As Jesus informed us, we know that we will continue to see a rise in Christian persecution, and indeed we are. This first story is as frustrating as it is heart-breaking.
Who is more deserving of punishment by the United States? Millions of Egyptians, for ousting the Muslim Brotherhood? Or the Muslim Brotherhood, for habitually terrorizing and murdering Christians, among many other crimes?
According to the unmistakably clear actions of the Obama administration, it is the millions of anti-Brotherhood Egyptians who deserve punishment.Last Sunday, the Church of the Virgin Mary in Waraq near Cairo was attacked during a wedding ceremony, leaving four dead and many wounded. According to Dr. Hisham Abdul Hamid of forensics, two of those who were murdered were Christian children—two girls; two Marys: 12-year-old Mary Nabil Fahmy, who took five shots in the chest, and 8-year-old Mary Ashraf Masih (meaning “Christ”), who took a bullet in the back which burst from the front.
It should be noted that this scene—attacked Coptic churches and murdered Christians, especially on holy days and celebrations—has become a normalized aspect of Egypt’s landscape (see Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, especially pgs. 42-43 and 56-62).
So too are the murders of Christian children increasingly common in Egypt. Indeed, along with Sunday’s two murdered Marys, back in July, another Christian girl, 10-year-old Jessi Boulos, was shot dead while walking home from Bible class.
All of these church attacks and murders are a direct byproduct of the Muslim Brotherhood’s incitements against Egypt’s Christians in retaliation for the June 30 Revolution, which saw the ousting of the Brotherhood.
As today’s headline from one of Egypt’s most read newspapers, Tahrir News, put it: “The Brotherhood’s crime in Waraq [location of Sunday’s church attack]. Seventeen murdered Copts and 85 torched churches since ousting of Morsi… Copts pay price of June 30 Revolution.”
For years, human rights activists have been imploring the Obama administration to make aid to Egypt contingent on respect for the human rights of all Egyptians, including Christian minorities. Such a move would dramatically ameliorate the plight of the Copts, since all potential Egyptian governments, including the ousted Muslim Brotherhood, are more interested in securing money than in killing Christians.
Instead, the Obama administration’s approach has been 1) to ignore the plight of Egypt’s Christians and 2) when attacks are especially egregious (and exposed by the MSM) offer perfunctory condemnation. (After all, if the administration was able to get away with the lip-service approach among Americans—vocally condemning and promising to get the Muslim Brotherhood-linked murderers of Americans in Benghazi but then ignoring it—surely it will not hesitate doing so with a foreign nation.)
And yet, when those who are responsible for the destruction of nearly 100 Christian churches (including an unprecedented attack on the holiest Coptic church back when Morsi was still president) and the murders of Copts and their children finally get ousted by the Egyptian people and their military, it is then that the Obama administration cuts hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Egypt—thereby punishing all of Egypt for ejecting the Muslim Brotherhood from power. (In other nations, like Syria, the administration supports the Christian-slaughtering, al-Qaeda linked terrorists).
What more proof can any sensible American need to know that the Muslim-named president of the United States of America is in league with Muslim terrorists?
Israeli warplanes hit a convoy of advanced missiles heading out of Syria and into Lebanon where they were to be delivered to Hezbollah, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Wednesday.
According to the report, in the Kuwait-based paper Al-Jarida (Arabic), the attack was carried out earlier this week in the vicinity of the Lebanese-Syrian border.
However, the report, which relied on an unnamed “official source” in Jerusalem, did not say whether the targets were in Lebanon or Syria at the time of the strike.
The Times of Israel could not independently confirm the report. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to answer questions from an Israel Radio reporter Tuesday morning regarding alleged Israeli strikes in Syria.
On Tuesday Lebanese media reported that Israeli warplanes and pilot-less drones overflew villages in south Lebanon.
Israel has warned that any delivery of advanced weapons to the Shi’ite militia was a “red line” that would precipitate military action.
Days after Saudi Arabia surprised the international community with its last-minute decision to reject a rotating UN Security Council seat, there were signs of a growing rift between the oil-rich Gulf monarchy and its key ally, the US.
At a weekend meeting with European diplomats, Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief said the kingdom would make a "major shift" in its relations with the United States in protest over Washington's perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran, according to media reports.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Prince Bandar bin Sultan invited a Western diplomat to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah over the weekend to voice Riyadh's frustration with the Obama administration and its regional policies, including the decision not to bomb Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in August.
At a weekend meeting with European diplomats, Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief said the kingdom would make a "major shift" in its relations with the United States in protest over Washington's perceived inaction over the Syria war and its overtures to Iran, according to media reports.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Prince Bandar bin Sultan invited a Western diplomat to the Saudi Red Sea city of Jeddah over the weekend to voice Riyadh's frustration with the Obama administration and its regional policies, including the decision not to bomb Syria in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons in August.
A deepening diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the US burst open on Tuesday after secretary of state John Kerry acknowledged that Washington's key strategic ally had serious misgivings about US foreign policy in the Middle East.
Kerry held urgent talks with his Saudi counterpart in Paris on Monday amid complaints from Riyadh that the US was not doing enough to help Sunni-dominated rebels in Syria following a decision not launch US military action.
"We know that the Saudis were obviously disappointed that the [Syria] strike didn't take place," Kerry told reporters in London on Tuesday.
"It is our obligation to work closely with them – as I am doing," he added, referring to multiple meetings he had on Monday with Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal. "The president asked me to come and have the conversations that we have had."
Kerry insisted relations remained fundamentally sound, but news of the meetings appears to confirm reports in the Wall Street Journal that the Saudis had threatened to scale back their regional co-operation with the US in protest at what it saw as a misguided Middle East strategy.
Reuters also quoted Prince Bandar telling European diplomats that the kingdom would be making a "major shift" in relations with Washington over perceived inaction towards the conflict in Syria, and a possible rapprochement with Iran over its nuclear program.
Saudi Arabia is understood to be upset at perceived US weakness over Iran – and wants more aggressive steps taken to prevent Tehran's development of nuclear weapons technology – and Egypt, where the US has severed military ties with the new government in protest at crackdowns on demonstrators.
Also see:
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar