fully about the subject. His articles are well worth reading.
And an atheist, Nat Hentoff, writes:
Largely absent from nearly all our sources of news and commentary is deep, continuing coverage, if any, of the horrifying massacres of Christians in Egypt and especially Syria and the burning down of their churches.
The world’s most prominent Christian, Pope Francis, has denounced the violence, but our media has mostly ignored him [on this subject] …
One of the few penetrating protesters of this violence is Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review:
For the first time in 1,600 years, they didn’t pray this past Sunday at the Virgin Mary and Anba Abraam monastery in a village in southern Egypt. Islamists firebombed and looted the monastery, which dates back to the fifth century. For good measure, they destroyed a church inside. They then announced that they would be converting the monastery into a mosque. (Egypt’s Anti-Christian Pogrom, Lowry, National Review, Aug. 20).
… And as for our president: “In his remarks after the bloodshed began in Egypt, President Barack Obama relegated his concern over the anti-Christian attacks to a three-word dependent clause at the end of one sentence.”
As for daily life in Egypt, Morning Star News reported that earlier this month, “a Coptic Christian girl walking home from a Bible class at her church was shot and killed … in Cairo by an unidentified gunman, human rights activists said.” The girl’s uncle, a church pastor, said “he didn’t know for sure if the shooting was religiously motivated but quickly added that violence against Christians ‘seems to be normal’ in Egypt now” (Coptic Christian Girl Shot Dead in Egypt, Morning Star News, Aug. 9).
Meanwhile in Syria, “the nation’s 2 million-plus Christians are caught in the middle of a Muslim war. Jihadist rebels threaten and kidnap them while coercing others to become Muslims. Government troops loyal to President Bashar Assad order them to fight the opposition or face death” (Christians are in the crosshairs of bloody Muslim wars in Mideast, Rowan Scarborough, the Washington Times, Aug. 1).
But in spite of all this, says John Hayward of Human Events, “the international community never seems terribly exercised about the persecution of Christian minorities. … The same advanced democracies that had agonized internal discussions about whether freedom of speech should be curtailed, in order to avoid offending Muslims, don’t seem particularly angry about the destruction of Coptic churches, and other Christian property. Egyptian mobs are targeting Christian property for destruction by writing Islamist graffiti on the walls.”
But, thankfully, there are still those who are angry and vocal about this violence toward Christians. One of these media commentators who persistently denounce the absence of sustained American outrage at this merciless pogrom is Michael Savage, host of the Cumulus Radio program “The Savage Nation”.
Meanwhile, in this democratic country, will our Congress’s cold indifference continue? And will the nation’s religious leaders and activists – not just Christians – be confronted by those they lead? Will they say something and try to save what’s left of those Christian minorities in Egypt and Syria? …
No.
As for the rest of us, are there any street demonstrations coming in front of the United Nations? Or does the very idea of insistent involvement from the U.N. – its reason for being – provoke anything but sardonic laughter at the prospect that its members will do anything lasting at all?
No.
A picture of Islam 38
This little girl was chained to a fence to watch her parents being killed.
The picture and the following text come from an article by Raymond Ibrahim at Front Page:
Days ago, [a] popular news outlet, Syrian Truth, posted a photo of a toddler living in the Deir ez-Zor Governate in eastern Syria, along the Iraq border, who was reportedly tied with chains to a fence [we can see that she is tied to a fence– ed] from where she witnessed the killing of her Shia mother and father at the hands of the Sunni jihadis making the ranks of the “Free Syrian Army.” [The rebel fighters Obama is sending military aid to – ed.] Syrian Truth correctly describes them as takfiris, that is, Muslims who, like al-Qaeda, accuse — and slaughter — other Muslims, in this case, Shias, for not being “true” Muslims.
We do not know what happened to the little girl the soldiers of Allah chained to the fence, but this picture shows what happened to a little girl of about the same age.
Barack Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood 246
Is this the ultimate secret about the Benghazi attack on 9/11/12 that Obama is trying to cover up?
A conspiracy is a part of it, and conspiracies are hard to plot if they involve many people; harder to carry out; and hardest of all to believe.
Yet the story is plausible.
Raymond Ibrahim reports:
According to a Libyan intelligence document, the Muslim Brotherhood, including Egyptian President Morsi, were involved in the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, where several Americans, including U.S. ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, were killed.
On Wednesday, June 26, several Arabic websites … quoted the intelligence report, which apparently was first leaked to the Kuwaiti paper, Al Ra’i. Prepared by Mahmoud Ibrahim Sharif, Director of National Security for Libya, the report is addressed to the nation’s Minister of Interior.
It discusses the preliminary findings of the investigation, specifically concerning an “Egyptian cell” which was involved in the consulate attack.
“Based on confessions derived from some of those arrested at the scene” six people, “all of them Egyptians” from the jihad group Ansar al-Sharia (“Supporters of Islamic Law”), were arrested.
According to the report, during interrogations, these Egyptian jihadi cell members “confessed to very serious and important information concerning the financial sources of the group and the planners of the event and the storming and burning of the U.S. consulate in Benghazi…. And among the more prominent figures whose names were mentioned by cell members during confessions were: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi; preacher Safwat Hegazi; Saudi businessman Mansour Kadasa, owner of the satellite station, Al-Nas; Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Hassan; former presidential candidate, Hazim Salih Abu Isma’il”.
The information that these particular people were involved in an anti-American action is not in itself surprising. All of them, including Mohamed Morsi, are known to be fanatical anti-American jihadists.
Prominent Brotherhood figure Safwat Hegazi … publicly declares the Brotherhood “will rule the world”; Saudi Mansour’s hate-mongering, pro-Brotherhood TV station repeatedly aired footage of the YouTube Muhammad movie inciting violence around the Muslim world; popular Sheikh Muhammad Hassan holds that smiling to non-Muslims is forbidden, except when trying to win them over to Islam; and Sheikh Hazim Abu Ismail is simply an openly anti-freedom, anti-infidel religious leader.
The report quotes a video which fell into the hands of “Libyan intelligence”. Was it made by one of the attackers? Or did it come from the US drone which was filming the incident? If the latter, its contents must be known to US intelligence. And if it is known to US intelligence, why hasn’t the American public been told about it?
As for President Morsi, a video made during the consulate attack records people speaking in the Egyptian dialect: as they approach the beleaguered U.S. compound, one of them yells to the besiegers, “Don’t shoot—Dr. Morsi sent us!”
Did Barack Obama, whose administration has taken great pains to keep facts about the Benghazi assault concealed, know that the Muslim Brotherhood was involved in the attack, perhaps from the very beginning by planning and financing it?
If Obama and his henchmen and henchwomen have known all along that the terrorist raid was a Muslim Brotherhood operation, would that be surprising?
The awful thing is, it should not be: not if it is seen in the context of Obama’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The following is a summary of an article by Clare Lopez (formerly of the CIA):
With the June 13, 2013 confirmation by senior Obama administration officials that the president has authorized sending weapons directly to Syrian rebels, the trend can no longer be ignored. This is the third country and the third instance in which Barack Obama has leapt into the fray of revolution to the defense of al-Qa’eda and Muslim Brotherhood forces within days of an explicit call for action by Yousef al-Qaradawi, the senior jurist of the Muslim Brotherhood. In each instance — Egypt, Libya, and now Syria — it is completely clear that the United States is backing people who hate it.
The U.S. leadership is deliberately and proactively enabling the self-declared forces of Islamic jihad and shariah, who make no secret of their enmity and loathing for the U.S. and Western civilization in general, to come to power in country after country of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
The results have been disastrous. … Strict shariah enforcement is spreading across the region. Since the fall of Qaddafi in October 2011, weapons have been flowing out of Libya in all directions, some of the weapons apparently with the active assistance of the former Benghazi U.S. mission, closed since the al-Qa’eda attack of 11 September 11, 2012.
According to a Libyan intelligence official, speaking to a reporter in a May 2013 interview, Libya has now become the main MENA base for Al-Qa’eda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Barack Obama has hugely helped the Muslim Brotherhood to achieve its terrible aims. And he is still doing so.
Arnold Ahlert writes at Front Page:
In yet another remarkable display of Obama’s determination to secure the Middle East for Islamofascists, 400 U.S. troops will reportedly be deployed to Egypt to augment the police force of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi. They will be part of a 13-country force stationed in Egypt in anticipation of protests, scheduled for June 30th, calling for the removal of Morsi. … [Having thrown] former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak under the bus in 2011, the White House is now eager to defend the regime of Morsi, who, like his Muslim Brotherhood sponsors, is well on his way to imposing the Saudi Arabian model of governance on Egypt. …
There is a burgeoning standoff between liberal secular Egyptians on one side, and dedicated Islamists on the other. One that could precipitate widespread violence in four days. And President Barack Obama has sent American troops to Egypt – to stand with the Islamists.
Adding to the spectacular absurdity …
We would say iniquity …
… of U.S. troops protecting Morsi’s thuggish regime – and by extension a Muslim Brotherhood that spawned al Qaeda and Hamas – is the reality that some of the troops deployed there come from the same military base where another Islamist, Maj. Nidal Hasan, killed 13 and wounded 32 of his fellow soldiers in 2009. That attack was labeled “workplace violence” …
rather than “terrorism in the name of Islam”, which it was.
As is often the case with the “most transparent administration in history”, the White House has maintained silence regarding American troops being deployed into a potential nation-wide firestorm. Egyptian military spokesman Ahmed Ali insists that media reports regarding the deployment are inaccurate and that American troops will be nothing more than part of “the periodical renewal routine for the US faction of the 13-state multinational force deployed in Sinai since the peace treaty”. He further insisted the MFO “is not armed with military operations gear”. …
In the meantime … Egyptians are stocking up on food, fuel and cash in anticipation of protests that “many fear will be the most violent and disruptive this year”. Furthermore, the U.S. embassy announced it would be closed on June 30, and warned Americans in Egypt to get enough supplies to make it through an “extended period of time”.
Last month, Secretary of State John Kerry released $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid to the Morsi regime, despite a law that requires him to certify that the Egyptian government “is supporting the transition to civilian government, including holding free and fair elections, implementing policies to protect freedom of expression, association and religion, and due process of law”. Kerry waived that restriction …
In the year since he has come to power, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has done virtually everything in his power to undermine a more inclusive democratic process and the strengthening of key democratic institutions. Yet the beat goes on for a president and an administration so desperate to maintain its Arab spring narrative, nothing remotely resembling reality intrudes.
The Muslim Brotherhood has deeply penetrated the US government, and exerts extraordinary influence on the Obama administration. For how such a deplorable state of affairs came to be, see this article, also by Clare Lopez.
If it is true that the raid on the US mission in Benghazi on 9/11/12 was planned and financed by the Muslim Brotherhood, and if Obama knew it was, and if he wants to see the Muslim Brotherhood achieve its objectives – as his actions towards it signal that he does – everything is explained: the refusal to provide adequate and reliable protection for the Ambassador; the refusal to allow US forces to go to his aid or the aid of the men fighting at the CIA annexe; the pretense that the armed assault grew spontaneously out of a protest demo; the failure to find any of the raiders and bring them to justice; the evasion of questions from Congress about what happened before, during and after the disaster, and why; the intense irritation of then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she was caught out in her lie about a movie-provoked demo …
But even if it proves to be true, is it an explanation that Americans could bring themselves to believe?
The current world war 251
A major religious war of conquest is being waged by Islam all over the world.
It is encountering no determined resistance by the Western powers.
The only battlefield where forces of the West fought back was Afghanistan, but there the West, led by the United States’ which has the mightiest military force on earth, gave up trying to win, and has unspokenly but in effect conceded victory to the savage hordes of Islam.
The information and quotations below come from two articles at the website of Raymond Ibrahim: here from an article by Ibrahim himself about the war on Christians wherever Islam rules, and here from another by Enza Ferreri on how the West is being subverted by Islam with a new kind of colonization – and how one man is showing a way to resist it.
First, the religious war waged by Muslims on Christians.
We summarize:
A mass exodus of Christians is currently underway. Millions of Christians are being displaced from one end of the Islamic world to the other. In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain.
In Egypt, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their homeland soon after the “Arab Spring”.
In Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as 200,000 Christians fled. According to reports, “the church in Mali faces being eradicated”.
In Bosnia, Christians are leaving en masse amid mounting discrimination and Islamization. Only 440,000 Catholics remain in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure.
That is the result of President Clinton’s sacrifice of American lives when under his leadership the West allied with Islam to fight the battles of the 1990s.
In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, thousands of Christians were forced to leave their homes homes when “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”
In the Ivory Coast — where Christians have been crucified — Islamic rebels massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands of Christians.
In Libya, Islamic rebels forced Christian nun orders to flee.
In Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where nary a Sunday passes without a church bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one region has been emptied of 95% of its Christian population.
In Pakistan, after a Christian child was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran, Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage.
In Somalia, where Christianity is completely outlawed, Muslim converts to Christianity are fleeing to neighboring nations, including Kenya and Ethiopia, sometimes to be tracked down and executed.
In Sudan, over half a million people, mostly Christian, have been stripped of citizenship in response to the South’s secession, and forced to relocate.
Now as the U.S. supports the jihad on secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived centuries before Islam came into being have been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away. In October 2012 the last Christian in the city of Homs — which had a Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis came — was murdered.
Next, how Islam is colonizing the West – for example, Britain:
Here one man is fighting back. The story shows how easily Islam can be defeated where there’s a will to do so. But it must be noted that throughout most of the West there is no such will. Most western European countries have capitulated, preferring to punish anyone who objects to the vicious ideology of Islam and Muslim encroachment on his native territory, rather than to resist the appalling conqueror. And the United States has elected a leader whose administration positively helps the advance of Islam.
“We don’t debate unprofessional councillors, unprincipled journalists, and self-righteous community organizers; we turn the tables on them”: this is how British planning lawyer Gavin Boby, also known as the “mosque buster”, describes the activity of his organization, the Law And Freedom Foundation.
He uses the law to stop the building of mosques in the UK by demonstrating to local councils that the building of a mosque or an Islamic centre is actually in violation of British law. And he succeeds: the count so far is 16 victories out of 17 cases.
Gavin Boby is a 48-year-old planning lawyer from Bristol, South-West England. He deals with planning permissions or zoning permissions.
00Like many other people in Britain, for almost 10 years Boby had witnessed the progressive penetration of Islam in his country, but like many other people he watched idly not knowing what to do about it.
It was the same feeling of impotence that most of us shared. But then, a couple of years ago, he had this idea. Many mosques disrupt neighbourhoods and drive out long-time residents. … Why not use his legal skills to help local communities resist planning applications for mosques? …
This is very topical in light of the recent revelations that the Boston bombers’ mosque “has been associated with other terrorism suspects, has invited radical speakers to a sister mosque in Boston and is affiliated with a Muslim group that critics say nurses grievances that can lead to extremism”, has classic jihadi texts in its library, and gave money to two terrorist charities which have been shut down by the U.S. government. But then again, when is something about the violent nature of Islam not topical these days?
… What are mosques? As we know, mosques are not like churches or synagogues, they are far more than houses of worship and contemplation, many of them are centres of jihadist activity that indoctrinate to commit and support violence against infidels. In America, as many as 4 different studies have independently come to the same conclusion that 80 per cent of US mosques “were teaching jihad, Islamic supremacism, and hatred and contempt for Jews and Christians”.
The Law And Freedom Foundation website declares: “A mosque is not merely a place of worship. Islamic doctrine requires the application of Islamic law within its geographical reach.”
We can see the truth of that in London. It is no coincidence that sharia-law areas or self-declared Muslim areas with Muslim patrols acting like vigilantes in cities like London are near mosques. We are increasingly seeing Muslim patrols in the proximity of mosques saying to passers-by that they can’t walk a dog, wear a skirt, drink alcohol.
… Gavin Boby explains that mosques are being used as the bridgehead, the forefront of the advance of Islam in a territory.
What happens in neighbourhoods – usually working class districts which are not used to dealing with officialdom – where a mosque is built is that the area changes forever for its residents, who no longer recognize it and eventually have to move out, due to things like the parking jihad, general harassment, vandalism.
“The parking jihad is” he describes, “soon after the construction of a mosque, people will find no parking space there, their driveway is being blocked or even a car is parked in the driveway inside your property and if you ask them to move their car they’ll say it’s only for an hour.” The parking tends to be used as a way to establish possession and control over the area, of saying: ”This is a mosque area, we are the owners now and there’s nothing you can do about it”, and then after that it gets worse until the point when people move out. …
The mosque is not simply a building of worship but also a political one …
Every mosque is instructed to be based upon the original mosque in Medina, where Muhammad originally in the 7th century set up his religious-political doctrine of social control, and the mosque is a place of government, it is a place where treaties are made, death sentences are passed, armies are blessed and dispatched, it is primarily about political control and it is very much used as a tool of advance.
So, this is the why of the Law And Freedom Foundation’s operation. Now let’s see the how.
Gavin works pro bono as a planning lawyer for anyone wishing to fight the erection of a mosque. He says:
“The method is very simple. A planning application gets submitted for a mosque in an area, and it will never be called a ‘mosque’. It will be called a community centre; an inter-faith centre; a public community, harmony-building outreach centre, and then the neighbours contact us, and it’s usually people who have never been involved in politics before, are shy of politics and officialdom and ask us to help them to resist it. And that’s what we do, we help them to simply use established methods of consultation to tell the local authorities: ‘We object to this proposal because of the effect it will have on the neighbourhood, the effect on parking, the effect on noise, the effect on disturbance, the architectural effect, the effect of concentrations of people generally, the amenity for residents.’ …”
That has proved to be a successful method of mosque busting. But Gavin Boby does more than that:
The second approach … goes more to the core of what Islam is. [His] organization’s website states: ”Also, it is hard to see how a Local Authority has the power to grant planning permission for a mosque, since the purpose of a mosque is to promote a doctrine that incites killing, enslavement and war.” …
He advises his clients: “Don’t focus on the religious and political aspects, focus on the technical ones, but what we are doing is trying to stop the area from being Islamized.” But the two issues, i.e. the political question and the concern about community safety, are in fact indissolubly interconnected; he acts from knowledge of the intimidation and violence that the mosques regularly bring with them.
He observes that mosques are increasingly being built in the UK in numbers which are disproportionate to the need for them, and often in areas with hardly any Muslim population. …
Boby has become a household name in the counterjihad movement, and others outside the UK are following his example, like Geert Wilders in Holland, whose party recently launched the “MoskNee” (“MosqueNo”) project. …
He was also invited to speak in Ottawa, Canada by the organization Act for Canada, which points out that the University of Alberta’s former Chair in Islamic Studies explained how the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood Hassan al-Banna hoped to change “the status of the Mosque, bringing it from a static place of worship to a center of Islamic revolution”, while Youssef Qaradawi, unconditionally endorsed by leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood operating in Canada, wrote: “It must be the role of the mosque to guide the public policy of a nation, raise awareness of critical issues, and reveal its enemies. From ancient times the mosque has had a role in urging jihad for the sake of Allah“. …
In August/September 2012 Mr Boby toured Australia on invitation of the Q Society of Australia. … Many Australians did not know that in their country there are already over 340 mosques and Islamic prayer rooms, many of which are rooms in once secular public buildings and public spaces.
As can be expected, there is controversy and attempts to stop this mosque-busting lawyer from giving speeches wherever they are scheduled, and he has been vilified by the mass media.
Of course he would be vilified, since the media throughout the West are predominantly on the Left, and the Left refuses to see Islam as the advancing menace that it is.
Beaters beaten 3
It is seldom that a news story from the Arab Muslim world has a happy ending. Here’s one that has. The bad guys get what they deserve.
Raymond Ibrahim reports:
Members of the Islamic group “Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” in Suez, Egypt … took to whipping an Egyptian woman … because of her clothing — only to receive a sound thrashing at the hands of the citizens of Suez.
This is how they looked when justice had been done.
The curse of religion 47
No religion can argue with any other religion about the truth of its doctrine because none can prove its truth. There’s no point in opposing one irrationality with another irrationality.
There’s little enough point in anyone’s trying to reason with the religious, since they haven’t come to their beliefs by reason.
The logic of any religious belief can only be that any other religious belief is wrong. To pretend otherwise is foolish. If a person of some particular faith says that other faiths are also true and that he respects them equally with his own, he’s either lying or he’s an idiot. Why does he believe what he believes if all other faiths are equally true? Perhaps only because his daddy told him to – the amazing excuse that the otherwise really impressive and amusing philosopher Kierkegaard gives for believing in (a personalized version of) Christianity.
There can be no wonder that Christians and Jews who live in Muslim lands are persecuted. The Muslim faith includes commandments to make life hell for Christians and Jews, by taxing them exorbitantly and murdering them at will.
The same must be said about Jews living in the old Christian lands. Christians were terrible persecutors, almost every branch of the Christian Church as intolerant and cruel as every other, until in very recent times – since the Second World War – Christianity began to bore most people in the West.
The ancient Jews, according to their own mythology, were intensely intolerant – far more than were the Greek and Roman pagans. What’s remarkable is that in the modern Jewish state, Christians and Muslims are not persecuted. (No, despite the propaganda, Muslims are NOT persecuted in Israel in any way whatsoever, and that eccentric break with custom is an historical anomaly, bound to irritate world opinion.)
Of course we sympathize with the unjustly persecuted, even though we think they should know it’s coming to them; and, in the case of Christians, even though their own doctrine reveres suffering.
This is from Front Page, by Raymond Ibrahim:
No matter how violent or ugly, no matter how many Islamic slogans are shrieked — thus placing their behavior in a purely Islamic context — Muslim violence against the West and Israel will always be dismissed as a product of the weak and outnumbered status of Muslims — their status as underdogs, which the West tends to romanticize. …
They may be screaming and rioting, firing rockets and destroying property — all while calling for the death and destruction of the “infidel” West and/or Israel to cries of “Allahu Akbar!” Still, no problem. According to the aforementioned array of pundits, apologists, academics, and politicians, such bloodlust is a natural byproduct of the frustration Muslims feel as an oppressed minority, “rightfully” angry with the “colonial” West and its Israeli proxy.
Indeed, that is precisely how even the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. by al-Qaeda were rationalized away by many “experts” — even as al-Qaeda’s own words exposed their animus as a direct product of Muslim doctrine not temporal grievances.
Most recently, the New York Times, in the context of the rocket attacks on Tel Aviv, asserted that Israel “needs a different approach to Hamas and the Palestinians based more on acknowledging historic grievances,” thus taking all blame off the “aggrieved” and “underdog” Muslims and Palestinians.
But if Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those currently stronger than them, how does one rationalize away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them, those who have no political influence whatsoever? Consider the most obvious of these scenarios, the growing epidemic of Muslim persecution of Christians. From one end of the Islamic world to the other — whether in Arab lands, African lands, Asian lands, or Sinic lands, wherever Muslims are a majority — the largest non-Muslim religious group, Christians, suffer untold atrocities.
These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute. The only problem is that they are Christian—they are the other—and so must be subjugated, according to Sharia’s position for all “others,” for all infidels—including Israel and the West.
Such is the true nature of Muslim rage throughout the world: it is a byproduct of doctrinal intolerance if not downright hatred for the other, who must always be kept in a state of subjugation and humiliation, according to the letter of the Quran. …
Consider: Christians and Jews are both constantly castigated in the Quran: Muslims are admonished not to befriend either of them (5:51) and to fight and subjugate them “until they pay tribute with willing submission and feel themselves brought low” (9:29). Christians under Islam are suffering accordingly—as despised dhimmis, abused and “brought low,” routinely plundered of their lives, dignity, and possessions.
[But] Israel — the dhimmi that got away—actually has authority and power over Muslims. Now, if dhimmis are supposed to be kept in total submission to Muslims, how then when one of them actually lords it over Muslims? Hence Islam’s immense and existential rage against the Jewish state.
It could hardly be more obvious that if organized religion were to be universally abandoned, a major cause of human strife and misery would be removed. Which isn’t to say that strife and misery would cease. There will always be a rich store of other causes. But few as superfluous and absurd as religion.
In the light of all this, the efforts of some non-Muslim believers to make peace between religions, to bring sweetness and light where there there has always inevitably been hatred, fury, disgust and fear, strikes us as a particularly futile endeavor. It can only be attempted by clergymen keeping themselves in the rankest ignorance of what “the other’s” faith teaches.
This is also from Front Page, by Hillel Zaremba, who has become understandably exasperated with such efforts:
While it is all well and good to encourage the commonalities that unite Americans of all faiths –
What commonalities would those be, we wonder? We’ve not been able to discover any (unless secular values and loyalties are meant).
– it is equally important to inquire into the bona fides of organizations that only claim to promote tolerance. Philadelphia presents a sorry but enlightening example of how groups whose agendas directly challenge American values get a free pass from the interfaith establishment due largely to the firmly held belief that “diverse” (and disquieting) viewpoints must be respected — as long as they are Muslim.
A prime example of this is the Mayor’s Office of Faith-based Initiatives (MOFI), “the primary liaison between the Office of the Mayor and Philadelphia’s diverse communities of faith and their leaders.” Despite being provided with evidence of the U.S. government’s case against one of its partners, the terror-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the office’s interim director, Reverend Malcolm Byrd, declared: “We will engage with CAIR. … We don’t have to endorse you to work with you.” After reviewing the evidence, MOFI decided to maintain the relationship. According to this twisted logic, MOFI [welcomes] the Nation of Islam, whose leader Louis Farrakhan unabashedly declares Jews to be part of “the Synagogue of Satan.”
A similar approach is exhibited by the Interfaith Center of Greater Philadelphia (ICGP), “dedicated to interreligious dialogue, education, and community building.” It seemed reasonable to assume that the organization would want to vet its members to some degree, to be sure they truly embrace tolerance and respect for diversity. The ICGP … soon disabused us of that notion.
By ignoring the ideologies held by Muslim groups, the ICGP and others afford cover for those whose beliefs would otherwise be abhorrent to them, like the Villanova-based Foundation for Islamic Education (FIE) … [whose] leaders and faculty have sanctioned suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, defended the execution of Muslims who convert out of their faith, and threatened Copts for questioning the Qur’an. …
Another Walk congregation is the Quba Institute (QI), aka the “International Muslim Brotherhood, Inc.” (IMB). … According to QI’s old website … the IMB “forged partnerships with the Muslim Student Associations [MSA] of local Universities” in the late 1960s, an organization identified by federal investigators as subscribing to the goal of teaching Muslims “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.”
This interfaith partner has hosted major Brotherhood ideologues … An older version of the mosque’s website referenced the congregation’s core principles [as] including a commitment to U.S. law and rejection of terrorism … with one important caveat: armed jihad is permitted “in the context of self-defense or guarding the sacred, holy lands of Islam.” This is the same rationale used by Hamas to target Israel since it considers the entire state’s territory to be sacred to Islam. Bin Laden similarly justified his attacks against the U.S. in this way, viewing any American presence in Islamic lands as a form of infidel “occupation.” …
Interfaith organizations ought to, at the very least, probe the statements and associations of their constituent members or facilitate others’ attempts to do so.
The same admonition should be heeded by the Religious Leaders Council of Greater Philadelphia (RLCGP), another interfaith group which includes important Christian and non-Christian clergy, such as the archbishop of Philadelphia, the head of the Southeastern PA Lutheran Synod, the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania … , [and which] welcomes into its fellowship … Imam Isa Abdulmateen …. [who has said]:
“Today, Arabs, Pakistanis… and other immigrants use the Qur’an [and] they tell us “Islam means peace” because they are afraid to upset the status quo, so we abandon jihad. … Our great leaders have become tame after 9/11. … When black men think of homos we think of weak, effeminate, flaming fags who disgust our sensibilities but are relatively harmless to all except themselves. Wrong! Homosexuality for whites is their heritage. … For blacks, homosexuality is crippling. … A black homosexual will never support revolution against the capitalist, racist republic because the capitalist, racist republic protects his homosexual lifestyle. …”
… What is particularly maddening is that key players in these interfaith groups were presented with this information and the best they could muster was a vague assurance that they would look into it.
The moral bankruptcy at the heart of such feel-good organizations is clearly on display. Like their fellow travelers in government and the mainstream media who ignore all available evidence, the collegial world of interfaith do-gooders burnish the credentials of bad actors, in an increasingly one-sided sense of tolerance, embracing the very haters they would otherwise oppose.
Our advice to all these feel-good organizations is, give it up. Interfaith dialogue never has, never will, never can achieve anything worth achieving.
And don’t say that ignorance of this or that faith breeds intolerance of it. The more a reasonable person knows about any religion, the less tolerable he is sure to find it.