Canary In The Coal Mine

No Country for Old Incumbents by Daniel Greenfield

by Daniel Greenfield  |  SultanKnish.Blogspot.com  |  June 2, 2012

 

A storm is not a good time to be at the wheel of a ship and a worldwide economic disaster is not a good time to be at the wheel of the ship of state. Hard times are supposed to bring great men to the fore, but instead we have some of the sorriest men in history trying to find the wheel, sleeping off a bender in their cabins or debating whether a wheel even exists.

Obama is bad, but he's not exactly up against rival statesmen. After parading around with a one-man cult of personality, launching international projects with no purpose, and displaying all the symptoms of a Napoleon complex, without a world famous conqueror in sight, Sarkozy's only reelection platform was that the alternative to him would be worse. He was right. But you can hardly blame quite a few Frenchmen and Frenchwomen who stayed home, rather than hold their noses and vote for him.

In the UK, Cameron cut the military and launched a war. Labour's career idiot, Ed Milband, now has a higher approval rating than the Prime Minister. Cameron has the same reelection platform as Sarkozy and he's also right, but that won't help him when the public gets the chance to cast their vote. And the vote will be the international refrain, translated many ways in many languages, but that always means, "Throw out the bums."

Russia has become a virtual armed camp for the sole purpose of keeping Putin in power. The man who successfully set up his own Stalinesque cult of personality, now has to use extraordinary measures to protect himself from his own people, who don't care so much that he stole the election, but who are sick and tired of the spectacle of Vladimir and his ten-thousand good friends from the Committee for State Security, better known by three ominous letters, gorging themselves on the best things in life while everyone else suffers.

China's rulers should be paying careful attention to Moscow. If the express train of Western exports ever falters, what they will face will make Tiananmen Square look like a fond memory. The Princes of the PRC won't be up against a bunch of idealistic students, but the farmers whose land they stole, the workers whose children they killed and that rising middle-class which tasted prosperity only to have it snatched away. If that day comes, they won't be stopped by tanks, and the army may just take their side.

The American media has become virtually indistinguishable from the Russian and Chinese media, in its hysterical support for the regime and vindictive smears of opponents. The only difference between Newsweek, Pravda and Xinhua is their level of sophistication. Pravda and Xinhua have never been anything more than vulgar organs of the regime, but the American media is descending into savagery while leaving behind a legacy of civilization. Like a citizen turned cannibal, it still has some of the cultural trappings of its past, but it's discarding them as quickly as Newsweek can photoshop new covers. Like the Russian media, the favorite topic of its American counterparts is the inscrutable divinity of its leader, who has not so much failed, as succeeded on a higher level that mere mortals, concerned with paying their bills and having a job, are not privy to. If he has failed, it's only because of the obstructionism of the running dog Republican capitalists who would rather see the country burn than concede his unearthly genius.

The problem with propagandists is that they get so taken in by their own illusion of power, that they stop noticing when no one is paying attention to them. Barely a quarter of the country digested and accepted the swill that the media had poured out over it in 07 and 08. What the public noticed was that there seemed to be a consensus that the One was the one. They didn't notice it by reading every screed that the American heirs to Goebbels were scribbling up at Time and the New York Times. Like a television that is on in the room, while you're vacuuming or doing laundry, they noticed it mainly as background noise in their lives.

Mostly, like the Russian and Chinese workers, they had no reason to pay attention. Politics was for politicians and all politicians are alike. As long as things worked, they were willing to let it go on. When things weren't looking up, they switched and voted for the other guy. It's only when things got really bad that they were forced to pay attention. It's only then that the game changed.

The Obama reelection campaign is running on the same theme as Sarkozy's reelection campaign, the same theme as every incumbent's reelection campaign-- the alternative is worse. Except Obama is wrong. The alternative isn't worse.

For the alternative to be worse, it would have to be Putin or Ahmadinejad; not Romney. But there's no other available theme. Not for an incumbent who has nothing positive to show for his time in office, except giving the go-ahead to kill a wanted terrorist, while blowing the war in Afghanistan. Obama's original platform of change won't work anymore. Not "Change We Can Believe In", not "Safe, Sustainable Change" and not, "Can You Spare Some Change for My Campaign."

Obama would have gone negative anyway, but he has no choice now. It's either go negative or go home. The only way to be reelected, aside from the usual standbys of voter fraud and nuking Florida, is to convince the public that the alternative really is worse. And that's hard because Romney is so bland that he's darn hard to demonize.

Give the media a Gingrich or Santorum, and it would quickly trot out a grotesque caricature, but all they can do with Romney is keep calling him a stiff rich guy, which is true, but doesn't go very far. After plumbing the depths of anti-Mormon bigotry and perhaps running a few stories on how the Mormon Church is plotting to bring back polygamy and some feature stories on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, it's back to the stiff rich guy shtick.

Obama won on emotion the last time around. He has to win this one on emotion too, and if he can't, then he loses. But the emotions in play aren't his anymore. The media imagines that it controls public discourse in its echo chamber, but all it can do is shape it. After a prolonged bout of bad economics, the emotions are a lot harder to massage with the usual pro-Obama con-Republican pieces because the people who count just don't care. They're worried about whether they will still have jobs, not about Trump or the spelling of "America" in a campaign app.

The media runs stories on an issue that it creates, then blames Romney for creating the issue. "Trump upstages Romney" is the media narrative, followed by three pages blaming Romney for allowing Trump to upstage him, when the upstaging is only happening because the media is hunting for hit pieces, like wolves waiting outside a 7-Eleven to feed. It's the old "Stop hitting yourself" trick being played by men and women who are still trying to pretend that they're something more than White House or Media Matters staffers, just because they have a card that says "Press" on it.

But that doesn't matter either, because it's a bad season for incumbents. You can be a liberal dosing out heavy spending and debt, or mildly conservative pushing austerity and serious cutbacks, that slash services without reforming the system, and voters will still hate you when they can't get a job. The only defense is having an opposition that is so toxic that no one wants them in power.

While liberals think that way of Republicans, most of them admit that Romney wouldn't be too bad. Liberals need to believe that the man they're agitating against is the Republican Devil, who's going to ban abortion, gays and modern art, while burning a cross outside the NAACP and preaching the apocalypse. Like the sheep-like audiences sitting in Oceanian theaters, waiting for Emmanuel Goldstein's face to flash on the screen, so they can begin their Two-Minute Hate; they just need someone to hate.

McCain nearly denied them that in '08, until the arrival of Sarah Palin gave them a unifying figure whom they could believe was plotting with megachurches to blow up America in order to bring on the end of days. If Romney doesn't give them a Palin, then we can look forward to months of editorial cartoons featuring a capering Romney with slicked-down hair tossing money into the air. Along with every conceivable distraction that the government and the media can summon up.

But the real question is will any of these distractions, distract people from their wallets? In times like these elections aren't won by rhetoric, they're won by worry. Obama has made Americans worry, and now they're returning the favor. The economy has not been kind to incumbents and there is no reason to believe that it will be any kinder to Obama, than it was to the European and Arab leaders it has already displaced. While Obama is still humming about an "Arab Spring", the winds of an "American Spring" may be blowing his way.

 

Source: http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2012/06/no-country-for-old-incumbents.html

 

 

Islam’s Cultural Revolution

by Giulio Meotti  |  FrontPageMag.com  |  May 24, 2012

 

Mao’s Cultural Revolution was one of the darkest chapters of the 20th Century: communist zealots, known as “the Red Guards,” attached revolutionary messages to Buddhist statues; seventeen professors from the Shanghai Music Conservatory committed suicide; intellectuals were harassed in public trials during which they had to confess their “sins,” kneeling on makeshift rostrums; thousands of churches, temples and monasteries were demolished; ancient libraries went up in smoke; imperial ceramics were smashed and religious relics melted down. Millions of people were killed.

A new Cultural Revolution is now taking place in the Middle East, where Islam’s Red Guards are obliterating the non-Muslim heritage. If Mao’s Guards took inspiration from the “red book,” Islamic zealots have the Koran. Their targets are Jewish shrines, Christian churches, ancient monuments and  cultural masterpieces.

A few days ago in Timbuktu, Mali, Islamists destroyed the tomb of a Sufi saint, Sidi Mahmoud Ben Amar. Timbuktu is known as “the city of the 333 saints”, classified as Unesco World Heritage Sites. Sufism is a mystical dimension of Islam, but extremists believe Sufi shrines are “sacrilegious.” The UN cultural body didn’t raise its voice against this Islamic iconoclasm.

A few weeks before, Abdulaziz ibn Abdullah Al al-Sheikh, the grand mufti of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, issued a religious fatwa, saying it is “necessary to destroy all the churches in the Arabian Peninsula.” The most important Muslim cleric in the land that gave birth to Islam called for the destruction of churches without his rule attracting any global condemnation.

While in Libya Jews have been throw out again after trying to restore Tripoli’s ancient synagogue, Egyptians are planning to block Israelis from making the pilgrimages to the tomb of a Jewish saint, Yaakov Abuhatzeira.

An Islamic mob destroyed the Institute of Egypt in Cairo, founded by Napoleon and containing 192,000 books and documents from as far back as the XIX century. Now, it’s gone. Napoleon’s legendary “Description de l’Egypte” is also lost (in 1822 Jean-François Champollion used this document to unveil the mistery of the hierogliphycs). Unesco, again, stood silent. As it stood silent when Egypt’s former cultural minister, Farouk Hosni, said he “would burn Israeli books in Egyptian libraries”.

Like in Mao’s China, Islamic salafists are trying to ban ancient statues that dot Egypt and suggested that the pagan treasures “could be covered with wax”. The sirens that embellish the fountain of Zeus in Alexandria have already been deemed “inappropriate” by the Salafist party, which decided to “veil” them completely with a sheet. Salafi leaders are also terrifying liberal intellectuals by calling for banning the novels written by Naguib Mahfouz, the only Arab Nobel Prize laureate for Literature who has been called “Egypt’s Balzac”, because his works “encourage drinking alcohol and using drugs”. Mahfouz’s novel “Awlad Haretna” is labelled as “atheistic”. Islamists also want to ban the greatest masterpiece of oriental literature, “One thousand and one arabian nights”, because it’s “depravity” and “offensive to the public good”.

In Israel, Palestinian Muslims are erasing any Jewish trace on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s most holy site. In 2005 thousands of Arabs torched the synagogues in Gaza’s Katif Bloc. It was an orgy of hate, like that of the Red Guards. Twelve years ago, Arabs destroyed Joseph’s tomb, Judaism’s fourth holy site, smashing the stone structure and ripping it apart, brick by brick, as the Red Guards did with Tao’s temples. The arson attack on the Shalom al Yisrael synagogue in Jericho and the continuing gunfire at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem are two other examples that come to mind in the Israelo-Palestinian conflict.

Islam’s cultural revolution began when the Taliban destroyed the two wonderful Buddhas in Bamyan, Afghanistan. It was a turning point for a proto-Nazi ideology bent on the physical eradication of its enemies and their religious symbols. If Mao’s Red Guards destroyed the imperial Chinese heritage, Islam’s Red Guards want to cancel any non-Muslim trace in the Middle East. It’s a Koranic Inquisition.

 

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/05/24/islams-cultural-revolution/

Muslim Brotherhood's Dream: Egypt to Elect Islamic Caliphate

by Chana Ya'ar  |  IsraelNationalNews  |  May 16, 2012

 

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is hoping that when the polls open in nine days, voters will bring in the era of the Islamic Caliphate.

"We are seeing the dream of the Islamic Caliphate coming true at the hands of Mohammed Morsi,” said cleric Safwat Higazy, speaking at a rally for the Brotherhood's presidential candidate.

The TV preacher vowed from the podium before thousands at the stadium of an industrial city in the Nile Delta, “The capital of the Caliphate and the United Arab States is Jerusalem, Allah willing.”

In response, the crowd waved green Brotherhood flags, chanting, “The people want to implement Allah's law.”

Morsi himself said at a rally at Cairo University this week, “We will not accept any alternative to Shari'ah... The Qu'ran is our constitution and it will always be so.”

But Morsi is running so far only in fourth place, in a field of 13 candidates whose first challenge will come during the May 23-24 polls. Ahead of him in popularity thus far are two former regime candidates and Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, a more moderate Islamist.

Abolfotoh, who was once a member of the Brotherhood, left the organization after he was blocked from running for president. He has said that a Christian has the right to be president, and that books promoting atheism should not be censored, is also supported by the more hard-line Salafists.

The harder-line Muslim Brotherhood leadership, rejected by its Salafist Islamic colleagues, has become much bolder since gaining control over the parliament.

The party demanded as the majority in parliament that the military allow it to form the next government.

The Brotherhood faction also balked at a World Bank loan taken by the parliament to improve the country's broken sewage system, citing the interest involved, forbidden under Shari'a law.

The party has also called on the government to revoke a Mubarak-era law to allow women to seek a divorce from their husbands in Islamic courts.

 

 

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/155872

 

Video: Obama Cozies Up with Islamists in 'Post Al Qaeda Era'

by CBNNews.com  |  April 24, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

The White House is moving toward developing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists groups in the Middle East.

National Journal reports that President Obama believes he has no choice but cultivate the Brotherhood and other relatively "moderate" Islamic groups in Egypt and other countries.

As one State Department official suggested, no longer are all Islamists viewed as having possible terrorist ties.

"The war on terror is over," one State Department official told the magazine.

"Now that we have killed most of al Qaeda, now that people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism," the official said.

CBN News Terrorism Analyst Erick Stakelbeck talked more about the Muslim Brotherhood and the Obama administration acceptance of such groups. Click play for his comments:

 

Source: https://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/politics/2012/April/Obama-Cozys-Up-with-Islam-in-Post-Al-Qaeda-Era/

 

Islamic 'Adult Breastfeeding' Fatwas Return

by Raymond Ibrahim
Jihad Watch
April 12, 2012

Back in May 2007, Dr. Izzat Atiya, head of Al Azhar University's Department of Hadith, issued a fatwa, or Islamic legal decree, saying that female workers should "breastfeed" their male co-workers in order to work in each other's company. According to the BBC:

He said that if a woman fed a male colleague "directly from her breast" at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be allowed to be alone together at work. "Breast feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage," he ruled. "A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breastfed."

Atiya based his fatwa on a hadith—a documented saying or doing of Islam's prophet Muhammad and subsequently one of Sharia law's sources of jurisprudence. Many Egyptians naturally protested this decree—hadith or no hadith—though no one could really demonstrate how it was un-Islamic; for the fatwa conformed to the strictures of Islamic jurisprudence. Still, due to the protests—not many Egyptian women were eager to "breastfeed" their male coworkers—the fatwa receded, and that was that.

However, because it was never truly rebutted, it kept making comebacks.

For instance, three years later in 2010, a high-ranking Saudi, Sheikh Abdul Mohsin al-Abaican issued a fatwa confirming that "women could give their milk to men to establish a degree of maternal relations and get around a strict religious ban on mixing between unrelated men and women." But unlike Atiya's fatwa, "the man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman. He should drink it [from a cup] and then [he] becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."

Now, a report titled "Kuwaiti Activists: Husband Breastfeeding from Wife not Prohibited," published earlier this month by Arabic RT (see also Garaa News) opens by announcing that "The adult breastfeeding fatwa has returned once again to the spotlight, after Kuwaiti Islamic activists supported the adult breastfeeding fatwa issued by the Egyptian Salafi, Sheikh Jamal al-Murakbi [different from Al Azhar's Sheikh Atiya]. This time around, the Kuwaitis examined the adult breastfeeding fatwa in the context of relations between a man and his wife."

While the Kuwaiti sheikhs all essentially agree that the activity is not strictly forbidden according to Sharia—only "disliked" (literally makruh)—they are divided over the particulars:

Sheikh Nazim Misbahi, head of the Fatwa Committee of the Islamic Heritage Revival Society in Kuwait, supports the decree, agreeing that "it is not forbidden [haram] for a man to breastfeed from his wife."
Sheikh Bassam al-Shatti, a Sharia professor, specifies: "If the husband deliberately sucks to obtain milk from the breast of his wife, this is forbidden; however, if it happens unintentionally during foreplay with his wife, then there is no problem—though it is disliked according to the four schools" of Sharia.
Sheikh Sa'd al-Anzi stressed that "if the man, while being intimate with his wife, sucks her nipples, it is nothing, considered foreplay; but if the milk reaches his mouth, he should spit out—even if goes down in his stomach," i.e., vomit.
Consider for a moment the significance of these Islamic edicts: whether women "breastfeeding" coworkers (Egyptian fatwa, 2007), whether men drinking female breast-milk in a cup (Saudi fatwa, 2010), or whether Kuwaiti minutiae concerning bedroom foreplay—all these fatwas are reminders of the inescapable strictures of Sharia law; while these sheikhs offers various circumstances and interpretations concerning "adult breastfeeding," they are all confined to the words of the prophet of Islam.

This is precisely why, despite all the claims that Islam is perpetually being "misunderstood"—by terrorists, by "Islamophobes"—understanding what Islam commands and forbids is actually quite a simple matter: along with the Koran, determine what the prophet said in canonical hadiths.

It is, after all, no coincidence that the above mentioned Kuwaitis, like Sheikh Misbahi, were members of the delegation that recently went to ask Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti about Islam's position on churches in the Arabian Peninsula: the same source that compelled the Grand Mufti to declare that all churches must be destroyed, is the same source that advocates "adult breastfeeding": Muhammad and his teachings. All very straightforward, really.

Raymond Ibrahim is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

Source: http://www.meforum.org/3211/islamic-adult-breastfeeding-fatwas

Tunisians Rally Outside Parliament to Demand Sharia Law

by MRS/JR/HGH  |  PressTV.ir  |  March 16, 2012

 

Thousands of people have gathered outside the Tunisian parliament to demand the pursuit of Sharia law in the post-revolution country.

The demonstrators gathered on Friday outside the parliament in the capital, Tunis, saying they will reject any future constitution that does not include Sharia. 

“The people want the application of God's Sharia", "Our Qur’an is our constitution", "No constitution without Sharia," and “Tunisia is neither secular nor scientific, it is an Islamic state," they shouted. 

In January 2011, popular protests led to the ouster of Western-backed dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and encouraged uprisings in the Arab states, namely Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. 

A provisional constitution was adopted in the North African country in December after voters chose an assembly to appoint a new interim government and rewrite the constitution.

A new constitution is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by mid-2012. 

 

Source: http://www.presstv.ir/detail/232004.html

Protestors Decry Presentation on “Islamophobia” at Manhattan JCC

by Phyllis Chesler & Fern Sidman  |  IsraelNationalNews.com  |  March 16, 2012

 

Over 30 protestors gathered in front of the JCC in Manhattan to express their outrage over a forum entitled “Combating Islamophobia.”

 

On Wednesday evening, March 14^th,over 30 protestors representing both Jewish and human rights organizations gathered in front of the Jewish Community Center on Manhattan’s upper west side to express their outrage over a forum entitled “Combating Islamophobia.”

Moderated by former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, the panelists included Rabbi Marc Schneier, co-founder of the Foundation For Ethnic Understanding, which fosters “twinning” programs between mosques and synagogues and Imam Shamsi-Ali, the spiritual leader of the Islamic Cultural Center of New York and the chairman of the Al-Hikmah mosque in Astoria.

Holding aloft signs and banners reading “What Are Muslims Doing for Peace???”, “Burning Churches, Honor Murdering Women. Where is the Muslim Protest?”, “Sharia Equals Death”, “Since 9/11, Radical Islamists Committed 11,961 Attacks, Killed 75,038, Injured 115,255”, “Wake Up! Islam's Goal: Destruction of Our Way of Life”, “Stop Billions of Saudi Oil Monet Funding Worldwide Radical Islamic Intolerance and Terror”, “The Right of Jews to a Jewish State in Israel,” “The Right of Muslims to Convert to Other Religions,” the protestors took aim at what they perceived to be the hypocrisy that this event represented. 

Narain Kataria, the President of the Indian American Intellectual Forum, declared, “We should not be talking about Islamophobia but about whether Islam is a religion of peace. This should be debated all over the country. We Hindus have suffered at the hands of radical Islamists. I believe that somehow the organizers of the conference on Islamophobia have been either heavily funded or misguided by Muslim organizations into believing that Islam if the religion of peace.”

Joining Kataria was protestor Dr. Arish Sahani who declared, “Shame on our intellectuals! Why don’t they teach their students that for 1400 years Muslims have been persecuting non-Muslims?”

 

Helen Freedman, the executive director of Americans For a Safe Israel (AFSI), said, “The JCC, in sponsoring ‘Combating Islamophobia’, is suggesting that it is un-American to fear Islam. Our liberal upbringing causes us to be offended by the accusation that we are racist when it comes to Islam, but isn't there ample justification for concern about a political agenda disguised as a religion which promotes hatred of infidels and women? The radical, militant, hate-filled Islam that has spread across the world, butchering and maiming millions in its path, deserves to be feared and eradicated.”

Speaking of the recent controversy that has swirled around New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly for authorizing police surveillance of mosques in the New York area and for using the documentary entitled “The Third Jihad” as a training tool for his department, protestor Marion Dreyfus, addressed the gathering passionately, “Commissioner Kelly is defending us. He should not be castigated. He should be admired and supported.”

(On the JCC panel, Imam Shamsi Ali, a very soft-spoken Indonesian, called for Muslim consultants to supervise the training materials for the NYPD where terrorism is concerned).

Dr. Marvin Belsky, of the Human Rights Coalition Against Radical Islam told those gathered, “There can be no legitimate partnership between Muslims and Jews until there is tangible evidence that the greater Muslim community supports rights for all religions, rights for women, rights for converts, the right of Jews to inhabit and maintain a Jewish state in Israel, and the right of free speech.”

According to columnist and protestor, Marion Dreyfus, “Two supporters of Islam, one wearing a crucifix, and one presenting himself as Jewish, stood a few feet away holding magic-markered cardboards, and tried to convince passersby that non-existent ‘Islamophobia’ is a bugaboo we must all foreswear. The ‘Jewish’ gentleman asserted he had read the Koran ‘five times’ and found no racial bigotry or desire to kill non-Muslims.”

The woman wearing the cross would not engage in discussion at all, repeating that her reason for being there was just to hold the sign.

It is not known if the crowd was persuaded, as one self-professed Muslim woman confided inside the JCC that “almost all Muslims are peaceful,” and that “only a few ‘nutters’” exist to “give the rest a bad name.”

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/153830#.T2Ph4mJWqq4

Muslim Persecution of Christians: February 2012

by Raymond Ibrahim  |  StonegateInstitute.org  |  March 16, 2012

 

A pastor was attacked with acid and blinded by Muslims screaming, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"]

Half of Iraq's indigenous Christians are gone, due to the unleashed forces of jihad [holy war]. Many Christians fled to nearby Syria; yet, as the Assad regime comes under attack from al-Qaeda and others, the jihad now seeps into Syria, where Christians are experiencing a level of persecution unprecedented in the nation's modern history. Similarly, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their native Egypt since the overthrow of the Mubarak regime; and in northern regions of Nigeria, where the jihadi group, Boko Haram, has been slaughtering Christians, up to 95% of the Christian population has fled.

Meanwhile, the "big news" concerning the Muslim world in the month of February—the news that flooded the mainstream media and had U.S. politicians, beginning with President Obama, flustered, angry, and full of regret—was that some written-in [in Islam it is forbidden to write anything in a Korans] in Afghanistan were burned by U.S. soldiers because imprisoned Muslim inmates had been using them "to facilitate extremist communications."

Categorized by theme, February's batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is not limited to) the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity.

Church Attacks

Algeria: Armed men raided and ransacked a church that had been formally recognized since 1958, and dismantled the crucifix. The pastor and his family, trapped inside, feared that "they could kill us." The pastor "has been repeatedly threatened and attacked since being ordained in 2007. In the summer of 2009, his wife was beaten and seriously injured by a group of unknown men. Then, in late 2011, heaps of trash were thrown over the compound walls while an angry mob shouted death threats."

Egypt: Thousands of Muslims attacked a Coptic church, and demanded the death of its pastor, who, along with "nearly 100 terrorized Copts sought refuge inside the church, while Muslim rioters were pelting the church with stones in an effort to break into the church, assault the Copts and torch the building." They did this because a Christian girl who, according to Islamic law, automatically became a Muslim when her father converted to Islam, fled from her father and was rumored to be hiding in the church.

Iran: Iran's Ministry of Intelligence has ordered the last two officially registered churches holding Friday Farsi-language services in Tehran—Farsi being the nation's Persian language—to discontinue the language: "Friday services in Tehran attracted the city's converts to Christianity as well as Muslims interested in Christianity, as Friday is most Iranians' day off during the week." Banning church use of Farsi prevents most Iranians from hearing the Gospel.

Kazakhstan: A new report notes that "Churches are being raided, leaders fined and Christian literature confiscated as the Kazakh authorities enforce new laws intended further to restrict religious freedom in the country."

Kuwait: A parliamentarian is set to submit a draft law banning the construction of churches. Originally, Osama al-Munawer announced on Twitter his plans on submitting a draft law calling for the removal of all churches in Kuwait. However, he later "clarified" his statement, saying that existing churches can remain, but the construction of new ones must be banned.

Macedonia: A two-century-old Christian church famed for its valuable icons was set on fire in response to "a carnival in which Orthodox Christian men dressed as women in burkas and mocked the Koran." Earlier, "perpetrators attacked a[nother] church in the nearby village of Labunista, destroying a cross standing outside" and "also defaced a Macedonian flag outside Struga's municipal building, replacing it with a green flag representing Islam."

Nigeria: A Muslim suicide bomber forced his way into the grounds of a major church, killing two women and an 18-month-old child during Sunday morning service; 50 people were injured in the blast. In a separate incident, Muslims detonated a bomb outside a church building, injuring five, one critically: "The bomb, planted in a parked car, was left by suspected members of Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia [Islamic law] throughout Nigeria."

Pakistan: A dozen armed Muslims stormed a church, seriously wounding two Christians: one man was shot and is in critical condition, the other risks having his arm amputated; another church member was thrown from the roof, after being struck repeatedly with a rifle butt. "The extremist raid was sparked by charges that [the] church was trying to evangelize Muslims in an attempt to convert them to Christianity. The community several times in the past has been the subject of assault and the pastor and his family the subject of death threats." As usual, the police, instead of pursuing the perpetrators, have opened an investigation against the pastor and 20 other church members.

Syria: Some 30 armed and masked jihadis attacked a Catholic monastery—unprecedented in Syria's modern history—demanding money. According to the Catholic Archbishop of Damascus, "the situation in the country is spiraling out of control as the armed opposition spreads its influence to different regions of the state."

Dhimmitude

[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as Second-Class, "Tolerated" Citizens]

Bangladesh: Three American Christians were injured after their car was attacked by a Muslim mob who suspected they were converting Muslims into Christians: at least 200 angry locals chased the missionaries' car and threw stones at it, leaving three with cuts from broken glass.

Egypt: Rather than punishing the perpetrators who opened fire on and ran tanks over Christians protesting the constant destruction of their churches, the government arrested and is trying two priests in connection to the Maspero massacre. And although Egypt's new parliament has 498 seats, only six are Copts, even though Copts make up at the very least 10% of the population, and so should have approximately 50 seats. Finally, indicating how bad the situation is, Coptic protesters organized a demonstration on Tuesday in front of Parliament to protest "the disappearance and abduction of Coptic girls."

Indonesia: The Islamist Prosperous Justice Party complained about the Red Cross' symbol of a cross; they said it was too identifiable with Christian culture and traditions. Red Cross volunteers and activists rejected the claim, saying that any changes to the logo would be "tantamount to giving in to the extremists."

Iran: A pastor of a major house church movement began serving a five-year prison sentence for "crimes against the order." According to one activist, "His 'crimes' were being a pastor and possessing Christian materials." He is being beaten in jail and has grown ill, to the point where his hair has "turned fully gray."

Israel: A mob of around 50 Palestinian Muslims stoned a group of Christian tourists atop Jerusalem's Temple Mount, wounding three Israeli police officers in the process. The attack is believed to have been instigated by the former Muslim mufti of Jerusalem.

Pakistan: Yet another Christian woman, a teacher, has been targeted by Muslims on allegations that she burned a Koran. A mob stormed her school in an attempt to abduct her, but police took her into custody. Also, a Christian student who missed the grade to get into medical school by less than 0.1% would have earned 20 extra points if he had memorized the Koran—although no bonus points for having similar knowledge of the Bible.

Turkey: A new report notes that "Christians in Turkey continue to suffer attacks from private citizens, discrimination by lower-level government officials and vilification in both school textbooks and news media." The report adds that there is a "root of intolerance" in Turkish society toward adherents of non-Islamic faiths: "The removal of this root of intolerance is an urgent problem that still awaits to be dealt with."

Turkmenistan: A 77-year-old Christian man was detained and questioned by police for six hours after he tried to print copies of a small book of Christian poetry. He was forced to write a statement and banned from travelling outside his home region while the case is being investigated.

Uganda: Not long after a pastor was attacked with acid and blinded by Muslims screaming, "Allahu Akbar!" ["Allah is Greater!"], his friend, another pastor, was shot at by "Islamic extremists" in what is being described as "a new wave of persecution against Christians in Uganda."

Murder, Apostasy Issues, and More

Egypt: Two Christians were killed "after a Muslim racketeer opened fire on them for refusing to pay him extortion money." The local bishop "hold[s] security forces and local Muslims fully responsible for terrorizing the Copts living there, who are continuously being subjected to terror and kidnapping."

Iran: After enduring five months of uncertainty in a prison, a Christian convert who was arrested in her home by security authorities has been sentenced to two years in prison by the Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Authorities further arrested six to ten Christian converts from Islam while they were meeting for worship at a home in the southern city of Shiraz.

And of course Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani awaits execution for refusing to renounce Christianity.

Nigeria: A 79-year-old Christian woman and choir singer was found dead at her home, her throat slit with a note in Arabic left on her chest reading: "We will get you soon," a message believed to be directed at her son, a pastor at a local church.

Somalia: Al-Shabaab Muslims beheaded a 26-year-old Muslim convert to Christianity who had worked for a Christian humanitarian organization that the terrorist organization had banned. He is at least the third Christian to be beheaded in Somalia in recent months.

Turkey: A 12-year-old boy, Hussein, publicly professed his Christian faith by wearing a silver cross necklace in school. Accordingly, Muslim classmates began taunting and spitting on him. When the boy threatened to report one of the bullies, the bully's father threatened to kill him. His religion teacher beat him severely: "Like in most Islamic countries, students of all faiths are required to attend Islamic studies in school. Those who refuse to recite the Koran and Islamic prayers are often beaten by the teacher. And so it was for Hussein. He said he was punished regularly with a two-foot long rod because he wouldn't say the Islamic Shahada."

About this Series

Because the persecution of Christians in the Islamic world is on its way to reaching epidemic proportions, "Muslim Persecution of Christians" was developed to collate some—by no means all—of the instances of Muslim persecution of Christians that surface each month. It serves two purposes:

1. To document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
2. To show that such persecution is not "random," but systematic and interrelated—that it is rooted in a worldview inspired by Sharia.

Accordingly, whatever the anecdote of persecution, it typically fits under a specific theme, including hatred for churches and other Christian symbols; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; apostasy and blasphemy laws that criminalize and punish with death to those who "offend" Islam; theft and plunder in lieu ofjizya (financial tribute expected from non-Muslims); overall expectations for Christians to behave like coweddhimmis, or second-class, "tolerated" citizens; and simple violence and murder. Sometimes it is a combination.

Because these accounts of persecution span different ethnicities, languages, and locales—from Morocco in the West, to India in the East, and throughout the West wherever there are Muslims—it should be clear that one thing alone binds them: Islam—whether the strict application of Islamic Sharia law, or the supremacist culture born of it.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

 

Source: http://www.stonegateinstitute.org/2949/muslim-persecution-of-christians-february-2012

Video: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Progress in the Middle East and What it Means for the World

by Erick Stakelbeck, CBNNews Terrorism Analyst  |  CBN.com  |  December 13, 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

On this week's edition of the Stakelbeck on Terror show, CBN News analyzes the Muslim Brotherhood's recent success across the Middle East and North Africa, as well as the group's plans for global domination.

See how the Brotherhood is making major inroads across Europe and even in the United States government.

CBN News also sits down with Israeli Defense Forces spokeswoman Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich to discuss the rising threats toward Israel and the rest of the Middle East.

Also, a leading Iran expert explains why the country wouldn't hesitate to use a nuclear weapon.

 

 

 

Source: http://www.cbn.com/media/player/index.aspx?s=/Archive/News/Stakelbeck_Terror_121311_WS&search=stakelbeckepisodes&p=1&parent=0&subnav=false

Coming War Threat: Terrorists Developing a Safe Haven in Egypt to Attack Israel

by Barry Rubin  |  PJMedia.com  |  December 18, 2011

 

 

 

 

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do,

Had he the motive and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid speech…. 

–William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Or, in other words, do these writers, policymakers, and “experts” care  what happens in the Middle East? War? Bloodshed? Repression? Christians fleeing; women being turned into chattel? Just a possible boost to their careers and a test for their theories. A good luncheon topic. But this is real, all too real.

First, a word on contingencies. Governments and political analysts are supposed to examine likely problems in order that they can be evaded or minimized. The time to be alarmed is not when problems become visible but when governments refuse to recognize their existence. Western regimes and analysts are generally taking a best-possible-case view on Egypt and other developing issues in the region. I’m tempted to say they are taking a fantasy view. They dismiss not just worst-case but highly likely case scenarios. Now that’s what’s alarming.

In the Sinai Peninsula, Hamas is building support bases and arms-manufacturing facilities including those for building rockets. Over time, these rockets will no doubt be upgraded.  In other words, Egypt is becoming a safe haven for anti-Israel terrorism. We know that these attacks will come from the Gaza Strip. The only question is whether at some point they will come directly across the Egypt-Israel border.

Israel had a long experience with three comparable situations. In the  1950-56 era, Egypt was a safe haven for terror attacks into Israel; in the 1967-1970 period, Jordan played this role. During the 1970s and 1980s, even down to today, Lebanon did so, with the safe haven in Syria. The difference was that Israel did attack into Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and even occasionally into Syria in reponse to this situation.

Such an attack into Egypt in response to Egyptian involvement in attacks through the Gaza Strip is unthinkable given what an Egypt-Israel war would look like. And that doesn’t mean there won’t be sporadic attacks across the Egypt-Israel border also that would present similar problems.

There is a pattern here.

Israel, of course, is quickly building a border fence, paid for by a 2 percent cut in the budgets of government agencies, and thus the salaries of government employees.

Meanwhile, too, Libyan weapons, including Russian-made anti-plane rockets that can be fired by one man, are also making their way into the Gaza Strip. From there, or from Egyptian territory, one of them could be fired at an Israeli passenger plane on the Tel Aviv-Eilat route.

Israel has permitted more Egyptian military units to enter Sinai even though this was restricted by their peace treaty. But that doesn’t mean those forces will do anything, or at least do much, against these activities. After all, would Egypt’s army dare suppress Hamas though it is seen by most Egyptians — and soon by a majority in Egypt’s parliament — as heroic? What! Will they act as bodyguards for the evil Zionist entity that is allegedly committing genocide right next door? (That last sentence was a paraphrase of what a leading Egyptian “moderate” claimed in speaking to an American university audience.)

And let’s not forget that there are corrupt officers and also officers who sympathize with Hamas. What if they just don’t follow orders from Cairo?

So Israel’s first step is to go to the Egyptian army and ask that it do something. If it says “yes,” well and good. But what if it doesn’t do much or anything? Have you noticed that even now, the army keeps backing down to the Brotherhood? For example, the military junta claimed a share in writing the new Constitution and when the Brotherhood rejected this, the generals then pulled back. The parliament dominated by the Brotherhood and Salafists will write the Constitution without outside interference.

What does this tell us about the army’s future willingness or ability to stop the Islamists from running wild, attacking Israel, etc.?

There will also be the large Salafist contingent in parliament to keep happy. The Salafists will build networks to protect and help Hamas and small groups that might want to attack Israel from Egypt. Indeed, large parts of the Sinai are already developing toward anarchy and becoming a safe haven zone for international terrorists.

Next, what happens when there is an Islamist parliament, a president who is either Islamist or dependent on Brotherhood support, and an Islamist constitution? Who is going to order Egypt’s army to crack down on Hamas and to close its facilities?  Nobody.

And finally, what happens when Israel goes to the United States and asks President Obama to put pressure on Egypt to close down Hamas operations? Just guess.

Here’s a wonderful example of how this system works in another country. In Lebanon, Hizballah is creating its own secure strategic communications network without any government sanction. In one place, local people attacked workers building Hizballah facilities in their village. The Lebanese communications minister refused to interfere, supporting Hizballah’s actions. He explained that the Lebanese government accepted the project since almost anything was justified since Hizballah was fighting Israel. The opposition publication, Now Lebanon, responded that this is “a phone network that will be used by Iran and Syria (let’s not mince words) to carry out its regional ambitions.”

But Lebanon’s government has no interest in restricting any war-making activities on Israel. So what can we expect in Egypt?

What counter-forces are going to make the problems go away? The army does not have to close Hamas facilities to maintain its own interests. Nor does it have to do so to keep U.S. aid. There is nothing that is going to block this from happening unless Hamas makes the huge mistake of interfering in Egyptian politics and becoming involved with those staging armed struggle within Egypt. Hizballah made that mistake a few years ago.

Want to know how Middle East politics really work? A couple of years ago Israel noted that the Egypt-Gaza smuggling level had gone way down. Western media praised Egypt for acting. In fact, what had happened was that Egyptian officers on the border had demanded a higher price in bribes; the smugglers had refused, so the officers had cracked  down until they got more money at which point they opened the gates again.

I repeat: to point out the likelihood of such contingencies is of vital importance. The Israeli government is aware of these things and working to deal with them. What kind of planning and thinking for such dangerous situations is going on in the West? Little or none, because they don’t take these things seriously.

Source: http://pjmedia.com/barryrubin/2011/12/18/a-coming-war-threat-terrorists-are-developing-a-safe-haven-in-egypt-to-attack-israel/?singlepage=true