The jihad against Egypt's Copts

Worried

It's not the Jews, so everyone turns a blind eye.

A Different View

Muslims acting as human shields to defend Coptic Christmas. Time to build a better world...
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/95/3216/Egypt/Attack-on-Egypt-Copts/Egypt-Muslims-to-act-as-human-shields-at-Coptic-Ch.aspx

J D Bryan

It gets evermore alarming.

David Lindsay

That would be our dear friend Egypt, like our dear friend Israel, our dear friend Pakistan, our dear friend Turkey, our dear friend the new Iraq, and our dear friend the Saudi-funded side in Lebanon.

Not to be confused with wicked Iran (reserved parliamentary seats for Armenians and Assyrians, as well as for Jews), wicked Syria (Christian-majority provinces, and Christian festivals as public holidays), wicked Palestine east of the Jordan for the time being (more reserved Christian seats), the wicked other side in Lebanon (allied to numerous Christian parties, prayed for in Catholic and Orthodox churches, and engaged in restoring Beirut’s historic synagogue), and the wicked old Iraq.

Of course.

Jason in AZ

Melanie, I wouldn't pity the Copts. Even though they are unquestionably the target of Muslim violence, who do they hate: Jews.

The Coptic Pope is openly anti-semitic. In July 2008, he told Egypt’s Al-Ahram newspaper:

"Jews are a cursed people who have their hands indulged in the blood of Palestinians."

He also forbade all Copts from visiting Jerusalem as long as it “remains occupied,” meaning as long as there are Jews there. So why should Jews be supportive of folks like these?

Nosmo3

To David Lindsay

From 'The Times' today:

*

‘They slapped me and asked about Christian churches’

More than 70 Christians have been arrested in Iran since Christmas in a new wave of persecution by the regime in Tehran....

Emmet Sweeney

To Jason in AZ. Because the Coptic Pope - and presumably much of the Coptic population of Egypt - have been misled by generations of anti-Semitic propaganda from the Egyptian media, does not excuse this holocaust. Your views are narrow and foolish.

Reuven

As usual, Melanie, you are spot on!

Outside the narrative

@ A Different View

Isn't weird that Mel left that out? Can't be having interfaith solidarity ruining the agenda though can we.

Bewick

The Egyptian Copts (once the majority in Egypt) bravely choose to self identify with their green cross tattoo.
In Muslim history "infidels", apart from being 2nd class citizens, were ordered to wear certain colours (not green) to distinguish them from Muslims. They were also required to pay the jizya - a poll tax on unbelievers. Hitler used such tactics no doubt aided by the Mufti.
In parts of Pakistan Hindus have been ordered to wear a red distinguishing mark and Sikhs ordered to pay jizya on pain of death.
Islam proselytizes everywhere but bans proselytizing by any other religion - even in Birmingham UK. Churches are banned in Saudi Arabia and seriously restricted in other Muslim areas. In the meantime we allow the building of mosques - "our barracks" according to Erdogan - anywhere.
"Blasphemy" against Islam is a capital offence in Pakistan but is allowed daily here against the religion of the natives. In Pakistan "blasphemy" appears to be in the eye of the beholder

Time for some serious reciprocity?

David Lindsay

Nosmo3, I haven't seen the report, but there'll be more to it than that. I'll bet you anything that these are, or are closely associated with, the sort of Bush/Palin-loving American missionaries who think that their own political and cultural position is the sum total of Christianity, who think that there are no Christians in the Middle East (or anywhere outside America, really), and who would not count the ones that there are even if they knew about them. The facts of the Iranian parliamentary system are the facts of the Iranian parliamentary system.

Look at the news from Lebanon. The initial resignations from the Lebanese Cabinet were read out by Jibran Bassil of the Maronite-based Free Patriotic Movement at the Rabiyeh residence of none other than Michel Aoun. The other signatories did indeed include Mohamad Fneish and Hussein Hajj Hasan of Hezbollah, as well as Mohamad Jawad Khalife, Ali Shami and Ali Abduallah of Amal Movement, although it is worth pointing out that Amal was partly founded by the then Melkite Archbishop of Beirut.

But the rest were Charbel Nahhas and Fadi Abboud of Free Patriotic Movement, Abraham Dadayan of the solidly Armenian Tashnaq, and Youssef Saade of Marada, which is no less Maronite than its name suggests. The Government's fate was sealed by the resignation of State Minister Adnan Sayyed Hussein, obviously a Muslim himself, but who had been named by President Michel Suleiman, the occupant of whose office has to be a Maronite.

By contrast, the other side is bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, whence came the 9/11 attacks and which Jews are forbidden to enter, in stark contrast with their reserved parliamentary representation in certain other countries. Guess which side is busily restoring Beirut's historic Maghen Avraham synagogue, a project which would be preposterously profligate if there really were as few Jews left there as certain interests would have one believe.

Fran

Well said Melanie. The systematic persecution of Christians all over the Muslim and Communist world is routinely ignored by Western Media, for whom Christianity is anathema.

Drakken

Well Dave Lindsey,
As we in the states say, that dog don't hunt. Your wishful thinking and pie in the sky propaghanda just isn't going to work anymore. That kubuke theater of arab politics is all smoke and mirrors and like a good little dhimmi you fall for it every time. Please do tell me how that works out for you.

Drakken

I am worried about A different View falling for nonsense he is so hard trying to believe, you know what they say about wishful think righ?

Augustus

The campaign against Copts is old, and in recent decades has turned increasingly ugly. While immams regularly pillory Copts from their pulpits the conduct of the Egyptian government in protecting minorities has been shameful. Islamists, it appears, are determined to drive Christians and other minorities out of the greater ME
through pogroms and intimidation. Those remaining must meekly submit to their degraded dhimmi status. The evil of the New Year's Day bombing of the Coptic church in Alexandria is as transparent as daylight. It highlights the systematic strangulation by Islamists - at war with reason, freedom and democracy - of what remains of a civilization that
once, long ago, did inspire people to make their world admirable and beautiful.

Graeme Thompson

Yes indeed. It is a national scandal that His Grace The Archbishop of Canterbury is mute on Christian persecution by Islamists and vocal in advocating Sharia Law and downplaying the threat of Islamist terrorism at home. If the BBC wasn't a plaything of the subversive left it would be a major debating issue.

Derek BLADES

@ Jason

I hink you have misunderstood the message. We are supposed to feel dislike of the Egyptians rather than sympathy with the Copts.

David Lindsay

Well, Drakken, you obviously have no idea what a Melkite, a Maronite, an Assyrian (they are in the Bible, but their history does not stop there) or an Armenian is. To name but a few. Enjoy continuing to vote for Saudi proxies. "Dhimmi"? Did someone say "dhimmi"?

Rumour (it is no more than that) has it that the Christian leaders in the Holy Land plan to place any unulaterally declared Palestinian State under the protection of the world's Christian monarchs and their peoples, and that the Palestinian Authority is planning to erect a memorial to the British victims of the Zionist terrorists, to be blessed by Catholic and Anglican leaders in full view of the BBC, and with the Royal Family invited to send a wreath-layer. But, as I say, only rumour. For now. Still, Ramallah's Officer Cadets are already passing out of Sandhurst with "Palestine" given as their country. Commonwealth membership? Now, there's a thought...

I want to know who told Sarah Palin the term "blood libel", which it is hardly as if she would already have known. The answer to that would be the answer to an awful lot.

Celato

Bewick:

I can't tell if you are being ironic or 'morally confused' in posing your rhetorical (?) question.

'Time for some serious reciprocity?' you ask, having listed a host of repressive measures and abuses.

If the answer you seem to be inviting is 'yes', I can only suppose you see nothing intrinsically wrong about marking out, taxing, banning and killing people of different religions from your own - it's just when THEY do these things that your moral wrath is ignited.

Sorry if I've got you wrong - please put me straight if that's the case.

C. Gee

Derek BLADES
January 14th, 2011 11:36am:

Egyptians include Copts.

Derek BLADES

Drakken. You sound a well informed fellow so I am sure you know that in the Arab World Christianity is generally associated with the West. As long as the West continues to support the Israeli's mindless brutality against their Arab neighbours, Christians throughout the region will continue to be at risk. Now there's a dog that do hunt. Run with it Drakken and you might learn something.

Adam B.

Antisemitism and the murder of Copts is everyone's fault except those perpertrating such acts, it seems.

A classic example of the world turned upside down.

Celato

Adam B:

Quite right - that IS classic upside-down thinking.

But the same standard needs to be applied all round. So when (for example) Israeli soldiers deliberately target civilian areas, knowing that among those who will die are children, don't blame Hamas, or Islam, or some guy who 'started it' - those ordering and carrying out the attack are the ones who ultimately bear responsibility for the death toll.

C.Gee

"So when (for example) Israeli soldiers deliberately target civilian areas..." Do not read on. You are on the precipice of an intellectual chasm.

Derek BLADES

C.Gee warns anyone reading Celato's latest comment to stop when they get to "So when (for example) Israeli soldiers deliberately target civilian areas..." He thinks they risk falling into an "intellectual chasm" (Is this serious. Ed) if they carry on reading.

If they have the courage to do so, far from falling into a chasm of any kind, they will stumble on a rather profound truth. In Celato's words "...those ordering and carrying out the attack are the ones who ultimately bear responsibility for the death toll."

Well said Celato. Pleased don't go a way. Ordinary decency and common sense are in short supply around here.

Adam B.

celato, Israel does not deliberately target civilians. It is a war crime that Hamas and Hizbollah both fire from inside civilian population centres - and that bot terror groups target civilians deliberately.

I am glad that you reject Blades' moral inversion.

Adam B.

Blades, you don't seem to realize that celato has rejected your moral inversion.

Celato

Adam B:

I'm afraid it's you - and not Derek Blades - who misunderstands my moral position here.

Israel may not 'deliberately' set out to kill civilians in the sense of declaring, 'killing civilians is our primary aim'.

But it does KNOWINGLY target civilians, which comes to the same thing.

Israel tries to justify itself along roughly these lines:

Hamas terrorists are firing rockets at our people and we are obliged to defend ourselves by killing those terrorists. They are ensconced in densely-populated civilian areas, so we have no option but to kill civilians. We know - as a matter of absolute certainty - that innocent people, including many children, will be lying in their beds when this bomb we drop directly on them explodes.

But we have no choice. We HAVE to kill those civilians, and because we have to, we WILL.

The only trouble with this argument is that it is predicated on the idea of 'no choice'. And that is simply not true.

Israel no more 'has' to bomb Gaza civilians than Hamas 'has' to fire rockets on Israeli citizens.

Both sides DECIDE what best serves their purposes - what targets (if any) will be chosen, what kind of weaponry (if any) will be used, what duration and density of action will be employed, etc, etc.

Both, in other words, are acting with 'deliberation' when civilians are knowingly targeted, and both must be judged accordingly on this score.

Derek BLADES

Adam B.

I made what I think is the common sense point that knee-jerk support by the Christian West for Israel's wars on its neighbours puts Christian communities at risk throughout the Middle East. Nothing I have said could possibly be interpreted as excusing the Arab extremists who attacked the Coptic worshippers in Egypt and to suggest that I am doing so is simply potty. You will see that the Egyptian government is providing increased protection for the Copts and the culprits are being vigorously hunted and prosecuted. That is at it should be.

Adam B.

Blades

You have blamed antisemitism on Israel and attacks on Copts again, on Israel.

It is invidious and morally repugnant to blame the victim for the bigotry and violence visited on them.

It is nothing short of shameful. And celato, you should say so too.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Celato: "Both sides DECIDE what best serves their purposes - what targets (if any) will be chosen, what kind of weaponry (if any) will be used, what duration and density of action will be employed, etc, etc.

Both, in other words, are acting with 'deliberation' when civilians are knowingly targeted, and both must be judged accordingly on this score."

Your paltry attempts and verbal sleight of hand does you a disservice, Gelato.

The difference between Hamas and Israel - in the context of civilians is this:

Hamas deliberately targets civilians and the clerics who inspire its moral raison' d'etre explicitly sanction, encourage and glorify the fact - to be sure, as long as those targets are Jews....anywhere..and even if the killiers are female suicided bombers. Killing civilians - Jewish ones - is a core aim of their jihad.

Israel does not deliberately target civilians and killing civilians are not their aim at all. You are a liar by saying so.

You can say that Britain and nazi germany were one and the same - with interchangeable aims..smple because: "Both sides DECIDE what best serves their purposes - what targets (if any) will be chosen, what kind of weaponry (if any) will be used, what duration and density of action will be employed, etc, etc."

Now, go to the back of the class. Put your hands on your head a..and recite, 3000 times : 'the ploughman homeward plods his weary way".

Celato

JOHN ROOSEVELT:

Would you agree that when the Nazis bombed London and Coventry they were deliberately targeting civilians?

Now would you agree that when the Allies bombed Cologne and Hiroshima they were deliberately targeting civilians?

And now would you agree that when Israel bombed Gaza City in 'Operation Cast Lead' it was deliberately targeting civilians?

If you can agree to just so much, I am prepared to take on board all the arguments you may have as to why the Allies and Israel were morally justified, while the Nazis were not, but if you still can't accept that 'deliberation' was involved in all three cases, I'm afraid there's no basis at all for further discussion.

Adam B.

No celato, you are wrong. The tactics used by both the Allies and the Luftwaffe was carpet bombing. Indeed, the Luftwaffe developed the technique of approaching the target from one direction, then another, filling in every gap.

Israel did no such thing in Gaza. If it had, there wouldn't be a building left standing. In addition, you should look at Hamas' recent admission that more than 700 of the dead were indeed Hamas combatants - over 50%. That is unheard of in modern warfare - compare the Allies record in Afghanistan or Iraq - where there have been far higher proportions of civilains killed (even though they are not specifically targeted).

By the way, are you happy with Blades' moral inversion?

Adam B.

Celato? Still thinking?