A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that
62% of Likely U.S. Voters believe most Christians living in the Islamic
world are treated unfairly because of their religion. Just 17% disagree,
while 21% more are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
...
By comparison, 39% feel most Muslims living in the United States are treated unfairly because of their religion. That’s up from 31% last year and is the highest finding in surveys to date.
A plurality (46%) still believes Muslims are not treated unfairly because of their faith, while 15% more are not sure.
Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats, however, believe most Muslims in
this country are mistreated, a view shared by only 22% of Republicans
and 39% of voters not affiliated with either major party. Fewer
Democrats (47%) think most Christians are mistreated in the Islamic
world, compared to 76% of GOP voters and 64% of unaffiliateds.
And for those who think women are smarter... they're not - at least when they're Democrats.
Women are more likely than men to think most American Muslims are
mistreated here but less likely to believe Christians are mistreated in
the Islamic world.
Unbelievable....
By the way, note that no one talks about mistreatment of Jews despite study after study that shows that attacks on Jews due to their religion far exceed attacks on persons of any other religion.
Orthodox Rabbis call on US government to save historic Middle East Christian communities
In a Wall Street Journal editorial, two Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, have called on the United States government to step up and save the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East, which are now threatened with extinction.
Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris
and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting
of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of
thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?
In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions
should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian
communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering
longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they
have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people,
their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who
follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups—not only
Islamic State, or ISIS—for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests
arrested.
In the worst cases, Christians have been
tortured, raped and even crucified. Mosul, Iraq, which was home to a Christian
population of 35,000 a decade ago, is now empty of Christians after an ISIS
ultimatum that they either convert to Islam or be executed. In Syria, Gregorios
III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, said
in 2013 that “entire villages” have been “cleared of their Christian
inhabitants.”
Unlike some others, Middle East Christians have
nowhere else to go. As a result of turmoil not of their making and beyond their
control, these Christians are the region’s ultimate homeless. Should some sort
of peace ever return, the likelihood is that maps will be redrawn, carving up
the pie among larger ethnic groups. There will be no place for Christians among
hostile Muslim populations.
The animosity toward Christians is illustrated
by a horrific incident earlier this year off the Italian coast. In April,
Italian police investigating events on a boat that had departed from Libya said
12 Christian refugees who were attempting to cross the sea to Europe were thrown
overboard by Muslim migrant passengers, and drowned.
The U.S. can do much good for Christian
refugees. Their religious heritage establishes an important basis of commonality
in the many Christian communities in our country.
When Secretary of State John Kerry
announced in September that the U.S. will accept as many as 100,000 refugees by
2017, many of them Syrian, the State Department provided a list of more than 300
agencies in 190 locations that would assist on the local level. Of those
agencies, no less than 215 are Christian. It makes sense to play to the
strengths of those agencies.
Unfortunately, the Obama administration seems to disagree.
Tragically, present policy does not take into
account the uniquely precarious situation of displaced Christians. Instead of
receiving priority treatment, Christians are profoundly disadvantaged. For
instance, the State Department has accepted refugees primarily from lists
prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, which oversees
the large camps to which refugees have flocked, and where they are registered.
Yet endangered Christians do not dare enter those camps.
George Carey, the former Archbishop of
Canterbury, wrote in the Telegraph in Britain in September that a similar
protocol in the U.K. “inadvertently discriminates against the very Christian
communities most victimised by the inhuman butchers of the so-called Islamic
State. Christians are not to be found in the UN camps, because they have been
attacked and targeted by Islamists and driven from them.”
But the world is too busy focusing on the 'Palestinians,' who themselves have driven Christians out of towns like Bethlehem. Where are the Christian demonstrators on behalf of their brethren in the Middle East? Darned if I know.
Jeff Jacoby explains how 'never again' is once again turning into 'yet again.'
“Can this really be happening? In the 21st century?” exclaimed the Israeli columnist Ari Shavit as news broke last week of the latest chemical-weapons attack in Syria. “No decent person can ignore what’s happening.”
That’s what we always tell ourselves when “never again” turns into
“yet again.” But man’s inhumanity to man is no more unthinkable in the
21st century than it was in the 20th. Decent people can and usually will
ignore what’s happening, and the indecent count on their apathy. “Who,
after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” Adolf
Hitler is said to have remarked in 1939.
There are always reasons not to act in the face of a growing evil.
There are always reasons to believe that atrocities are being
overstated, or that tyrants can be persuaded to reform, or that common
sense will prevail, or that meddling in the “internal affairs” of others
will only make things worse. Then we are shocked to find we have
enabled monsters.
The burning of houses of worship didn’t end with Kristallnacht, nor the
gassing of civilians with Halabja, nor concentration-camp butchery with
Dachau. And we aren’t finished building memorials to the dead, and
solemnly declaring, as we lay our wreaths, that next time we won’t
forget the lessons of history.
Why the Muslim Brotherhood has been attacking the Copts
The Muslim Brotherhood might have a better chance of winning what's quickly becoming a civil war in Egypt were it not for the fact that they are expending so much energy attacking the country's Coptic Christians.
Since the violent crackdown in Egypt began on Monday, August 12th, nearly
20 Coptic Christian churches and several Coptic owned properties in
Egypt were torched to the ground by supporters of the Muslim
Brotherhood. Leaked reports over the past weeks have stated that the
Muslim Brotherhood tried to assassinate the Coptic Patriarch, Pope
Tawadros II on several occasions. Since the overthrow of the
democratically elected Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, his supporters,
who are described as “anti-coup” and “pro-democracy,” have stated
clearly that Coptic Christians are no longer safe in Egypt.
Actually, they weren't safe in Egypt long before that.
Let's go to the videotape.
In the last week, it's gotten much worse.
Since the fall of Morsi, Copts have suffered
from attacks on an almost daily basis. Most of the Copts subjected to
violence are also suffering from deep poverty, living in
government-abandoned villages in Upper Egypt. While the Muslim mobs used
to create false accusations as a means to justify their attacks, today
they attack Copts indiscriminately, for no reason at all. In Rafah, one
Coptic priest was shot dead in broad day-light in a busy market street,
another Copt was found beheaded in the same area, and a Christian man in
Al Minya was attacked simply because we was listening to military
music.
Earlier this week, when the army and police
started their crackdown against Morsi’s supporters, the Islamists
reacted by striking back against the army and by attacking Copts, as
promised. In less than 24 hours an estimated 20 Coptic churches, houses
and community buildings were torched all over Egypt. The Egyptian
military is cleaning house and the Copts are paying a heavy price.
Please do not forget for a minute that the
ruthless pro-Morsi Muslim Brotherhood Islamists are the ones described
in western media as “pro-democracy” and “anti-coup”, as if they are a
liberal, modern, and highly educated group of people engaged in a
peaceful process of civil disagreement and advancement. The Middle East
has a much different cultural framework than the West and it is idiotic
to apply Western notions of modern politics and democracy to the Middle
East. As I write this, the Muslim Brotherhood’s “pro-democracy”
protestors are promising martyrdom for those who die for Morsi and
scapegoating Coptic Christians through destruction and murder. What part
of the Muslim Brotherhood’s undemocratic, delusional ideology is hard
for the West to understand? How can Western governments and the media
be sympathetic and supportive of them?
The Copts appear to be a candidate for a massacre. They have no place else to go. But the writer goes on to describe the world as being 'preoccupied with Egypt.' Actually, the United States is preoccupied with the 'Palestinians.' One cannot help but wonder why.
Millions of anti-Morsi protesters around the
country erupted in celebrations after the televised announcement by the
army chief. Fireworks burst over crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, where
men and women danced, shouting, “God is great” and “Long live Egypt.”
Fearing a violent reaction by Morsi’s Islamist
supporters, troops and armored vehicles deployed in the streets of
Cairo and elsewhere, surrounding Islamist rallies. Clashes erupted in
several provincial cities when Islamists opened fire on police, with at
least nine people killed, security officials said.
Gehad el-Haddad, a spokesman for the Muslim
Brotherhood party, said Morsi was under house arrest at a Presidential
Guard facility where he had been residing, and 12 presidential aides
also were under house arrest.
The army took control of state media and
blacked out TV stations operated by the Muslim Brotherhood. The head of
the Brotherhood’s political wing was arrested.
The ouster of Morsi throws Egypt on an
uncertain course, with a danger of further confrontation. It came after
four days of mass demonstrations even larger than those of the 2011 Arab
Spring that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Egyptians were angered that Morsi was giving
too much power to his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists and had
failed to tackle the country’s mounting economic woes.
US President Hussein Obama called on the army to hand back control to civilians as soon as possible, but stopped short of calling it a coup, which would require him to suspend aid.
He said he was “deeply concerned” by the
military’s move to topple Morsi’s government and suspend Egypt’s
constitution. He said he was ordering the U.S. government to assess what
the military’s actions meant for U.S. foreign aid to Egypt — $1.5
billion a year in military and economic assistance.
The U.S. wasn’t taking sides in the conflict, committing itself only to democracy and respect for the rule of law, Obama said.
In a speech immediately before the army's ultimatum expired, Morsy did call it a coup.
Oh my: Morsy under house arrest - LIVE TV FROM EGYPT
Reports indicate that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy was placed under house arrest by Egypt's powerful military after Wednesday's deadline for him to accept protester demands expired (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi is reportedly
under house arrest after the military ultimatum expired Wednesday,
reports Al Hayat TV.
Morsi's spokesman denied the report, according to ABC News, but word of the house arrest provoked cheers in Tahrir Square.
This comes as Egypt's military moved to tighten its control on key institutions before their afternoon ultimatum expired.
The
military stationed officers in the newsroom of state television on the
banks of the Nile River in central Cairo. Troops were deployed in
news-production areas.
Officers from the army's media department
moved inside the newsroom and were monitoring output, though not yet
interfering, staffers said, speaking on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to talk about the arrangements.
This
move shows the military's preparation for an almost certain push to
remove the country's Islamist president when an afternoon ultimatum
expires.
The military has to tread a fine line.
Experts watching the situation feel that Morsi lost the trust of the
people early on when he and the Muslim Brotherhood took power and made
changes to the country's constitution.
"It is not the economy.
It is the quest for freedom and feeling that they have been betrayed and
the resenting to replace a dictatorship of Mubarak by a theocracy
dictatorship, where it will be the dictator is ruling but garbing
himself in religion," said Dr. Maher Hathout with the Muslim Public
Affairs Council.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is urging Morsi to address the
people's grievances and the White House is also warning Egypt's military
that a coup could jeopardize relations with the United States.
It will be interesting to see whether other Arab spring countries (Tunisia, Libya, Syria), which have been or are in the process of being taken over by Islamist rulers will have similar reactions to the reaction in Egypt. And while Dr. Hathout is dismissive of the role the economy is playing in this, the Egyptian economy is a complete and total basket case, and there's no way that isn't (and won't in the future) playing a role here.
As to Obama, he is continuing to stand by Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood, and that could yet have serious backlash against the United States.
Here's live television from Egypt (sorry, Arabic only).
It starts: Egyptian army takes over state television building
The Egyptian army ultimatum to Islamist President Mohammed Morsy was not a bluff. The army has taken over the Egyptian television building.
Egypt’s leading democracy advocate, Mohamed
ElBaradei, and top Muslim and Coptic Christian clerics met Wednesday
with the army chief to discuss a political road map for Egypt only hours
before a military ultimatum to the Islamist president was set to
expire.
The meeting signaled the military was
taking concrete moves toward implementing its plan to replace President
Mohammed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected leader who came to office a
year ago.
...
ElBaradei is the leader of the main opposition
grouping, the National Salvation Front. He was accompanied in the
meeting with army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi by Sheik Ahmed
el-Tayeb, grand imam of Al-Azhar mosque, and Pope Tawadros II, patriarch
of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority.
Under a plan leaked to state media, the
military would install a new interim leadership, the Islamist-backed
constitution would be suspended and the Islamist-dominated parliament
dissolved.
The military has said it would implement its
plan once its two-day ultimatum to Morsi expires, between 4 p.m. and 5
p.m. Egypt time (5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Israel time).
In one of the first signs that the army was
beginning to implement its ultimatum, forces had taken over the state
television studios in Cairo, al-Arabiya reported early afternoon
Wednesday.
Mohamed Morsy's new stooge: The US Ambassador to Egypt
US Ambassador to Egypt Anne Patterson is reportedly pressuring Christian Copts not to participate in mass demonstrations against the regime of Mohamed Morsy and the Muslim Brotherhood that are due to take place next week in Cairo.
The June 18th edition of Sadi al-Balad reports that
lawyer Ramses Naggar, the Coptic Church’s legal counsel, said that
during Patterson’s June 17 meeting with Pope Tawadros, she “asked him to
urge the Copts not to participate” in the demonstrations
against Morsi and the Brotherhood.
The Pope politely informed her that his spiritual authority over the Copts does not extend to political matters.
Regardless, many Egyptian activists are condemning Patterson for
flagrantly behaving like the Muslim Brotherhood’s stooge. Leading
opposition activist Shady el-Ghazali Harb said Patterson showed “blatant
bias” in favor of Morsi and the Brotherhood, adding that her remarks
had earned the U.S. administration “the enmity of the Egyptian people.”
Coptic activists like George Ishaq openly told Patterson to “shut up and
mind your own business.” And Christian business tycoon Naguib
Sawiris—no stranger to Islamist hostility—posted a message on his
Twitter account addressed to the ambassador saying “Bless us with your
silence.”
But Patterson is apparently just carrying out the Obama administration's policy of currying favor with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations.
In other words, and consistent with Obama administration’s doctrine,
when Islamists—including rapists and cannibals—wage jihad on secular
leaders, the U.S. supports them; when Christians protest Islamist rulers
who are making their lives a living hell, the administration asks them
to “know their place” and behave like dhimmis, Islam’s
appellation for non-Muslim “infidels” who must live as third class
“citizens” and never complain about their inferior status.
Shame on America for electing and re-electing this Muslim-loving creep as President. Shame, shame, shame.
In a remarkable and enduring show of unity, non-Islamic
opposition parties under the banner of the National Salvation Front are
boycotting the regime until their demands – canceling the Islamic
constitution and setting up a consensus government until new elections
are held – are met.
The Muslim Brotherhood who had won a sweeping victory in the first free
parliamentary elections and got their candidate elected president have
bitterly disappointed the people who had put their faith in them.
Nothing has been done to improve their lot. Upon taking office Morsi had
promised – and failed – to take care of five burning issues within a
hundred days: growing insecurity, monster traffic jams in the capital,
lack of fuel and cooking gas, lack of subsidized bread, and the mounting
piles of refuse in the streets.
In The Pharoh weeps, Judith Miller cataloged some of the economic problems facing Egypt:
While Cairo may still be safer than Chicago, or even New
York, Egyptian women, for the first time in memory, fear shopping or
taking cabs at night. Cairo’s police, blamed for the deaths of
protestors and unhappy with their pay, working conditions, and lack of
respect, sit in their precinct houses, refusing to provide security that
Egyptians once took for granted. Tourists have vanished, depriving
Egypt of a vital source of jobs and hard currency. Unemployment has
risen from 9.8 percent in 2010 to 13 percent today. Inflation is
officially 8.7 percent, though more like 9.5 percent, or even higher,
for food and basic commodities, say economists. Even these figures are
misleading, since an estimated 40 percent of Egypt’s economy is “black”
or informal, unregulated by and unreported to the government, according
to Hazem el-Beblawi, an economist who served as deputy prime minister
under the army’s unpopular transition government in 2011. Beblawi, a
strong advocate of free-market liberalism who resigned his post that
year, accusing the army of taking Egypt in the “wrong direction,” says
youth unemployment probably tops 19 percent. Egypt, he estimates, has
less than its officially claimed $13.5 billion in hard-currency reserves
(versus $36 billion before the revolution). “Egypt imports roughly $60
billion worth of goods and services,” he says. “It exports under $25
billion.”
By summer, Beblawi predicts, the government will be unable to import the
wheat that sustains the poor—Egypt imports 10 million tons of wheat per
year, the most of any nation—or the diesel that fuels bread ovens and
transports 99 percent of everything that moves in this country of more
than 85 million. Egypt’s dilemma is this: it cannot politically afford
to stop providing the costly subsidies to the poor that distort its
economy. Poor Egyptians spend 70 percent of their income on food, versus
55 percent for Egyptians as a whole; Americans spend roughly 14
percent. But unless it reduces these subsidies and adopts a pro-growth
budget, Egypt cannot secure the $4.8 billion International Monetary Fund
loan it needs to unlock what Angus Blair, a Cairo-based former
investment banker and founder of Signet Institute, an economic think
tank, estimates could be $14 billion in aid and investment. Egypt spends
about 20 percent of its budget on fuel subsidies alone. In other words,
the government would be committing political suicide to do what
economists say must be done to sustain the country’s economic viability.
Only a government that enjoys public confidence can risk taking such
steps. “Egypt’s economic crisis has political roots,” Beblawi says. “And
a political solution is needed.” So far, he adds, none is in sight.
With their legendary “sabr,” or patience, nearly exhausted, Egyptians
blame the lack of growth, jobs, fuel, services, security, and stability
on what many call the “incompetence” of President Mohammed Morsi and his
ruling Muslim Brotherhood. And they blame the United States, too, for
supporting Morsi, who eked out an election victory last year and took
power last July thanks only to low voter turnout and a fractious,
divided secular opposition. “People no longer trust Morsi,” Beblawi
said, speaking for many among Cairo’s professional elite and middle
classes.
Clashes erupted immediately after the service between the
emerging mourners and a crowd outside the cathedral. It was unclear who
started the violence. But later dozens of riot police with armored
vehicles and tear-gas canons appeared to enter the fray on the side of
crowds of young Muslim men who were throwing rocks and fire bombs at the
mourners.
In what seemed like a siege of the cathedral, tear-gas canisters fell
inside the walls of its compound, sending gas into the sanctuary and two
nuns running for shelter in a nearby loading dock.
...
“The police are not trying to protect us or do anything to stop the
violence,” said Wael Eskandar, a Coptic Christian activist. “On the
contrary, they are actively aiding the people in civilian clothes”
attacking the Christians, he said.
It does no good to pretend, as some claim, that Morsi can’t
stop the attacks on Christians or that the forces pushing the country to
the brink of religious war are unrelated to the Brotherhood and its
supporters. While attacks on Christians were hardly unknown during the
long reign of deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak, it isn’t possible to
separate the heightened tension from the expectations of Islamists that
they have the Christian minority on the run. The brazen manner with
which these mobs have attacked a symbol of Christianity like the
Cathedral with the assistance of the police is a signal that things are
heading in the wrong direction. The spectacle of security forces with
armored personnel carriers and tear gas canons joining the violence on
the side of thugs throwing rocks and firebombs at Christian mourners
leaving the cathedral makes it hard to argue that this is the work of
extremists unconnected with the ruling party.
That Muslims who are prepared to riot and murder at the merest hint of
insult aimed at Islam taunted the Christians with what the Times called
“lewd gestures involving the cross” in the presence of the police is
itself appalling. But it is also indicative of a shift in the mood of
the Middle East, in which it is clear that anything goes when it comes
to religious conflict. Though the Brotherhood has promised gullible
Westerners that it won’t impose its beliefs on non-Muslims or turn the
country into a theocratic state, evidence is mounting that the
Kulturkampf in Egypt is in full swing.
If President Obama is serious about standing up for human rights, it is
necessary for him to speak out publicly against what is going on in
Egypt and to start using some of the leverage over its government that
he was quick to employ when showing Mubarak the door or threatening the
military to allow the Brotherhood to take office. If he fails to do so,
the Muslim and Arab world won’t be slow to draw the same conclusions
that Egyptians in the street are drawing from the role of the police in
the assault on the cathedral. They will think that Obama is indifferent
to the fate of the Copts or, even worse, that he has no problems with
the Brotherhood’s push for power.
Still, two things surprise me. The first is how incompetent
the Muslim Brotherhood has been. In Egypt, the Brotherhood has presided
over an economic death spiral and a judiciary caught up in idiocies like
investigating the comedian Bassem Youssef, Egypt’s Jon Stewart, for
allegedly insulting President Mohamed Morsi. (See Stewart’s perfect
takedown of Morsi.) Every time the Brotherhood had a choice of acting in
an inclusive way or seizing more power, it seized more power, depriving
it now of the broad base needed to make necessary but painful economic
reforms.
The second surprise? How weak the democratic opposition has been. The
tragedy of the Arab center-left is a complicated story, notes Marc
Lynch, a Middle East expert at George Washington University and the
author of “The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New
Middle East.” Many of the more secular, more pro-Western Egyptian
political elites who could lead new center-left parties, he said, had
been “co-opted by the old regime” for its own semiofficial parties and
therefore “were widely discredited in the eyes of the public.” That left
youngsters who had never organized a party, or a grab bag of
expatriates, former regime officials, Nasserites and liberal Islamists,
whose only shared idea was that the old regime must go.
And how would the Muslim Brotherhood have proven its "competence?"
Surely there's been incompetence in the way Morsi and company have
ruled, but to attribute their governing failure to "incompetence,"
ignores the nature of the Muslim Brotherhood. What Friedman attributes
to incompetence masks his own ignorance. He assumed that the Muslim
Brotherhood was interested in governing, not in accruing power to
itself. In his analyses of Egypt over the past two years Friedman
ignored the totalitarian nature of Islamists. Sure, Friedman is correct
now to argue that the United States needs to use its leverage to effect
change in Egypt (or at least attempt to) but he's been a cheerleader for
the Muslim Brotherhood until recently. That is not due to his
expertise, but to his ignorance, something he refuses to own up to.
MT "@shadihamid: New #Egypt poll: 37% of Egyptians would vote for Morsi again; Sabahi 3%; Baradei 1%; Amr Moussa 1% bit.ly/Z3qmBg"
— Ikhwanweb (@Ikhwanweb) April 8, 2013
Brave, astonishing ToI op-ed on why Arab Spring failed, by ex-Iranian foreign ministry employee toi.sr/17qi8GW via @timesofisrael
— David Horovitz (@davidhorovitz) April 10, 2013
2)The Syria Debacle
Once upon a time, President Obama's top policy advisers recommended that he aid the Syria rebels. That time has long passed. While the Obama administration initially saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a bulwark against Al Qaeda, but that strategy hasn't been working out very well.
In an audio statement released online yesterday, Abu Bakr al
Baghdadi, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), announced that his
organization shall henceforth be known as the “Islamic State in Iraq and
the Levant.” The new name reflects AQI’s unchecked growth, primarily
into neighboring Syria, since the withdrawal of American troops from
Iraq.
Since late 2011, the Al Nusrah Front has greatly expanded its
operations. The organization has become one of the most effective
fighting forces in the war against Bashar al Assad’s crumbling regime.
Al Nusrah is better known in the West by its true name: al Qaeda.
That should put Washington in a diplomatic quandary. Qatari
and Turkish support for the Nusra Front is now effectively aiding an
al-Qaeda affiliate sworn not only to kill Bashar al-Assad but also
Americans. If Gulf analysts in Bahrain and Kuwait are to be believed,
Qatar is mucking about with such groups not simply out of religious
solidarity, but also because the emir of Qatar is high on the notion
that tiny Qatar can afford to muck about and be a player on the
international stage. Turkey would rather pump money to an al-Qaeda
affiliate than recognize the rights of Syrian Kurds who will not pay
fealty to Turkey’s leader, like the Democratic Union Party (PYD) which
now controls most Kurdish areas in Syria.
A no-fly zone, such as that Max Boot advocates,
would have once helped ordinary Syrians protect themselves against the
excesses of Bashar al-Assad’s rule. And it still may not be such a bad
idea, so long as it simply does not do the Nusra Front’s work for it.
Nor is simply funding the Syrian opposition wise since neither the State
Department nor Central Intelligence Agency is skilled at separating the
wheat from the chaff among Syrian opposition groups. Liberals will not
rise to the top in any safe-haven when faced with a group bent on their
repression at any cost. Whether we like it or not, any strategy for
Syria must now prioritize crushing the Nusra Front. Defeating Assad and
hoping for the best is not a strategy that will bolster U.S. interests.
And Barry Rubin reminds what weapons these rebels may well get access
to. (To be clear, Salafist and Muslim Brotherhood affiliated rebels
have these weapons; Al Qaeda affiliated groups don't appear to have
them, yet.)
Briefly, the story is this: The weapons are generically
known as MANPAD for Man Portable Air Defense Missile. The equipment
captured in Libya and from the Syrian army in Syria or obtained by other
means consists of four types.
The SA16 is a short-range version which has been captured by the rebels,
specifically when they took the giant Syrian army base in Aleppo.
The only weapon from Libya is the older SA7, since the Libyans didn’t
have more advanced versions. It has been reported –though all such
figures are not necessarily reliable — that about 5000 SA7 missiles were
destroyed by the U.S. and other forces but that about 15,000 remained
missing. The missiles are not usable forever, and some of those in the
Libyan arsenal were very old, but apparently many of them would still
work. Here’s an example of a reasonably reliable report saying that a
large number of SA7s were delivered to Syrian rebels through Turkey last
September.
Then there’s the Chinese FN-6 , standard for the Chinese air force,
which was used to shoot down a Syrian transport helicopter at Menagh Air
Base near Aleppo. How did that one get there, through the
U.S.-Turkish-Saudi-Qatari arms supply program or another way? It is
claimed that Syrian rebels shot down two military helicopters with this
weapon.
And this brings us to the best of all, the SA24. While some have been
misidentified, they were obtained from the 46th Syrian regiment base
west of Aleppo.
For all the hope the Arab Spring originally engendered, it is increasingly looking like a disaster for American interests.
Egypt's final solution for Christians: Convert, pay jizya or die
Things are getting worse for Christians in Egypt. They are now being given the options of converting to Islam, paying the jizya (penalty tax for non-Muslims) or dying.
Egypt sends 16-year old Christian to jail for three years for 'defaming Islam' on his Facebook page
Now that they're a public company, maybe Facebook ought to reconsider their requirement that you use your real name. An Egyptian court has upheld the sentence of a 16-year old Christian who had been sentenced to three years in jail for 'defaming Islam' on his Facebook page.
An Egyptian court on Tuesday upheld a three year sentence against a 16-year-old Christian student for posting a drawing on his Facebook page that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohamed.
The Assiut Court of Appeals said that it has found Gamal Abdu Massoud guilty of defaming religion, state-run news service MENA reported on Tuesday.
Massoud published the cartoons in December, then some Muslims reacted angrily by attacking Christians and burning houses in the Manqabad village in the southern city of Assiut, home to a large Christian population.
In April, Assiut juvenile court sentenced him to three years in prison.
What Bob Simon doesn't want to hear about Christians in the Middle East
I am sure that many of you remember that horrible 60 Minutes segment done by Bob Simon last month, which was called Christians in the Holy Land. Simon probably does not know about, and does not want to know about, a Christian village named Taybeh in Samaria.
This is a village whose population is 100% Christian. It is surrounded by a number of Muslim villages, some of which are extremely hostile.
The number of Christians living in Taybeh is estimated at less than 2,000. Residents say that another 15,000 Taybeh villagers live in the US, Canada and Europe, as well as South America.
Over the past few years, the Christian residents of Taybeh have been living in constant fear of being attacked by their Muslim neighbors.
Such attacks, residents say, are not uncommon. They are more worried about intimidation and violence by Muslims than by Israel's security barrier or a checkpoint. And the reason why many of them are leaving is because they no longer feel safe in a village that is surrounded by thousands of hostile Muslims who relate to Christians as infidels and traitors.
Just last week, scores of Muslim men from surrounding villages, some of the men armed with pistols and clubs, attacked Taybeh.
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Palestinian Authority policemen who rushed to the village had to shoot into the air to drive back the Muslim attackers and prevent a slaughter.
The attack, residents said, came after a Muslim man tried to force his way into a graduation ceremony at a girls' school in Taybeh.
The man, who had not been invited to the ceremony, complained that Christians had assaulted him. Later that day, he and dozens of other Muslims stormed the village with the purpose of seeking revenge for the "humiliation."
Were it not for the quick intervention of the Palestinian security forces, the attackers would have set fire to a number of houses and vehicles and probably killed or wounded some Christians.
Palestinian government and police officials later demanded that the Christians dispatch a delegation to the nearby Muslim villages to apologize for "insulting" the Muslim man. To avoid further escalation, the heads of Taybeh complied.
Also at the request of the Palestinian government, residents of the village were requested not to talk to the media about the incident.
Even some of the leaders of the Christian community in the West Bank urged the Taybeh residents not to make a big fuss about the incident.
This was not the first time that Taybeh had come under attack. In September 2005, hundreds of Muslim men went on rampage in the village, torching homes and cars, and destroying a statue of the Virgin Mary, after learning that a Muslim woman had been romantically involved with a Christian businessman from the village.
The 30-year-old woman had been killed by her family.
Western journalists based in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have refused to report about the most recent attack on Taybeh, most probably because the story does not have an "anti-Israel angle."
The verdict passed by the Minya Criminal Court on May 21 convicting 12 Copts to life imprisonment while acquitting eight accused Muslims in the same case, known as Abu Qurqas sedition, has caused widespread anger among the Copts. Georges Wahib of United Copts, who attended the court session, said that when judge Abdel Fattah Ahmed al-Sughayar pronounced the verdict at the court yesterday "there was complete silence, as it came as a shock to everyone, then cries of grief and wailing could be heard from the Coptic families with shouts of we are innocent, while the Muslim side broke out into jubilation and shouts of Allahu Akbar."
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The events of the case started on April 18, 2011 over a speed hump built in front of the residence of a wealthy Coptic lawyer, Alaa Reda Roushdi, which a minibus driver claimed was damaging cars. The fight that broke out led to the death of 2 Muslims, injury to 4 Copts, and the destruction and looting of Coptic-owned homes and businesses (AINA 4-26-2011).
Many rights groups criticized the verdict as being "unbelievable" and "extremely harsh" towards the Copts. All the Muslims defendants, "who torched at least 56 Coptic homes, as well as businesses and barns, were acquitted," said Wagdi Halfa, defense attorney of the Coptic victims, in an interview aired yesterday by Coptic TV Channel. He expressed his incomprehension at how Coptic lawyer Alaa Reda Roushdi, who was not even in Abou Qorqas during the events, and then kept under house arrest by the police for another three days, could get life imprisonment.
Adel Roushdi, younger brother of Alaa Roushdi said during the same TV interview that the Islamists wanted to get rid of his brother because of the parliamentary elections, where his brother was sure to win. He accused the police chief in Abou Qorqas of planning the whole episode.
But of course, Bob Simon and the rest of the Western media are only interested in blaming Israel and the Jews for the flight of Christians from the Middle East. They have their own agenda.
Salafist leader compares Christians of Egypt to Jews of Medina
In this video, a leader of Egypt's Salafist movement (second largest party in parliament) compares the Christians of Egypt with the Jews of Medina. This ought not to give Christians a warm and fuzzy feeling: Mohamed eventually massacred the Jews of Medina.
For those who are wondering, the reason I am online tonight is because while the holiday has two days on which work is prohibited outside of Israel, for Israelis in Israel we only have one day on which work is prohibited. So we are allowed online tonight. For more on why that is so, go here.
Here is Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Wednesday, October 12, which came in just as the holiday was starting.
1) Saving Sgt. Shalit
Yesterday PM Netanyahu announced that a deal had been reached to exchange Sgt Gilad Shalit (promoted from Corporal during his captivity) for over 1000 security prisoners. In announcing the deal PM Netanyahu said:
Today, I bring a proposal to the Government for a deal that will bring Gilad Shalit home alive and well; bring him home to his parents Aviva and Noam, his brother Yoel, his sister Hadas, his grandfather Zvi, and the entire people of Israel. Two and a half years ago, when the government was formed, I took upon myself, as my first priority, to bring Gilad home to his people, to his family - to bring him home safe and sound.
At the time, Gilad was already held in captivity for two and a half years, with no visits from the Red Cross, with no visits at all, and we did not know what state he was in. The first step I took, and we approved it here in the Government, was to get a video recording of Gilad, and we all breathed a sigh of relief when we saw it. We saw that he was functioning, physically, mentally and cognitively. We saw that he was functioning well. We knew that he was healthy and that he was alive. I regarded that tape as an insurance policy, because it obliged the Hamas before the international community to safeguard him, to keep him alive and maintain his health. But that was obviously only the first step. The most important mission that we had was more challenging - to actually bring Gilad home. To that end we held long and tough negotiations through the German mediator. These negotiations were based on a framework outlined by the previous government. They were long and exhausting and despite all our efforts, a deal was not reached.
“With everything that is happening in Egypt and the region, I don’t know if the future would have allowed us to get a better deal — or any deal at all for that matter,” he said. “This is a window of opportunity that might have been missed.” An Israeli official said on Tuesday that Israel had sent a letter of apology to Egypt for the deaths of several of its troops by Israeli forces chasing Palestinian militants into Sinai in August. Many aspects of the agreement were not revealed, including the names of important Palestinian prisoners expected to be released. But Israeli journalists said after an intelligence briefing that Marwan Barghouti, a top leader of the Fatah group sentenced to five life terms and seen as a possible successor to Mr. Abbas, would not be freed. Mr. Meshal said that the total would be 1,027, among them 315 prisoners serving life sentences and 27 women.
This being the New York Times had to get in a word about peace talks:
Despite efforts to renew peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, there is little optimism regarding success. The prisoner exchange, assuming it is carried out, seems likely to increase the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians as well as that of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party in Israel, perhaps temporarily sidelining Mr. Abbas.
I don't believe that this was part of Netanyahu's calculations, but for Hamas I'm sure this was part of the reason they agreed to the deal. After Abbas had the world stage pushing for statehood, Hamas has taken back the limelight for now. Hamas also can claim success; Abbas can't. The implication that strengthening Likud hurts chances of peace is gratuitous. Further the story informs us:
For Palestinians, the plight of thousands of their sons in Israeli prisons has been equally traumatic, and the possibility of their release drew enormous attention.
Once upon a time many of the prisoners were arrested for supporting Fatah politically. Once the PLO was legalized was signed, Israel stopped arresting Palestinians for political activity. Those in jail are not there for some arbitrary reason but for terror related activities. Worse, this is terror that occurred after Oslo and Arafat's "solemn" promise never to resort to terror again. The equivalence here is offensive. Honest Reporting warned about how the media spin aspects of Shalit's release. Item #1 is Whitewashing the terror activities of the prisoners being released:
Some of the names we’ll see in the coming days are a rogues gallery of terror. Marwan Barghouti, for example, was convicted in a civilian court for his role in terror attacks that killed five people. Mona Awana befriended 16-year-old Ofir Rachum online and lured him to Ramallah, where he was executed by Awana’s friends in the Tanzim militia. Ahmed Sa’adat gave the order to assassinate Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Ze’evi.Activism is practiced by activists and terrorism is practiced by terrorists. Which words will your newspaper use?
This equivalence is a variation on the whitewashing theme. Barry Rubin writes:
An interesting aspect of this development is the revelation that a key factor in the decision to end the counterattack on the Gaza Strip in early 2009, when Israel retaliated to Hamas breaking the ceasefire and launching an all-out attack, was a Hamas threat to kill Shalit if the offensive continued.
This would mean that Shalit was an insurance policy for Hamas. Why would they let him go now? Was Israel getting too close to the top leadership of Hamas in 2009? Does Hamas have some other insurance policy? Barry Rubin has more particulars about the prisoners. Is Israel confident that it can prevent similar kidnappings now? Prior to Operation Cast Lead, Israel struck at a smuggling tunnel.
The decision to take action to expose the tunnel west of the fence on the border of the Gaza Strip Tuesday night was justified and reasonable, even if it had been possible to predict the results: six Palestinians killed, heavy rocket fire on Sderot and a direct hit on the center of Ashkelon. It is hard to see what other choice Israeli leaders had. Such an operation may put the continued cease-fire in danger, but if Hamas had succeeded in its plans to abduct another Israel Defense Forces soldier using the tunnel, the situation would have been infinitely worse. At least Israel has learned the lesson of the Gilad Shalit abduction. In cases where the Shin Bet security service passes on specific information on a planned attack, a "ticking tunnel" as the IDF called it yesterday, a preventative operation is approved a few hundred meters inside Palestinian territory. Without such operations it would be very difficult to prevent another abduction.
FBI and DEA agents have disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States" tied to Iran, federal officials told ABC News today. The officials said the plot included the assassination of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, with a bomb and subsequent bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. Bombings of the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Buenos Aires, Argentina, were also discussed, according to the U.S. officials. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an announcement today that the plan was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" by a faction of the government and called it a "flagrant" violation of U.S. and international law.
Rasool Nafisi, an Iranian-American scholar who studies the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, said he thought it unlikely that the plot was approved at a high level by Iranian officials. “It’s not typical of the Quds Force or the I.R.G.C. to operate in the U.S., for fear of retaliation,” Mr. Nafisi said. Iran’s last lethal operation on American soil, he said, was in 1980, when a critic of the Islamic government was murdered at his Bethesda, Md., home. Mr. Nafisi said it was conceivable that elements of the Revolutionary Guards might have concocted the plot without top-level approval, perhaps to prevent reconciliation between Iran and the United States. But Iran’s Islamic government has a long history of attempts to eliminate enemies living overseas, said Roya Hakakian, author of “Assassins of the Turquoise Palace,” a book on the murder of four Iranians in a Berlin restaurant in 1992. A German court found that the murders were approved at the highest levels of the Iranian government.
It's good that the Times mentioned that Iran hasn't always shown compunctions about operating in foreign countries. Still it's disappointing that the report takes a contrary approach. Is there any reason to question Iranian involvement? (Similarly ABC raises doubts that the drug gang would wish to invite retaliation from the United States.) But neither the New York Times nor ABC discuss the terror attack on Argentina's Jewish Center in 1994. Iran's current Defense Minister is implicated in that attack and was the source of a diplomatic incident between Bolivia and Argentina a few months ago:
Sources in Bolivia's government, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that Vahidi left Bolivia late on Tuesday. Vahidi is among the senior Iranian officials accused by Argentine prosecutors of being behind the attack that leveled the Argentine Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires. Iran denies any links to the bombing. "Unfortunately (the Bolivian Defense Ministry) did not know about the background of the case," the letter said. Nor did the ministry coordinate the invitation with the rest of Bolivia's government, it said.
Vahidi's suffered no consequences, might that have emboldened him and his government?
3) Reconsidering
The pasttwo days, I've expressed doubts about reports emphasizing the military council's responsibility for the anti-Copt violence in Egypt. I was wrong to do so. Raymond Ibrahim writes (h/t Lynn):
Meanwhile, the MSM avoids the most obvious aspect of the conflict: religion, as Muslims—yet again—mow down infidel minorities for all to see.While the military dictatorship cleanses Egypt of its Christian minority, the Egyptian media only depict images and "information" that comport with that agenda—all, of course, while naïve, gullible, or lazy Western reporters lap it up. State news, for example, asserted that armed Christians were on the offensive, killing three soldiers, injuring twenty, and burning state property—wanton lies, according to many eyewitnesses—yet perfectly in line with the MSM's obsession never to portray Muslims as aggressors.Accordingly, these distortions were unhesitatingly regurgitated by the MSM. The BBC's headline was "Egypt troops dead after Coptic church protest in Cairo" [since changed]—as if that was the relevant news; the report's opening sentence highlighted Christian protesters "clashing with security forces, with army vehicles burning outside the state television building," again, portraying the protesters as the aggressors.
I don't agree that the Western media has been whitewashing the military's involvement at all. However I believe that they are focusing on the military's culpability and ignoring the Islamic angle. Eric Trager writes:
Although al-Ghad Party leader Ayman Nour, Egypt Freedom Party leader Amr Hamzawy, Social Democratic Party figure Mohamed Abul Ghar, and a representative of Mohamed ElBaradei's National Association for Change have compared the SCAF, unfavorably, to the Mubarak regime, many key political players have sided with the military. Leading presidential candidate Amr Moussa, for instance, reportedly stressed the importance of "ruling with an iron fist in order to protect the country from looming chaos." Moussa'a pro-SCAF stance has been echoed resoundingly by Islamist leaders. Former Muslim Brotherhood leader and current presidential candidate Abdel Monem Abouel-Fetouh cited the clashes as advancing "foreign and Zionist aims." Another Islamist presidential candidate, Selim al-Awa, blamed foreigners for the attacks, claiming the United States was seeking a pretext to intervene militarily in Egypt to protect Christian houses of worship. Such reactions by Islamists suggest they remain firmly aligned with the SCAF, even despite recent disagreements regarding the timing of elections and the drafting of supraconstitutional principles. While distrust between Islamists and the military undoubtedly remains, the Islamists continue to view the SCAF -- and the limited stability that it provides -- as their best means for achieving maximal influence in post-Mubarak Egypt. Liberal and leftist leaders, by contrast, increasingly view the SCAF as the primary cause of the country's political uncertainty and continuing instability.
This is the dynamic absent from the MSM's reporting. The New York Times took pains the other day to portray the violence as the regime against Copts and righteous Muslims. In reality the military council is fomenting violence against the Copts, but they have the full support of the Islamists.
Video: Your (American) tax dollars at work running over Copts with tanks
Here's video of Egyptian tanks running over Christian Copt demonstrators on Sunday night in Cairo. It looks like a far more dangerous version of the running of the bulls in Pampalona, Spain.
If you're an American, as you watch this video, realize that your tax dollars are paying for the Egyptian army to do this (okay, you're not the only ones, but you get the point). And you may soon be paying more and giving more advanced weapons to the Egyptian army in order to get Ilan Grapel released.
Let's go to the videotape (Hat Tip: Blake Hounshell via Twitter).
Aren't you glad the Obama administration rushed to cut Mubarak loose last January?
Christians protesting against an attack on a church threw rocks and petrol bombs and set cars on fire, as thick smoke wafted through the streets in some of the most violent scenes since an uprising ousted ex-president Hosni Mubarak in February.
Hundreds from both sides fought with sticks on a Cairo bridge. Protests later spread to the central Tahrir Square, the focal point of the February uprising. Witnesses said the army had moved into the area.
State television and sources said 150 people were injured, without saying how many of them were protesters. It had previously said three of those killed were soldiers.
Tensions between Christians and Muslims have increased since the February uprising. The latest violence comes just weeks before a parliamentary election on Nov. 28, the first such vote since Mubarak was ousted.
Egypt's government has appealed for calm. Prime Minister Essam Sharaf said he had contacted security and church authorities to contain the situation.
"The only beneficiary of these events and acts of violence are the enemies of the January revolution and the enemies of the Egyptian people, both Muslim and Christian," he said on his Facebook page.
Christians, who make up 10 percent of Egypt's roughly 80 million people, took to the streets after blaming Muslim radicals for partially demolishing a church in Aswan province last week.
They also demanded the sacking of the province's governor for failing to protect the building.
After two churches were burned down and 12 more Christian Copts were killed on Saturday night in western Cairo, the Copts are seeking international protection to protect and save their community. Will anyone listen?
As we arrived within a couple hundred yards of the church, now deep inside the neighborhood, we saw a large crowd of men and young boys milling around in the street leading to the church.
To avoid a repeat of such attacks against journalists, we heeded locals' warnings, which came in the form of helpful advice from some and overt threats by others to stay put. We kept our cameras in our bags to avoid attracting even more attention, and stopped at a small cafe to survey the scene from a distance.
There was the sound of occasional gunfire and the smell of smoke filling the air, while we debated whether to advance. A convoy of large, green police vehicles and ambulances gave a glimmer of hope that some security would be restored, in turn making it safe to report. But as we stepped back onto the street, some in the crowd started to grow hostile to our presence as both journalists and foreigners.
We decided not to advance any farther and turned around to leave. We walked quickly from the scene. This is when some in the crowd began to turn on us.
One man started screaming "get out," attracting uninvited attention. A couple of men grabbed two of the reporters' bags. We eventually broke free and quickly moved down the street.
Fortunately, a few locals came to our rescue, escorting us out of the area. Their kindness might have saved our lives.
Barry Rubin believes that Christians in the Middle East are now in serious danger, and criticizes the 'international community' (and especially the Obama administration) for not recognizing the danger before calling for Hosni Mubarak's ouster.
No kidding! Did you think a single Egyptian Christian didn't know this in February? Why didn't the media report or the U.S. government understand that this was absolutely inevitable and predictabe. But the only mentions of Christians were to claim that they were really enthusiastic about the revolution.
The remaining Christians in most of the Arabic-speaking world may be on the edge of flight or extinction. All of the Christians have left the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip which is, in effect, an Islamist republic. They are leaving the West Bank. Half have departed from an increasingly Islamist-oriented Iraq where they are under terrorist attack. Within a few years they might all be gone.
In Lebanon while the Christians are holding their own there is a steady emigration. As for Syria, the community has generally supported the Asad regime fearing a revolutionary Islamist replacement. One dissident recalled that as he was being beaten in a Syrian prison a few years ago the police yelled at him, "Why are you doing this? You're a Christian!"
Egypt has more Christians than Israel's entire population. There have been numerous attacks, with the latest in Cairo leaving 12 dead, 220 wounded, and two churches burned. The Western media generally attributes this to inter-religious battles. Yet Egypt's Christians, so totally outnumbered and not having any access to the power of the state, have generally kept a low profile.
It is hard to believe that gangs of Christians go out and attack Muslims, especially when the fighting revolves around mobs attacking churches. “How can they say we started it when we are defending our church?” asked one Christian. That makes sense.
The Christians cannot depend on any support from Western churches or governments. Will there be a massive flight of tens or even hundreds of thousands of Christians from Egypt in the next few years?
Obama's desire to suck up to the Muslim world may yet spell the end for the Christian communities of the Middle East. Except in Israel.
Anyone want to bet how a 'Palestinian state' will treat its Christians if given the opportunity?
Up to 10 Christians killed in Muslim violence in Egypt
Five, eight, nine or ten Coptic Christians were killed in rioting last night by Muslims in Western Cairo who attacked Christians and burned down two churches. The riots may have been connected to the alleged marriage of a Christian woman to a Muslim man.
Mixed relationships are taboo in Egypt, where the Muslim majority and sizable Christian minority are both largely conservative. Such relationships are often the source of deadly clashes between the faiths.
If a Christian woman marries a Muslim, she is expelled from the church. A Muslim woman is not allowed to marry a Christian man, according to state law.
Because divorce is banned under the Coptic Church, unless under stringent conditions, many women resort to conversion as a way to get out of a marriage.
The case of Camilla Shehata, the wife of a Coptic priest, captivated attention last summer and has again become a source of tension.
Ultraconservative Muslims have held protests and appeared on talk shows demanding the return of Shehata to Islam. They accused the police of collaborating with the church by handing Shehata over to church authorities to reconvert her.
On Saturday, Shehata appeared on a Christian TV station broadcast from outside of Egypt in a teleconference with her husband to say she was still a Christian and had never converted.
She said the protests were an attack on the church. "Let the protesters leave the Church alone and turn their attention to Egypt's future." The woman's whereabouts is unknown.
Ultraconservative Muslims have gained prominence in Egypt, becoming more assertive in trying to spread their version of an Islamic way of life.
Another report claimed that a Christian woman married to a Muslim man had been abducted by the church and was being held against her will.
Either way, someone started shooting, and although Muslims claimed some of their people were killed, all the dead appear to be Christian.
Lisa Graas has several videos from Saturday night's events here.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
