Alexander Aan was just another bureaucrat holding down a desk at the Department of Planning until his Facebook Atheism page came to the notice of Indonesian authorities in Obama’s old stomping grounds. Now Aan is facing a five year jail sentence for using social media to spread the message that Allah does not exist.

Alexander is being charged with “defiling” Islam by using passages from the Koran to challenge the Islamic religion. And while the State Department and the media routinely go on the attack against any manifestation of what they call “Islamophobia,” it isn’t likely that they will be rushing to Aan’s defense. This isn’t exactly the first time that atheists have run afoul of the Islamic codes under which the Muslim world operates.

Two years ago, the Palestinian Authority arrested Waleed Hasayin on similar charges of blaspheming against Islam on Facebook. Waleed Hasayin had written that, “Muhammad was no different than barbaric thugs who slaughtered, robbed and raped women” and that “Islam has legitimized slavery, reinforced the gap between social classes and allowed stealing from the infidels, taking women in captivity during wars and sexual abuse of women slaves.”

For these and other truthful statements, he was arrested and his family demanded that he be sentenced to life in prison. He has since written a letter of apology in hopes of being released.

The regimes imprisoning Aan and Hasayin are funded by the United States. Indonesia is on the list of the top twenty countries benefiting from USAID funding and the Palestinian Authority, including its security forces and prisons, is mostly subsidized by American taxpayers. The arrests were accompanied by mob protests and violence reflecting populist Muslim hostility toward non-Muslims.

Underlying these individual incidents is a legal code that goes to the very definition of what it means to be a citizen of a Muslim country. Muslim countries recognize a limited set of legal religions. Non-Muslims who are members of legal religions have fewer rights and run the usual risks that come with being a minority group. Non-Muslims who are not members of official religions do not. This includes Muslim sects that the Islamic system does not recognize as legitimate. It includes Muslims who wish to convert to another religion, and it includes atheists who are not a recognized religious group.

Religious identity is linked to civic participation in public life in a way that most Americans are not aware of. It appears on identity cards, it is a basic requirement for doing anything from attending a university to getting married. Without membership in an officially recognized religious group, the atheist is a non-person.

But atheists no longer have to live in the Muslim world in order to be subject to Islamic rules. At Queen Mary, University of London, a public research university with roots going back nearly a thousand years, the Atheism, Secularism and Humanism Society attempted to hold a discussion on “Sharia Law and Human Rights.” The discussion came to an abrupt end when a man entered the room and warned that they would be murdered if they said anything critical about Mohammed.

Earlier I discussed how mosques, some of which breed radicalization and serve as terrorist bases, flourish in America, while churches are increasingly targeted and destroyed in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, the cradle of Christianity.

This pattern—religious appeasement of Muslim minorities in the West, religious hostility for Christian minorities under Islam—continues and manifests itself in other ways.

Consider Christmas.  The same appeasement that allows a “victory mosque” to be erected near Ground Zero, where jihadists killed some 3,000 Americans, compromises one of Christianity’s most important events.

For instance, a “Montreal suburb has decided to remove a nativity scene and menorah from town hall rather than acquiesce to demands from a Muslim group to erect Islamic religious symbols.” Contrast this with Iran, where many churches were “ordered to cancel Christmas and New Year’s celebrations as a show of their compliance and support” for “the two month-long mourning activities of the Shia’ Moslems,” a reference to the bloody flagellations and self mutilations Shias perform in memory of Imam Hussein during Ashura.

Likewise, the University of London held Christmas service featuring readings from the Quran—Islam’s holy book that unequivocally condemns the Incarnation, which is precisely what Christmas celebrates.  Meanwhile, Islam’s clerics in the West proclaimed things like “saying Merry Christmas is worse than fornication or killing someone,” since doing so is to “approve of the biggest crime ever committed by humanity”: the belief that God became man on Christmas.  As the cleric makes clear, these are not his words, but rather the words of Islam’s most authoritative clerics.

Nor are these just words.  Around the Muslim world, Christmas time for Christians is a time of threats, harassment, and fear. One can point to any number of Muslim attacks on Christians to prove this—whether churches attacked, burned, or forced into closure; whether Muslim converts to Christianity beat, killed, or imprisoned; whether Christians abused on “blasphemy” charges; or whether just sheer violence and killings of “infidel” Christians. (See “Muslim Persecution of Christians” for a list of December’s abuses alone).

The New Year’s resolution for “Sunnis for Da’wa [Islamization] and Jihad”—also known as Boko Haram, that is, “Western education is forbidden”—is to create a Christian-free Nigeria, beginning, naturally, with the north, where Muslims outnumber Christians.

Right at the start of 2012, Boko Haram issued an ultimatum giving Christians living in northern Nigeria three days to evacuate or die—an ultimatum the group has been living up to, so much so that Nigeria’s President Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency.

This, of course, is not to say that Boko Haram has not been long targeting Christians, as the New York Times—which all but apologized for the group’s terrorism—would have it.

Boko Haram and other Muslims have been terrorizing Nigerian Christians for years, killing thousands of them, and destroying hundreds of their churches.  Just last November, hundreds of armed Muslims, many from the group, invaded Christian villages, “like a swarm of bees,” killing, looting, and destroying. At the end of their four-hour rampage, at least 130 Christians were killed. Forty-five other Christians in another village were slaughtered by another set of “Allahu Akbar!” screaming Muslims.

Likewise, another jihadi attack from last November, enabled by “local Muslims,” left five churches destroyed and several Christians killed: “The Muslims in this town were going round town pointing out church buildings and shops owned by Christians to members of Boko Haram, and they in turn bombed these churches and shops.”  In one instance, a local Muslim pleaded with Boko Haram members not to burn down a particular church—not out of altruism, of course, but rather because that Muslim’s home was adjacent to the church, and might also have caught fire.  The church was spared.

Still, beginning with Boko Haram’s church attacks of December 25, where over 40 people celebrating Christmas were killed, the group has definitely upped both the frequency and savagery of jihadi attacks on Christians and their churches.  Most recently, armed Muslims stormed a church and “opened fire on worshippers as their eyes were closed in prayer,” killing six Christians, including the pastor’s wife, and wounding many.

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through Nigeria, not a creature was stirring except for the members of the militant Islamic sect Boko Haram, preparing to bomb Christian churches across the country and setting on fire the cars of worshippers inside a church just outside of Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state.

Christmastime in the United States now brings with it a new tradition that is becoming as familiar as eggnog, mistletoe, and the Macy’s Parade: skirmishes in the ongoing cultural war on Christmas. But as the recent attacks in Nigeria prove, in Muslim lands around the world there is also a very real and very violent war on Christmas, or more specifically on Christians themselves minding their own business in peaceful celebration of the birth of Jesus.

In Iraq, for example, all Christian services and masses were scheduled for daylight hours. Why? “Midnight Christmas Mass has been canceled in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk as a consequence of the never-ending assassinations of Christians,” bluntly stated Chaldean Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. In Egypt, where we are witnessing the outright, state-assisted genocide of the dwindling Coptic Christian population, churches were also threatened with violence. Christian prisoners in Pakistan, incarcerated for such crimes as blasphemy against Islam, were refused Christmas Day visits from their families.

America itself has not been exempt in the past from Islamic Grinches determined to dampen Christmas spirits. Recall the Christmas Day Underwear Bomber, for example, and the failed Portland bomber who had hoped to slaughter and maim thousands of families gathered to watch the annual lighting of a community Christmas tree. Racist Islamophobes managed to prevent both those men from carrying out their jihadist obligations against Christmas celebrants. (FrontPage contributor Daniel Greenfield catalogues past Islamic Christmas assaults here).

But on this Christmas Day, Nigeria was the scene of the greatest holiday devastation. A series of coordinated bombings perpetrated by Boko Haram, which seeks to impose sharia across the country, struck three churches during services. Conflicting reports of casualties suggest that 40 or more were killed, at least 27 at a single location, and of course dozens more were wounded.

The New York Times reported that rescue workers faced not only a shortage of ambulances for the dozens wounded in the bombings, but also “an enraged crowd that initially blocked them from entering the church until soldiers arrived to restore order.” The Times didn’t specify what kind of enraged crowd would seek to block rescue workers from attempting to assist the suffering and dying Christians.

Setting off deadly holiday fireworks is becoming an annual tradition for Boko Haram, a sort of African Taliban, who carried out another series of lethal Christmas Eve bombings last year. It is often noted that the group’s name translates to “Western education is sacrilege,” but in fact its more official name in Arabic means “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” As part of that solemn commitment, Boko Haram has propagated at least 465 killings in Nigeria this year alone while spreading the Religion of Peace. Misunderstanders of Islam, as scholar of Islam Robert Spencer, tongue in cheek, might call them.

This article is reprinted from Hudson New York.

The so-called “Arab Spring” continues to transition into a “Christian Winter,” including in those nations undergoing democratic change, such as Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis dominated the elections—unsurprisingly so, considering the Obama administration has actually been training Islamists for elections.

Arab regimes not overthrown by the “Arab Spring” are under mounting international pressure;  these include the secular Assad regime of Syria, where Christians, who comprise some 10% of the population, are fearful of the future, having seen the effects of democracy in neighboring nations such as Iraq, where, since the fall of the Saddam regime, Christians have been all but decimated.

Meanwhile, it was revealed that “Christians are being refused refugee status [in the U.S.] and face persecution and many times certain death for their religious beliefs under Sharia, while whole Muslim communities are entering the U.S. by the tens of thousands per month despite the fact that they face no religious persecution.”

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

Churches

Ethiopia: More than 500 Muslim students assisted by Muslim police burned down a church, while screaming “Allahu Akbar” (and thus clearly positing their attack in an Islamic framework); the church was built on land used by Christians for more than 60 years, but now a court has ruled that it was built “without a permit.”

Indonesia: Hundreds of “hard-line” Muslims rallied to decry the “arrogance” of a beleaguered church that, though kept shuttered by authorities, has been ordered open by the Supreme Court.  Church members have been forced to hold services on the sidewalk, even as Indonesia’s leading Muslim clerics warned Christians that it would be “wise and sensible” for the church to yield to “the feelings of the local believers, specifically Muslims.”

Iran: The nation’s minister of intelligence said that house churches in his country are a threat to Iranian youth, and acknowledged a new series of efforts to fight the growth of the house church movement in Iran.

Nigeria: Islamic militants shouting “Allahu Akbar” carried out coordinated attacks on churches and police stations, including opening fire on a congregation of “mostly women and children,” killing dozens.  The attacks occurred in a region where hundreds of people were earlier killed during violence that erupted after President Jonathan, a Christian, beat his closet Muslim rival in April elections.

Turkey: The ancient Aghia Sophia church has been turned into a mosque.  Playing an important role in ecumenical history, the church was first transformed into a mosque in 1331 by the jihadist Ottoman state.  As a sign of secularization, however, in 1920 it was turned into a museum.  Its transformation again into a mosque is a reflection of Turkey’s re-Islamization.

Apostasy and Proselytism

Afghanis around the world are being threatened for leaving Islam and converting to Christianity. One exile, who changed his name after fleeing Afghanistan in 2007 when an Islamic court issued an arrest warrant for his conversion, is still receiving threats: “They [Afghan officials] were very angry and saying that they will hit me by knife and kill me.”  Even in distant Norway last September, an Afghan convert to Christianity was scalded with boiling water and acid at a refugee processing center: “If you do not return to Islam, we will kill you,” his attackers told him.

Algeria: Five Christians were jailed for “worshiping in an unregistered location.”  International Christian Concern (ICC), an advocacy group investigating the case, states that the five Christians are charged with “proselytizing,” “unauthorized worship,” and “insulting Islam.”

Iran: Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, who caught the attention of the world after being imprisoned and awaiting execution for leaving Islam, remains behind bars as officials continue to come up with excuses to force him to renounce Christianity, the latest being that “everyone is [born] a Muslim.”  A Christian couple “who had been snatched and illegally-detained” by authorities for eight months without any formal charges, were finally released, beaten again, and have since fled the country.  While imprisoned, they were “ridiculed and debased” for their Christian faith.

Kashmir: Muslim police arrested and beat seven converts from Islam in an attempt to obtain a confession against the priest who baptized them.  After the grand mufti alleged that Muslim youths were alternatively being “lured” and “forced” to convert by an Anglican priest “in exchange for money,”  the priest was arrested in a “humiliating” manner.  Recently released, his life is now “in serious danger.”

Kenya: A gang of Muslims stabbed and beat with iron rods a 25-year-old Somali refugee, breaking his teeth; he was then stripped naked, covered with dirt, and left unconscious near a church.  Although he was raised Christian since age 7, he was attacked on the “assumption that as a Somali he was born into Islam and was therefore an apostate deserving of death.”

A recent Fox News report tells of how “a rash of attacks on Christian-owned businesses in northern Iraq has raised troubling questions about the future safety of the country’s shrinking Christian community, particularly as U.S. forces withdraw completely from the nation they’ve refereed since 2003.”

In fact, “questions about the future safety of the country’s shrinking Christian community”  have been raised ever since the U.S. toppled secular strongman Saddam Hussein, thereby unloosing the forces of jihad previously corked.  The report continues:

The attacks, which have received little international attention, raged through northern cities following a sermon last Friday by a local mullah. Video purportedly from the riots posted online shows mobs burning and wrecking businesses, which included liquor stores, hotels and hair salons.

Note the two important facts here that play over and over whenever Christians are persecuted under Islam: 1) Despite their frequency and severity, they “receive little international attention” (indeed, only the most spectacular of terrorist attacks on Christians—such as the 2010 Baghdad church attack which left some 60 dead—ever receive mainstream media attention); and 2) as usual, the attacks followed “a sermon last Friday by a local mullah” (in other words, are Islamic in nature).

As if the situation wasn’t bad enough, after pointing out that “Iraqi Christians … are living in fear,” U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf said:

“Now with the [U.S.] forces leaving … I think the Iraqi Christians are going to go through a very, very difficult time.” … He urged the Obama administration to do more to speak up on the issue.   “They know this is a problem. Our government ought to be advocating and ought to be pushing.”

It ought to, but it’s not.   After calling the U.S. government’s silence concerning the blatant persecution of Iraq’s Christians “disturbing,” the founder of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council added: “We’re on the verge of extinction.”

“The attacks on Christians continue and the world remains totally silent. It’s as if we’ve been swallowed up by the night” — Iraqi Christian

Egypt’s Maspero massacre—where the military killed dozens of Christians protesting the destruction of their churches—dominates October’s persecution headlines.  Facts and details concerning the military’s “crimes against humanity” are documented in this report, and include videos of armored-vehicles running over civilians, a catalog of lies and deceitful tactics employed by Egypt’s rulers and state media, and other matters overlooked in the West.

More damning evidence continues to emerge: not only did Egypt’s military plan to massacre Christians to teach them a “lesson” never to protest again, but “death squads” were deployed up buildings the night before to snipe at protesters.  Instead of trying the soldiers who intentionally ran-over demonstrators, the military has been randomly arresting Copts, simply “for being Christian.” Finally, the fact-finding commission of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights just submitted its report which, as expected, “whitewashes” the military’s role, including by “asserting that no live ammunition was fired on the protesters by the military, as the army only fired blanks in the air to disperse the protesters,” a claim many eyewitnesses reject out of hand.

Meanwhile, not only are Western governments apathetic, but it was revealed that “Obama’s top Muslim advisor blocks Middle Eastern Christians’ access to White House.”  Newt Gingrich asserted that Obama’s “strategy in the Middle East is such a total grotesque failure” and likened the “Arab spring” to an “anti-Christian spring.”  Ann Widdecombe accused the British government of “double standards in its threats to cut aid to countries which persecute gay people while turning a blind eye to persecution against Christians.”  Even Christian pastors in the West, apparently more concerned about appearing tolerant and in “dialogue” with Muslims, are reluctant to mention persecution to their flock.

Categorized by theme, the rest of October’s batch of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes (but is hardly limited to) the following accounts, listed according to theme and in alphabetical order by country, not necessarily severity.

Churches

Afghanistan: Ten years after the U.S. invaded and overthrew the Taliban—at a cost of more than 1,700 U.S. military lives and $440 billion in taxpayer dollars—the State Department revealed that Afghanistan’s last Christian church was destroyed. The report further makes clear that the Afghan government—installed by the U.S.—is partially responsible for such anti-Christian sentiments, for instance, by upholding apostasy laws, which make it a criminal offence for Muslims to convert to other religions.

Indonesia: Muslims and authorities expelled Christians from their church and shut it down “for allegedly engaging in ‘proselytizing’ in a predominantly Muslim area.”  As in previous cases when churches were seized, “the fundamentalists were aided and abetted by the local administration.” Also, the Muslim behind a September church attack that left three dead confessed that he was operating under his jihad leader’s orders, “based on the Koran and Sunna.”

Kazakhstan: The Muslim majority nation enacted new laws further restricting freedom of religion: “All registered churches must now re-register with the government, and only churches meeting new criteria will be registered.” Accordingly, “police and secret police agents reportedly raided a worship meeting of officially registered Protestant church New Life, saying that under the new Religion Law the congregation ‘cannot meet outside its legal address.’ During the raid, a 17-year old woman was hit by a policeman, leaving her unconscious.”

Sudan: Soon after President Bashir “confirmed plans to adopt an entirely Islamic constitution and strengthen sharia law,” “emboldened” Muslims attacked Christians trying to construct a church, “claiming that Christianity was no longer an accepted religion in the country.” Likewise, authorities threatened to demolish three church buildings “as part of a long-standing bid to rid Sudan of Christianity.”

Christian Symbols

Egypt: A Christian student was strangled and beaten to death by his Muslim teacher and fellow students for refusing to cover his cross. When the headmaster was informed of the attack in progress, he ignored it and “continued to sip his tea.”  In the words of one prominent Egyptian commentator: “a teacher forced a student to take off the crucifix he wore, and when the Christian student stood firm for his rights, the teacher quarreled with him, joined by some of the students; he was beastly assaulted until his last breath left him.”

Saudi Arabia: A Colombian soccer-player “was arrested by the Saudi moral police after customers in a Riyadh shopping mall expressed outrage over the sports player’s religious tattoos, which included the face of Jesus of Nazareth on his arm….  A similar event occurred in Saudi Arabia last year when a Romanian player kissed the tattoo of a cross he had on his arm after scoring a goal, which also caused public outrage.”

Maldives: Police arrested a 30-year-old teacher from India for having a Bible and rosary, finally deporting him after a two-week interrogation. According to the principal, he “was a very good teacher, we’ve not had any complaints of him in the past.” Such cases are not aberrant: “Last year, Maldivian authorities rescued another Christian teacher from India when Muslim parents of her students threatened to throw her into the sea for ‘preaching Christianity’ after she drew a compass in class, which they alleged was a cross.”

Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism

India: A mufti summoned a Christian priest to appear before his court: according to the mufti, the priest “is involved in converting young Muslim boys and girls to Christianity. This warrants action as per Islamic law….  I will take all necessary measures in exercise of the powers vested in me by Islamic Sharia.”

Iran: Militants with suspected ties to Iranian security threatened to kill nearly a dozen evangelical Christians who fled Iran; unless they “repent and ask forgiveness” and return to Islam, they must die.  Likewise, a “group of four officers engaged in a commando-style raid on the house” of a Muslim convert to Christianity, arresting him, confiscating his Bible, and “transferring him to an unknown location….  His family was also threatened to remain silent and not to talk about this incident to anyone.” Also, a Christian named “Muhammad” was arrested, interrogated “for the charge of Christianity.” And Iran’s Supreme Court has ordered the retrial of the pastor sentenced to death for refusing to renounce his Christian beliefs, partially because “Iran is feeling the pressure” from the international community, since the mainstream media actually reported the pastor’s case.

For a religion that is perpetually “misunderstood,” the consistency of Islam is remarkable. Consider how ostensibly diverse issues—complaints of “human rights” abuses at an American university and murder in an Egyptian classroom—are interconnected.

First, the American story.  According to Fox News:

The Washington, D.C. Office of Human Rights confirmed that it is investigating allegations that Catholic University of America [CUA] violated the human rights of Muslim students by not allowing them to form a Muslim student group and by not providing them rooms without Christian symbols for their daily prayers.  The investigation alleges that Muslim students “must perform their prayers surrounded by symbols of Catholicism – e.g., a wooden crucifix, paintings of Jesus, pictures of priests and theologians which many Muslim students find inappropriate.”

Behind the complaint is John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University professor whose website boasts that his “enemies” call him a “Legal-Terrorist” and “the Osama bin Laden of Torts.”  He asserts that Muslim students are “particularly offended” because they have to “meditate” at the school’s chapels and cathedral, where they pray while “having to stare up and be looked down upon by a cross of Jesus.”

Of course, as a private Christian institution, even Banzhaf admits “that it is technically not illegal for Catholic University to refuse to provide rooms devoid of religious icons.”  Still, according to this so-called “Legal-Terrorist,” that CUA refuses to compromise its Catholic image “suggests they are acting improperly and probably with malice.”

The reader is left to decide who really is acting “with malice”: a private institution operating under private—in this case, Christian—principles, or reportedly “offended” Muslims who are free to attend non-Christian institutions?

Banzhaf further tried to denigrate CUA by boasting of how neighboring Georgetown University, a nominally “Christian” university, “provides its Muslim students with a separate prayer room and even a Muslim chaplain”—as if it is not well known that Georgetown’s Arab and Islam departments receive much largesse by way of donations from the radical Wahhabis of Saudi Arabia (who, incidentally, refuse to permit churches on Saudi ground).

As Newt Gingrich observed regarding this affair: “Are you [Muslims] prepared to sponsor a Christian missionary in Mecca? Because if you’re not prepared to sponsor religious liberty in Saudi Arabia, don’t come and nag us with some hypocritical baloney.”

Notable, too, why Muslim students are seeking to create Islamic havens (or enclaves) in universities: as one of them put it, “Arab [code for “Muslim”] and American students have a difficult time befriending each other because people naturally gravitate towards others with similar backgrounds and interests.”  In fact, this is a product of Islam’s own doctrine of wala’ wa bara’, which commands Muslims to be loyal to one another, while completely disassociating themselves from non-Muslims.

Thousands of Egyptian Americans representing oppressed and persecuted Coptic Christians streamed down Washington, DC’s Pennsylvania Avenue Wednesday, October 19, 2011. Their demonstration had begun in front of the White House. It ended with a rally at the U.S. Capitol.

Copts, who traveled by the busloads from such places as Chicago, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, came to Washington to protest the brutal treatment of Egypt’s Christians and demand that the Obama administration pressure Cairo to protect the rights of non-Muslims. They also wished to call attention to congressional legislation that supports Copts and other vulnerable people groups. The demonstration was a response to an Egyptian army-led massacre of Christians on Sunday, October 9, in Cairo.

On October 9, Egyptian Christians had staged a peaceful demonstration and a march through downtown Cairo to protest the burning of a church and several Christian-owned homes and businesses in Upper Egypt on September 30. The Christian protestors were attacked by an Islamist mob near an underpass cutting through downtown Cairo. They were pelted with rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and otherwise molested. Then when the Christians reached their destination, Maspero Square, Egyptian military forces were already aligned against them to quell the demonstration.

Seeming to have forgotten Field Marshall Hussein Tantawi’s recent testimony that the army would “never . . . open fire at citizens,” the army did indeed open fire on the protestors, killing twenty-one. Later, when the army was leaving the bloodbath it had created, one soldier bragged that he had shot a Copt in the chest and killed him. The Muslim crowd cheered, shouting, “This is the real Egyptian army!”

Six other Christians at the demonstration were crushed under armored personnel carriers when those vehicles deliberately plowed into crowds of protestors. A Compass Direct News Service report called the attack “the worst act of violence against Egyptian Christians in modern history.” In addition to the twenty-six people that were killed, hundreds of others were wounded by the army’s attack. The army attack left Egypt’s Christians shocked and devastated.

At Wednesday’s demonstration in Washington, the American Copts pointed out that U.S. tax payer dollars fund the tanks that killed the Egyptian Christians. Many people, including members of Congress, ask why the U.S. continues to give hundreds of millions of dollars annually in financial aid to a country with such an abysmal human rights record. Over $70 billion has been given in aid since the Camp David accords, notes columnist Mike McManus. Some of the Coptic protestors in Washington held signs declaring, “Your Tax Dollars Kill Christians in Egypt.”

Other demonstrators carried a variety of other messages. Some of the protestors held large photographs depicting the horrific events at Maspero Square. Others carried Bible verses speaking of the persecution of the Church, or messages to the world such as “1400 years of Islamic oppression: We still stand defiant!”

Many of the people carried large wooden crosses or American flags. And a few carried black wooden coffins that they placed on the sidewalk in front of the White House. Together they raised their voices in such chants for justice as, “Why, why, must we die?” “Obama, Obama, where are you?” “Coptic blood is not cheap!” and “USA, wake up!”

As the protestors had declared, Copts and other Egyptian Christians, along with Egypt’s tiny Baha’i community and tinier Jewish community, have, to varying degrees, been victims of discrimination and persecution for 14 centuries. The Copts are descendants of ancient Egyptians converted to Christianity by Saint Mark, who founded the Church of Alexandria in 43 AD. But since the Arab conquest of Egypt in 640 AD, Egyptian Christians have lived as dhimmi, second-class citizens, under Islam.

The latest chaos in Egypt—where the military opened fire on unarmed Christians and repeatedly ran armored vehicles over them, killing dozens—originates in Edfu, a onetime tourist destination renowned for its pharaonic antiquities, but now known as the latest region to see a church destroyed by a Muslim mob.

This church attack is itself eye-opening as to the situation in Egypt.  To sum, St. George Coptic church, built nearly a century ago, was so dilapidated that the local council and governor of Aswan approved renovating it, and signed off on the design.

It was not long before local Muslims began complaining, making various demands, including that the church be devoid of crosses and bells—even though the permit approved them—citing that “the Cross irritates Muslims and their children.”

Coptic leaders had no choice but to acquiesce, “pointing to the fact that the church was rebuilt legally, and any concessions on the part of the church was done for the love for the country, which is passing through a difficult phase.”

Acquiescence breeds more demands: Muslim leaders next insisted that the very dome of the church be removed—so that the building might not even resemble a church—and that it be referred to as a “hospitality home.”  Arguing that removal of the dome would likely collapse the church, the bishop refused.

The foreboding cries of “Allahu Akbar!” began: Muslims threatened to raze the church and build a mosque in its place; Copts were “forbidden to leave their homes or buy food until they remove the dome of St. George’s Church”; many starved for weeks.

Then, after Friday prayers on Sept. 30, some three thousand Muslims rampaged the church, torched it, and demolished the dome; flames from the wreckage burned nearby Coptic homes, which were further ransacked by rioting Muslims.

This account of anti-church sentiment in Egypt offers several conclusions:

First, the obvious: animosity for churches, demands that they be left to crumble, demands to remove crosses and stifle bells, are an integral part of Islamic history and dogma.  That church attacks in Egypt always occur on Friday, Islam’s “holy day,” and are always accompanied by religious cries of “Allahu Akbar!” should be evidence enough of the Islamist context of these attacks.

Because there was a lull in this animosity from the colonial era to just a few decades ago, most Westerners, deeming events closer to their time and space more representative of reality, incorrectly assume that church toleration is the rule, not the exception in Islamic history, which has more frequently been draconian to churches, and is back: “the Muslim Brotherhood announced immediately after the revolution that it is impossible to build any new church in Egypt, and churches which are demolished should never be rebuilt, as well as no crosses over churches or bells to be rung.”

This is also why Muslim authorities are complacent, if not complicit. According to witnesses, security forces, which were present during the Edfu attack, “stood there watching.” Worse, Edfu’s Intelligence Unit chief was seen directing the mob destroying the church.

As for the governor of Aswan,  he appeared on State TV and “denied any church being torched,” calling it a “guest home,” (a common tactic to excuse the destruction of churches).  He even justified the incident by arguing that the church contractor made the building three meters higher than he permitted:  “Copts made a mistake and had to be punished, and Muslims did nothing but set things right, end of story.”

Equally telling is that perpetrators of church attacks are seldom if ever punished.  Even if sometimes the most rabid church-destroying Muslims get “detained,” it is usually for show, as they are released in days, hailed back home as heroes (this, too, goes back to Muslim dogma, which naturally sides with Muslims over infidels).

This year alone has seen the New Year church attack, which left 23 dead; the destruction of the ancient church of Sool, where Muslims “played soccer” with its sacred relics; the Imbaba attacks, where several churches were set aflame; and now Edfu, wherein, as usual “none of the attackers were arrested.”

Indeed, three days after Edfu, Muslims attacked yet another church.

Aware that they are untouchable, at least when it comes to making infidel Christians miserable, anti-Christian Muslims have a simple strategy: destroy churches, even if one at a time, safe in the knowledge that, not only will they not be prosecuted, but Egypt’s military and security apparatus will punish the infidel victims should they dare to protest.

Pakistan’s Islamist party, Jamiat-Ulema-e-Islami (JUI), has petitioned to have the Bible banned from Pakistan because it violates the nation’s notorious blasphemy laws. The move by the JUI is just the latest episode in the ongoing and increasingly deadly persecution of Christians in that Islamic nation.

According to JUI leader Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi, the Bible contains passages that show biblical figures whom Muslims regard as prophets (such as Abraham and Solomon) to be engaging in “a variety of moral crimes.” As such, the JUI has called on Pakistan’s supreme court to have the entire Book banned from the country if the offending passages are not removed.

While the JUI acknowledged its petition was partially in response to the Koran burning organized by Florida pastor Terry Jones in March 2011, it also dismissed the notion that banning the Christian Bible would cause additional trouble between Muslims and Christians.

Unfortunately, that is not what Pakistan’s tiny Christian community believes. Pakistani Christians have found themselves under continuous assault from both government authorities and Islamist mobs. That may explain why Pakistan’s Christian leaders urged restraint in wake of the Bible suit, fearful of further antagonizing Pakistan’s more fervent Muslims.

For his part, Farooqi was confident that Pakistan’s highest court would side with the JUI petition. However, his certainty may have less to do with the merits of his case than with the fact that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have proven to be a reliable legal cudgel with which to bankrupt, beat, jail and kill Christians.

As a spokesman for a Catholic advocacy group says the pervasive use of the blasphemy laws have ratcheted up Christian fears to unprecedented levels, leading them to “have no faith in the police or justice system.”

Evidence for their fears was on full display recently when a Pakistani anti-terrorism court acquitted 70 Muslims accused of attacking and setting fire to over 50 houses and two churches in a Christian colony in July 2009. In that assault, eight people — including a seven-year old child — were burned alive and 20 others wounded.

Perhaps more disturbingly, many Pakistani Islamists believe killing a blasphemous person earns a heavenly reward. As a result, extra-judicial killings are common. Since 2009, at least 30 Christians accused under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws have been killed by mobs of Islamist vigilantes.

According to a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan, “The problem is that all these extrajudicial killings remain unpunished. For religious minorities it is a crucial issue, since it affects the fundamental rights of every person.”

Unfortunately for Pakistani Christians, Pakistan’s blasphemy laws contain no provisions to punish a false accuser or false witness. Consequently, the laws have often been used to settle personal scores rather than to defend against perceived sleights to Islamic piety.

For instance, a Christian mother of five children has been in prison in solitary confinement since June 2009, after a verbal disagreement with some women in her village led to her being accused of having blasphemed against Mohammad.

In November 2010, a Christian farm worker was accused of uttering blasphemous words against Mohammad during an argument with fellow workers and sentenced to death.

In May 2011, a group of Muslims — at the behest of a former member of parliament — attacked the houses of two Christians in order to force the owners to transfer the land ownership over to the politician.

Sadly, Christian children have not been spared the effects of this relentless persecution. For example, a young Pakistani woman claimed Christian children required to take Islamic studies in school are in danger simply “if they write anything or misspell anything to do with the prophet Mohammad.”

The assault on Christians living in Muslim nations has reached boiling new levels as members of Egypt’s Coptic Church continue to be the target of increasingly violent attacks from Muslims. According to Coptic Christians living in Cairo, Muslims looted and burned St. Mina’s Church and the Church of the Virgin Mary and attempted to burn St. Mary and St. Abanob Church. Twelve Christians were reported to have been killed, although official government accounts say that the final tally was six Christians and six Muslims dead.

According to the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA), approximately 3,000 Salafi Muslims participated in the attacks, even as Egyptian troops and police did little or nothing to stop the violence. Salafists are strongly influenced by the ultra-fundamentalist Wahabbi teachings that dominate the mindset of Al Qaeda and like-minded terrorist organizations. In addition to the dozen dead, over 200 Christians were injured in the violence according to AINA.

The Egyptian government downplayed the violence, essentially portraying the incidents as unfortunate misunderstandings between Christians and Muslims and calling on Christians to forgive and reconcile with Muslims. This strategy attempts to divide responsibility for the violence equally among the two religions, while the reality is that the Coptic minority is doing nothing to provoke the Muslim majority — except refusing to abandon its Christianity.

Approximately ten per cent of Egyptians are Christians (the vast majority of those are Copts), while the overwhelming remainder of the population are Sunni Muslims. This is not, therefore, a squabble between two equally powerful and influential groups. This is bullying, plain and simple. If the new regime in Egypt is not actively encouraging persecution of the Christian community, it’s certainly not doing anything to discourage such outrages either. The Coptic Bishop of Giza, Anba Theodosius, took the government to task for abandoning Egypt’s Christians. “These things are planned,” he said. “We have no law or security, we are in a jungle. We are in a state of chaos. One rumor burns the whole area. Everyday we have a catastrophe.”

Under Mubarek, the Salafists kept their more violent and extremist tendencies in check for the most part. If and when they crossed the line, Mubarek’s very effective (and yes, often very brutal) security forces came down on the transgressors hard. There is little to hold the fundamentalists in check any longer, so they continue to push the envelope in order to find out how much they can get away with. The early returns suggest that the government isn’t going to do anything to restrain them anytime soon.

Among other atrocities, beheading and crucifying Christians are not irregular occurrences; messages saying “you Christian dogs, leave or die,” are typical. Islamists see the church as an “obscene nest of pagans” and threaten to “exterminate Iraqi Christians.” John Eibner, CEO of Christian Solidarity International, summarized the situation well in a recent letter to President Obama:

The threat of extermination is not empty. Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, more than half the country’s Christian population has been forced by targeted violence to seek refuge abroad or to live away from their homes as internally displaced people. According to the Hammurabi Human Rights Organization, over 700 Christians, including bishops and priests, have been killed and 61 churches have been bombed. Seven years after the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Catholic Archbishop Louis Sako of Kirkuk reports: “He who is not a Muslim in Iraq is a second-class citizen. Often it is necessary to convert or emigrate, otherwise one risks being killed.” This anti-Christian violence is sustained by a widespread culture of Muslim supremacism that extends far beyond those who pull the triggers and detonate the bombs.

The grand irony, of course, is that Christian persecution has increased exponentially under U.S. occupation. As one top Vatican official put it, Christians, “paradoxically, were more protected under the dictatorship” of Saddam Hussein.

What does one make of this—that under Saddam, who was notorious for human rights abuses, Christians were better off than they are under a democratic government sponsored by humanitarian, some would say “Christian,” America?

Like a Baghdad caliph, Saddam appears to have made use of the better educated Christians, who posed no risk to his rule, such as his close confidant Tariq Aziz. Moreover, by keeping a tight lid on the Islamists of his nation—who hated him as a secular apostate no less than the Christians—the latter benefited indirectly.

Conversely, by empowering “the people,” the U.S. has unwittingly undone Iraq’s Christian minority. Naively projecting Western values on Muslims, U.S. leadership continues to think that “people-power” will naturally culminate into a liberal, egalitarian society—despite all the evidence otherwise. The fact is, in the Arab/Muslim world, “majority rule” traditionally means domination by the largest tribe or sect; increasingly, it means Islamist domination.

Either which way, the minorities—notably the indigenous Christians—are the first to suffer once the genie of “people-power” is uncorked. Indeed, evidence indicates that the U.S. backed “democratic” government of Iraq enables and incites the persecution of its Christians. (All of this raises the pivotal question: do heavy-handed tyrants—Saddam, Mubarak, Qaddafi, et al—create brutal societies, or do naturally brutal societies create the need for heavy-handed tyrants to keep order.)

Another indicator that empowering Muslim masses equates Christian suffering is the fact that, though Iraqi Christians amount to a mere five percent of the population, they make up nearly 40 percent of the refugees fleeing Iraq. It is the same in Egypt: “A growing number of Egypt’s 8-10 million Coptic Christians are looking for a way to get out as Islamists increasingly take advantage of the nationalist revolution that toppled long-standing dictator Hosni Mubarak in February.”

Of course, whereas Egypt’s revolution was homegrown, the persecution of Iraq’s Christians is a direct byproduct of U.S. intervention. More ironic has been Obama’s approach. Justifying his decision to intervene in Libya in humanitarian terms, the president recently said that, while “it is true that America cannot use our military wherever repression occurs… that cannot be an argument for never acting on behalf of what’s right.”

True, indeed. Yet, even as Obama “acts on behalf of what’s right,” by providing military protection to the al-Qaeda connected Libyan opposition, Iraq’s indigenous Christians continue to be exterminated—right under the U.S. military’s nose in Iraq. You see, in its ongoing bid to win the much coveted but forever elusive “Muslim-hearts-and-minds™”—which Obama has even tasked NASA with—U.S. leadership ignores the inhumane treatment of Islam’s “Christian dogs,” the mere mention of which tends to upset Muslims.

Last weekend, the feds popped two more US citizens who yearned to kill their fellow Americans for Allah.  They hoped to join al-Shabab, Somali’s ruthless jihadis, but fantasized about slaughter right here at home.

And, once again, any mention of Islamist extremism was absent from government statements, as if these guys were just angry about parking tickets.

The would-be Times Square car bomber, the guess-what’s-in-my-knickers Christmas Day airline bomber, no end of got-‘em-in-time apprehensions, plus the Ft. Hood butcher, Major Nidal Hasan…and even the media barely hint at what all these fanatics have in common.

Dare to suggest that radical Islam might be to blame, and you’re a bigot.  Just as pointing out that Palestinian terrorism led to Israel’s hard line stand makes you a fascist.  But those who reject radical Islam’s role as the driving force behind today’s terrorism must answer one obvious question:

Where are the Christian terrorists?

The ignored persecution, deprivation and massacres aren’t in Gaza, the global left’s favorite petting zoo.  The cover-up victims are the Middle East’s Christians.

Set aside for now the vast Christian communities that once thrived between Morocco and Mesopotamia.  The multiple holocausts they suffered for over a thousand years at Muslim hands doesn’t fit the White-House-approved narrative.

Let’s concentrate on today—when the only country left in the Middle East in which Christians enjoy complete freedom of worship, freedom from secret police surveillance, forced conversions, pogroms or civil strife, is Israel.

But that won’t do, either.  Can’t make Israel the good guy.  So how about those “suffering Palestinians?”  You know, the folks that chick-lit Che Guevara, Rachel Corrie, sought to rescue from an Israeli bulldozer…

Well, the Palestinians who’ve suffered the most have been Christians. And it hasn’t been the Israelis who’ve been persecuting them.

Take the West Bank city of Bethlehem, the literal cradle (or manger) of Christianity.  A half century ago, its Arab population was 80% Christian.  Today, Christians make up no more than 15% of the locals, and their numbers continue to shrink.

Throughout the Palestinian territories, the once-vibrant Christian population is estimated to have collapsed to a mere 25,000.  Muslim rapes, murders, kidnappings, extortion, death threats and property theft are to blame.

Where are the Christian terrorists?

In neighboring Egypt, Christianity’s intellectual center in its formative centuries, centuries of Islamization reduced, but failed to eliminate the Christian faith.

Coptic Christians, with their ancient traditions, still make up as much as 15% of Egypt’s population, which is nearing 80 million.  But the faith is under siege again.  The Mubarak regime appears to have decided to let its mortal enemy, the Muslim Brotherhood, have some leash in the persecution department.

Copts suffer village pogroms, ghettoization in cities, and kidnappings and forced conversions (often of marriage-age girls).  They’re prevented from constructing new churches and suffer general discrimination.  Killings of Copts go uninvestigated by Egypt’s police.

Where are the Christian terrorists?

Then there’s Iraq, where a tragic unintended consequence of the removal of Saddam Hussein–the region’s worst mass murderer–has been the destruction of ancient Christian communities.

Prior to 2003, there were about a million Christians in Iraq.  Most are now refugees.  Successive Iraqi governments have shown little interest in protecting those who remain.  Leading churchmen have been assassinated, Christian families have been slaughtered, churches have been bombed and burned.  And we’ve done nothing—to avoid irritating Muslims.

Where are the Christian terrorists?

Given the excuses made for Islamist terror, shouldn’t we have seen a violent response by now?

Of course, none of this is an issue in Saudi Arabia, where the Christian (and Jewish) communities that thrived at the dawn of Islam were wiped out centuries ago.  Even Lebanon, long a state where Christians enjoyed religious freedom, suffers from the grim Islamist contagion.

The absence of Christian terrorism in the savagely anti-Christian Middle East goes beyond Christ’s call to “turn the other cheek.”  It further highlights extremist Islam as the source of today’s terror.

But Washington will continue to shut its eyes and bluster about the “legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people,” etc., etc.  Dead Arab Christians are even less important than dead Jews.

Ralph Peters’ latest book is “Endless War.”

"Coptic Christians Voicing Frustration With White House As Persecution Widens in Egypt," by Youssef Ibrahim for the New York Sun, May 22 (thanks to George):

The leaders of Coptic Christians, whose community is facing growing persecution in Egypt, say they have been unsuccessful in efforts to gain a hearing from the White House or other parts of the Obama administration.

Heightened persecution of Egypt's 12 million Christians coupled with growing power and prestige of their Coptic Diaspora in America and Australia is leading to new political efforts here. Educated and skilled Egyptian Copts who migrated in large numbers in recent decades are talking to Congress, organizing lobbies, and making other efforts to be heard.

They say they are frustrated by the current administration in Washington, particularly after President Obama's overture to the Muslim world via a speech at Cairo. In the speech Mr. Obama President apologized for America's misdeeds to Muslims, stating that he came "to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world." Coptic leaders say that even while reaching out to Muslims the administration has turned a deaf ear to the pleas Arab Christian minority in the very country where he delivered his apology to Muslims.

"The Obama administration's benign neglect of Arab Christians, is putting freedoms and human rights in the whole Middle East at risk," is the way it was put in an interview with the Sun by the president of the U.S. Copts Association, Michael Meunier, who is headquartered in Washington "Friendships with Muslims has been the Obama Administration's opening theme from his first day in office and in that famed Cairo speech in which he extended a hand to all Muslims in partnership."

Mr. Meunier added that that the president's failure to speak as extensively about the persecution of Arab Christians was a departure from American policy and a grave error. "We have no problems with American friendships with Islam and Muslims, but it cannot be accomplished at the expense of our rights as Egyptian Christians and Arab Christians, and as the very lives of our people there are endangered," Mr. Meunier told the Sun.

One area of complaint by the Copt community is a law banning the repair or construction of churches without a "presidential decree." The measure, known as the Hamayuni Law, is based on an 1856 Ottoman decree but was rarely enforced in Egypt under the monarchial dynasty overthrown by army officers in 1952....

Read it all.

So far, their appeal has not moved Hillary Clinton. Here, supporters of Iraqi Christians fear that William Hague will be similarly uninterested in the issue. Iraq is very much a live issue with the electorate - especially among Muslims; and, in these paranoid times, to defend Iraqi Christians from their Muslim fellow-citizens could be misinterpreted as an attack on Islam.

While Muslims in this country enjoy the benefits of a society where tolerance is not only legal but culturally ingrained, Christians in a Muslim country (in fact several Muslim countries - being a Christian in neighbouring Iran is no picnic) must withstand wave after wave of attacks. How amazing if the new Foreign Secretary were to address this thorny issue - though it would be nothing short of miraculous for Hague to get backing from his fiercely secular Lib Dem coalition partners on this one.

Indeed.

Islamabad (AsiaNews) - The persecution of the Ahmadi Muslims continues in Pakistan, considered heretical because they do not recognize Muhammad as the last prophet. On April last three traders were killed in Faisalabad - the third largest city of Punjab. The murder was reported by the leaders of the Ahmadiyya community, who speak of a "targeted execution" by an armed commando who immediately fled the scene.

Ashraf Pervez, 60, Masood Javed, 57, and Asif Masood, 24, were returning home after the closure of the shops. Suddenly, attackers riddled them with bullets. The three died on their way to hospital. Pervez and Javed were brothers, while Masood was the son of the latter. Two weeks before their death, reports the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, the victims had complained of threats to police. The officers had recommended them to "restrict their movement and recruit bodyguards" to protect their safety....

Faisalabad has long been the scene of targeted attacks against the Ahmadiyya community. In recent years, nine people were killed without the police or government authorities - who know the perpetrators - intervening. The group's leaders points the finger at the movement of Khatme Nabuwwat, Islamic followers according to whom the prophecy reaches its full completion with Mohammed, in charge of persecution against Muslims considered "heretics".

Punjab Law experts can foment violence against the Ahmadis with impunity, claiming that they "be killed" (Wajib ul Qatl). The leaders of the movement denounce the immobility of the authorities, in addition to not punishing the perpetrators of the killings, not even taking a stand against verbal violence.

Since the enactment of the Anti-Ahmadiyya Ordinance in 1984 which allows for persecution of the alleged "heretics" 108 people were killed because of their faith. In a few cases the killers were arrested and the few times have appeared before the judges, they were acquitted or freed after a short prison sentence. So far this year, five Ahmadis have been killed.

]]> http://frontpagemag.com/2010/04/09/pakistan-jihadists-murder-three-ahmadis/feed/ 0 http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/22/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2/ http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/22/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2/#comments Mon, 22 Mar 2010 04:00:07 +0000 Pi-News.org http://frontpagemag.com/?p=55376

In the Copenhagen township of Nørrebro that has been solidly in Muslim hands for a long time, Jews must hide their faith in order to avoid persecution. Yellow stars get stuck to the backs of Norwegian schoolchildren, and the teachers don’t intervene. In the “enriched” Swedish town of Malmö, many Jewish families have already fled (PI reported).

In all of Scandinavia, the persecution of Jews by “persons from the Near East” has increased enormously. The Frankfurter Rundschau reports:

The attacks escalated in the previous year, when 200 Jewish demonstrators held rallies for peace and compassion for the civilian victims of both sides but were hounded out of the place by an even larger group of Palestinian counter-demonstrators with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails

Teachers and parents reported on Norwegian TV that the class instruction about the Holocaust was boycotted and statements like “The Jews were behind 9/11″ went unanswered. When one pupil complained that he was mortally threatened because he was a “Jewish pig,” the teacher dismissed him with the statement that these things could happen to anyone.

Okaaaay. So, we are daily insulted with “Jewish pigs,” mortally threatened, and “halal-”murdered… The non-intervening teachers are simply fostering their own festering anti-Jewish sentiments and building themselves up in their own conceits with “acceptance of cultural distinctions” and their “tolerance.”

It’s better as a secret Jew hater to wash one’s hands in the innocence of Political Correctness, and let the Jews accuse “persons from the Near East” as fair game.

To watch on a video on this subject, click here.

]]> http://frontpagemag.com/2010/03/22/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again-2/feed/ 41 http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/21/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again/ http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/21/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again/#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:05:37 +0000 David Horowitz http://www.newsrealblog.com/?p=43239

From Politically Incorrect:

In the Copenhagen township of Nørrebro that has been solidly in Muslim hands for a long time, Jews must hide their faith in order to avoid persecution. Yellow stars get stuck to the backs of Norwegian schoolchildren, and the teachers don’t intervene. In the “enriched” Swedish town of Malmö, many Jewish families have already fled (PI reported).

In all of Scandinavia, the persecution of Jews by “persons from the Near East” has increased enormously. The Frankfurter Rundschau reports:
The attacks escalated in the previous year, when 200 Jewish demonstrators held rallies for peace and compassion for the civilian victims of both sides but were hounded out of the place by an even larger group of Palestinian counter-demonstrators with rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails

Teachers and parents reported on Norwegian TV that the class instruction about the Holocaust was boycotted and statements like “The Jews were behind 9/11″ went unanswered. When one pupil complained that he was mortally threatened because he was a “Jewish pig,” the teacher dismissed him with the statement that these things could happen to anyone.

Read the rest here.

]]> http://www.newsrealblog.com/2010/03/21/jews-marked-with-yellow-stars-again/feed/ 0 http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/arabic-language-paper-robert-spencer-fox-news-team-up-to-promote-protestant-revival-in-america.html http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/02/arabic-language-paper-robert-spencer-fox-news-team-up-to-promote-protestant-revival-in-america.html#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:41:22 +0000 Robert Sometimes the Islamic world's conspiracy paranoia is really entertaining.

This one comes in the context of denying and obfuscating the persecution of Copts in Egypt -- read all about it at the excellent Translating Jihad site.

]]> http://frontpagemag.com/2010/02/24/arabic-language-paper-robert-spencer-fox-news-team-up-to-promote-protestant-revival-in-america/feed/ 0