Israel Matzav

Why the attacks on Christians in Muslim countries

The heart of the problem is right here: the Islamist world is determined to build a world in which the other two main faiths are held in a state of cultural, religious and political subjection. And instead, in the last seven centuries the western world has been dominanting and, in the bigoted interpretation of vast organizations and even entire countries like Iran, this amounts to a declaration of war. This is the war that Islamism now wants to win. Not everyone in that world feels that way, but bombs make a lot of noise, while good will remains silent.

In 1919, the Egyptian revolution adopted a green flag with the crescent and the cross. Both Muslims and Christians participated in the nationalist revolution against British colonialism. But mostly since the assassination of Sadat, who had signed a peace agreement with Israel, the new élites left room to a process of gradual Islamization aimed at appeasing the most aggressive organizations, like the Muslim Brotherhood. The textbooks used in the schools today describe Egypt as an Islamic country only, and the children read also anti-Christian texts. As the Jerusalem Post writes, organ transplants between Muslims and Copts are prohibited by a decision of the physicians’ union. Labor unions indeed are often dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The government recently halted construction of a stairway in a Coptic church and Copts are under constant attack (8 were killed also a year ago). Despite being no less than 10 percent of the population, they have no political representation.

Mubarak, by acting this way, keeps the Brotherhood at bay, and thus succeeded to marginalize it in the last elections. This is the way that Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan and Pakistan behave: they think they have tamed the tamer, who actually becomes stronger and stronger, thereby threatening even his leadership.

The Iranian, Lebanese and Turkish television have accused “Zionists” of the New Year’s massacre in Alexandria. Oh sure, let’s try to put at least some of the blame on the Jews once again! That is their style: from the Farhud pogrom of Baghdad in 1941, in which 180 Jews were killed, and then in Libya (130 dead) and also in Turkey (three attacks on the Nevè Shalom synagogue from 1986 to the present, with 47 dead), to all the violence that has caused the flight of almost all the Jews, the Islamic world has kicked out of the Arab countries between 800,000 and a million Jews. These are refugees that the U.N. has always refused to recognize, like the Christians in flight from the same countries, where the Christian population, once the native one and the majority, is now reduced to 6 percent.

Labels: Alexandria church terror attack, Christian Copts, Christian flight

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:57 PM