America’s Stark Choices

If U.S. Muslims do not stand for their own right… Our Right… To Live Free Lives In America… Our Beloved America… then the only alternatives may eventually and ultimately be stark and unappealing some several years ahead: acceptance of Sharia law within the U.S. or the mass expulsion of Muslims. It’s an easy choice for me!

Fast and Furious II: Syria Edition

Last week the New York Times reported that the CIA was helping direct guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank weapons bought by Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and smuggled into Syria by the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hillary tied to new Muslim Brotherhood president

Hillary tied to new Muslim Brotherhood president

Paradise Lost: CRIMINAL CLASS

Paradise Lost: CRIMINAL CLASS

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

Obama Admits He Is A Muslim

Criminal Class-“Soldier”

Clinton Muslim Brotherhood Now Involved In Dialogue

Hillary Clinton seemingly pleased to report that Muslim Brotherhood is now part of the equation in the Egypt crisis. I don’t share her pleased sentiment.

 

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Criminal Class – Running Away

NATO :        …PAX ISLAMICA…  !!!

 

Criminal class-Fight the System

Criminal Class Out Of His Head !

Criminal Class – Bullets Never Lie

Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Will Liberate Jerusalem

Muslim Brotherhood Presidential Candidate Will Liberate Jerusalem

Egyptian Cleric Safwat Higazi Launches MB Candidate Muhammad Mursi’s Campaign: Mursi Will Restore the “United States of the Arabs” with Jerusalem as Its Capital

The New York Times in their article, “C.I.A. Said to Aid in Steering Arms to Syrian Opposition,” confirms what many have already long known – that the West, led by the US and its Gulf State proxies, have been arming terrorists, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, while berating the Syrian government for “violating” a UN mandated ceasefire and for “failing to protect” its population.

The Muslim Brotherhood has been combated by nations across the Arab World to stem the tide of their sectarian extremism, violence, and their targeted erosion of secular nation-states. Ironically, the US which has claimed to have been fighting the forces of sectarian extremism and “terrorism” for over a decade now, have been revealed as the primary enabler of the most violent and extreme terrorist organizations in the world. These include, in addition to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Libya, Baluch terrorists in Pakistan, and the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) currently based in Iraq and being used as proxies against Iran.

The New York Times claims that, “the C.I.A. officers have been in southern Turkey for several weeks, in part to help keep weapons out of the hands of fighters allied with Al Qaeda or other terrorist groups, one senior American official said,” a unsubstantiated claim that was similarly made in Libya before Al Qaeda flags were run up poles in Benghazi by rebels flush with NATO cash and arms used to collapse the government of Muammar Qaddafi. In fact, it is confirmed that Libyan LIFG rebels, led by Al Qaeda commander Abdul Hakim Belhaj, have now made their way by the hundreds to Syria (and here).

Despite months of the US claiming the “international community” sought to end the violence and protect the population of Syria, the New York Times now admits that the US is engaged in supporting a “military campaign” against the Syrian government aimed at increasing “pressure” on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Efforts to impose an arms embargo on Syria is now revealed to be one-sided, aimed at giving rebels an advantage in the prolonged bloodbath with the intent on tipping the balance in favor of Western proxy-forces – not end the violence as soon as possible as claimed by the UN, and in particular, Kofi Annan.

The Times also reported that Turkey has been directly delivering weapons to terrorists operating in Syria – Turkey being a NATO member and implicating NATO as now being directly involved in perpetuating bloodshed in the Middle Eastern nation. For months, Turkey has been allowing terrorists to use its border region as a refuge from which to stage attacks against Syria.

Despite this, however, the so-called “Free Syrian Army,” according to the New York Times, consists of only 100 or so small formations made up of  “a handful of fighters to a couple of hundred combatants,” betraying the narrative that the Syrian government faces a large popular uprising, and revealing that the “Free Syrian Army” is in fact a small collection of mercenaries, foreign fighters, and sectarian extremists, armed, funded, and directed by foreign interests solely to wreak havoc within Syria. It should be noted that these terrorist proxies were organized as early as 2007 by the US, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, specifically to enact regime change and transform Syria into a Western client regime.

 

As the West’s propaganda campaign imploded after a torrent of unsubstantiated claims of “massacres” and “atrocities,” all unverified, some in fact being revealed as the work of the West’s sectarian proxies themselves,  it appears that sidelining Syria in headlines while pursuing a clandestine proxy war is now the tactic of choice for the time being.

For the United States to claim Syria has “failed” to protect it population while simultaneously fueling the very armed conflict it claims it is seeking to end is not only hypocrisy of the highest order, but a crime against world peace – punishable under the Nuremberg precedent.

Paradise Lost:Muslim Persecution of Christians: May 2012 “Death to Christians!”

 Paradise Lost:Muslim Persecution of Christians: May 2012 “Death to Christians!”

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

 Elsewhere in Sub-Sahara Africa, wherever Christianity and Islam meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.

 

Unlike those nations, such as Saudi Arabia, that have eliminated Christianity altogether, Muslim countries with significant Christian minorities saw much persecution during the month of May: in Egypt, Christians were openly discriminated against in law courts, even as some accused the nation’s new president of declaring that he will “achieve the Islamic conquest of Egypt for the second time, and make all Christians convert to Islam;” in Indonesia, Muslims threw bags of urine on Christians during worship; in Kashmir and Zanzibar, churches were set on fire; and in Mali, Christianity “faces being eradicated.”

Elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa—in Nigeria, Somalia, Kenya, Sudan, the Ivory Coast—wherever Islam and Christianity meet, Christians are being killed, slaughtered, beheaded and even crucified.

Categorized by theme, May’s assemblage of Muslim persecution of Christians around the world includes, but is not limited to, the following accounts, listed in alphabetical order by country, not severity. Note: As Pakistan had the lion’s share of persecuted Christians last month, it has its own section below, covering the entire gamut of persecution—from apostasy and blasphemy to rape and forced conversions.

Church Attacks

Indonesia encountered several church-related attacks:

• A mob of 600 Muslims threw bags of urine, stones, and rotten eggs at the congregation of a Protestant church at the start of Ascension Day service; they shouted profanities and threatened to kill the pastor. No arrests were made. The church had applied for a permit to construct its house of worship five years ago. Pressured by local Muslims, the local administration ordered the church shut down in December 2009, even though the Supreme Court recently overruled its decision, saying that the church was eligible for a permit. Local Muslims and officials are nevertheless demanding that the church shut down.
• After protests “by hard-line groups including the Islamic Defenders Front,” nearly 20 Christian houses of worship were sealed off by authorities on the pretext of “not having permits.” The authorities added that, to accommodate the region’s 20,000 Christians, only one church may be built in the district in question.
• The Muslim mayor who illegally sealed the beleaguered GKI Yasmin church, forcing congregants to worship in the streets, has agreed to reopen it—but only if a mosque is built next door, to ensure that the church “stays in line.” “As well as opposition from the mayor, the church has faced hostility from local Muslims, who have rallied against them [the Christians], blocked them from accessing the street where the church is situated and disrupted their outdoor services. It is unlikely that they will suddenly embrace the Christians,” according to the report.

France: Prior to celebrating mass, “four youths, aged 14 to 18, broke into the Church of St. Joseph, before launching handfuls of pebbles at 150 faithful present at the service.” They were chased out, although, according to the report, “the parishioners, many of whom are elderly, were greatly shocked by the disrespectful act of the youths of North African origin.”

Kashmir: A Catholic church made entirely of wood was partially destroyed after unknown assailants set it on fire. “What happened,” said the president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, “is not an isolated case,” and follows the “persecution” of a pastor who baptized Muslims. “With these gestures, the Muslim community is trying to intimidate the Christian minority.”

Kuwait: Two months after the Saudi Grand Mufti decreed, in response to a question on whether churches may exist in Kuwait, that all regional churches must be destroyed, villa-churches serving Western foreigners are being targeted. One congregation was evicted without explanation “from a private villa used for worship gatherings for the past seven years;” another villa-church was ordered to “pay an exorbitant fine each month to use a facility it had been renting…. Church leaders reportedly decided not to argue and moved out.”

Zanzibar: Hundreds of Muslims set two churches on fire and clashed with police during protests against the arrest of senior members of an Islamist movement known as the Association for Islamic Mobilization and Propagation. Afterwards, the group issued a statement denying any involvement of wrongdoing.

Pakistan: Apostasy, Blasphemy, Rape, Forced Conversions, and Oppression

• A 20-year-old Christian man was arrested and charged with “blasphemy”—a crime “punishable with life imprisonment”—after vengeful Muslims accused him of burning a Koran soon after a billiard game. The Muslims kept taunting and threatening him, to which the Christian “dared them to do whatever they wanted and walked away.” Days later came the accusation and arrest, which caused Muslim riots, creating “panic among Christians,” who “left their houses anticipating violence.”
• Two years ago, after a Muslim man converted to Christianity and told his wife, she abused and exposed him, resulting in his being severely beaten. “No one was willing to let me live the life I wanted [as a Christian]—they say Islam is not a religion of compulsion, but no one has been able to tell me why Muslims who don’t find satisfaction in the religion become liable to be killed.” He eventually divorced, escaped, and remarried a Christian woman. Now that his family has again discovered his whereabouts, they have resumed threatening him. According to his wife: “Every other day, we receive threatening phone calls…They are now asking him to abandon us and renounce Christianity, threatening that they will kill me and our child.”
• A new report indicates that “on average, eight to ten Christians are being forced every month by fanatic Muslims to convert to Islam, mostly in the provinces of Sindh and Punjab. The victims of forced conversions are often girls from poor backgrounds who are then subjected to harrowing and traumatic ordeals. Most of the girls are vulnerable and unable to defend themselves against extremists because their community is deprived, defenseless and marginalized. Christians, who constitute about two percent of the Pakistani population, are paying a high price for being a part of the minority community.” Two such cases from May follow:
• In an attempt to force her to drop charges against them for raping her 13-year-old niece, a band of Muslims severely beat a pregnant Christian woman causing her to lose female twins to miscarriage. The rapists came when all male members of the Christian household were out working and beat the women “mercilessly.” “They murdered our children, they raped our daughter. We have nothing left with us,” lamented an older family member. As usual, police ignored both cases: both the raped Christian girl and her beaten family.
• A 14-year-old Christian girl was abducted and forced to convert to Islam by her uncle, who himself had earlier converted. Pakistani police refused to liberate her, and said she converted of her own free will. According to her father: “After converting, my brother is conspiring against our family and kidnapped Mary with deception.”
• The investigation into the murder of the nation’s only cabinet-level Christian, Shahbaz Bhatti, has become mired amid suspicions of a possible cover-up. Lax investigations, a series of freed suspects, and lack of coordination across law enforcement organizations have stalled the case after the March 2, 2011 slaying of the federal minister for Minority Affairs, who was an outspoken critic of, and targeted by, those who support Pakistan’s “blasphemy” laws.
• Christians are being threatened and abused for trying, since 1947, to save their community’s graveyard. Despite failing to produce any proof, a retired Muslim official who claims he “recently discovered” that the land really belongs to him has already built a boundary wall, reducing the graveyard to less than a third of its original size, and turned the seized land over to agricultural use. Police, as usual, are failing to react.

Dhimmitude

[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of non-Muslims as “Tolerated” Citizens]

Egypt: A court verdict that was criticized by many human rights groups as “unbelievable” and “extremely harsh” towards Christians was decided according to religion: all twelve Christians were convicted to life imprisonment, while all eight Muslims—including some who torched nearly 60 Christian homes—were acquitted, all to thunderous cries of “Allahu Akbar!” [“Allah is the Greatest!”] in the courtroom. Another Muslim judge in Upper Egypt dismissed all charges against a group of Muslims who terrorized a Christian man and his family for over a year, culminating with their cutting off his ear in a knife attack while trying to force him to convert to Islam after they “falsely accused him” of having an affair with a Muslim woman. And a new report describes the plight of Coptic girls: “hundreds of Christian girls … have been abducted, forced to convert to Islam, and forced into marriage in Egypt. These incidents are often accompanied by acts of violence, including rape, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental abuse.”

Eritrea: Activists taking part in a protest outside the Eritrean embassy in London revealed that “Some 2,000 to 3,000 Christians are currently detained in Eritrea without charge or trial… Several Christians are known to have died in notorious prison camps,” and “thousands of Eritreans flee their country every year,” some falling “into the hands of abusive traffickers, and are held hostage in torture camps in the Sinai Desert pending payment of exorbitant ransoms, or the forcible removal of organs.”

Ethiopia: A Christian man accused of “desecrating the Koran” spent two years in prison, where he was abused, pressured to convert to Islam, and left paralyzed. Now returning home, he has found that his two young children have been abducted by local Muslims: “My life is ruined—I have lost my house, my children, my health. I am now homeless, and I am limping.”

Greece: Abet Hasman, the deputy mayor of Patras who recently passed away, left a message to be revealed only in his obituary—that, although born to Muslim parents in Jordan, he was “secretly baptized” a Christian (demonstrating how some Muslims who convert to Christianity, knowing the consequences of apostasy, choose secrecy).

Indonesia: A predominantly Christian neighborhood was attacked for several days by “unidentified persons,” who set fire to homes and cars. Dozens of Christian families fled their homes, “many fear[ing] the involvement of Islamic extremist groups.”

Iran: A prominent house church pastor remains behind bars, even as his family expresses concerns that he may die from continued abuse and beatings, leading to internal bleeding and other ailments; authorities refuse to give him medical treatment. Also, the attorney of Youssef Nadarkhani—the imprisoned Christian pastor who awaits execution for apostasy—was himself “convicted for his work defending human rights and is expected to begin serving his nine-year sentence in the near future.” Meanwhile, in a letter attributed to him, the imprisoned pastor wrote: “I have surrendered myself to God’s will…[and I] consider it as the day of exam and trial of my faith…[so that I may] prove my loyalty and sincerity to God.”

Jordan: After the Jordanian Dubai Islamic Bank decreed that all females must wear the hijab, the Islamic veil or be terminated, it fired all female employees who refused to wear the hijab—mostly Christians, including one Christian woman who had worked there for 27 years. There are suspicions that this new policy was set to target and terminate the Christian employees, as it is they who are most likely to reject the hijab.

Lebanon: A 24-year-old woman, the daughter of a Shiite cleric, who was “physically and psychologically tortured by her father for converting to Christianity three years ago,” managed to escape and be baptized by a Christian priest—who was himself then abducted and interrogated to disclose the whereabouts of the renegade woman. In like manner, Muslim assailants fired gunshots at the house of another priest and at a church — “part of an escalating pattern of violence against local Catholics,” in the words of the region’s prelate.

Macedonia: After some Muslims were arrested in connection to a “series of murders of Christians,” thousands of fellow Muslims demonstrated after Friday prayers, shouting slogans such as “death to Christians!,” and calling for “jihad.”

Mali: Ever since the government was overthrown in a coup, “the church in Mali faces being eradicated,” especially in the north, “where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out….there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.”

Nigeria: Muslim gunmen set fire to a home in a Christian village and then opened fire on all who tried to escape the inferno, killing at least seven and wounding many others, in just one of dozens of attacks on Christians.

Sudan: Without reason, security officials closed down regional offices of the Sudan Council of Churches and a much needed church clinic for the poor; staff members were arrested and taken to an undisclosed location: “Their families are living in agony due to the uncertainty of their fate.”

Syria: Jihadi gunmen evicted all the families of a Christian region, “taking over all the homes of the village, occupying the church and turning it to their base.”

Uzbekistan: Police raided a Protestant house-church meeting, claiming “that a bomb was in the home.” No bomb was found, only Christian literature which was confiscated. Subsequently, 14 members of the unregistered church were heavily fined—the equivalent of 10-60 times a monthly salary—for an “unsanctioned meeting in a private home.” Between February and April, 28 Protestants were fined and four were issued warnings for the offence. Three Baptists were also fined for not declaring their personal Bibles while crossing the border from Kazakhstan into Uzbekistan. Fines and warnings were accompanied by the confiscation of religious literature.

About this Series

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

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

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

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

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

by Raymond Ibrahim
June 28, 2012 at 5:00 am

Paradise Lost: A Country Fit For Heroes

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

Paradise Lost: A Country Fit For Heroes

Chaotic Youth –  Whose Bomb 

Bomb gonna drop, Who’s Bomb ? Our Bombs ! On Who ? On Us !

Violators – Die With Dignity

Christians can’t join the IDF.. andIsraelcan’t join us.. there are next in line and they know it

Christians gonna die, and gonna die with dignity… the shame and the blood are the criminals hands.

The World knows alright, they are “producing” a war..fully plan and fully willingly plan

For what?  For afterwards come as PEACE MAKER.. and put THEIR RULES..New Rules that no one will OBJECT to…Why.. Because No One with a clear mind want war.

blitzkrieg -the future must be ours

We know that the Enemy look like in white clothe.. and those with Blue Hat, and those with Black Flag !

The Future is Ours because Our God is The Beginning and the End the Alpha and the Omega and HE Hold The Future.

The Samples – Government Downfall

Now We know They Fall One After The Other, And European Government Have No More Self Decisions On Matters. And That The People Living In Those Country Have Lost Their Lands Years Ago And Will Be (ARE) Subject To The Same Things.

Violators Government Stinks

Not to be Oppressed by Political Holocaust
It’s a battle, a battle we must win
Yes, the victory must be won

Not to be Oppressed by Political Holocaust

SAME HERE SAME THERE AND HERE AND THERE

FIGHTING AGAINST ANIHILATION !!!

WE SHALL  NEVER SURRENDER !

Winston Churchill Speech – We Shall Never Surrender

Paradise Lost: Christians In The World

Paradise Lost: Christians In The World

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

 

 

 

Iraqi Christians Form Militias for Protection

Iraqi Christians are forming militias to protect themselves against a campaign by Muslim extremists to drive them out of Iraq.

Earlier this year, a series of bombs exploded outside churches and a monastery in Mosul. Since then, all the churches in this village are closely guarded by Christians.

Paradise Lost: The UNITED NATIONS

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

Paradise Lost: The UNITED NATIONS

Much to the dismay of people in actual need of human rights protection, the UN’s Human Rights Council have been hijacked by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) — an organization of 56 Muslim countries who use Islamophobia to justify terrorism, while undermine the fight for human rights in Muslim countries and making sure Muslim countries and Islam will always be above criticism while of course blaming all the ills and injustice in the world on the western non-Muslim world and particularly the United States and Israel.
In this video, Anne Bayefsky, discussed the U.N.’s Racism Conference (Durban Conference), the invention “Islamophobia” as means to justify terror. And the intense lobbying by the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) for the issues of “Islamophobia” and “oppression” of Muslims ONLY by non-Muslims to be the prominent focus of the UN’s agenda in general and the Human Rights commission in particular. And the war (which they have won) to ensure that a prohibition against “Islamophobia” will be endorsed by the world community as the newest international human right issue and the equivalent of anti-Semitism.
Borrowing from Wikipedia:
“According to human rights groups, the council is controlled by a bloc of Islamic and African states, backed by China, Cuba and Russia, who protect each other from criticism.[3] UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and former High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson have criticized the council for acting according to political considerations as opposed to human rights. Specifically, Secretaries General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki Moon, the council’s president Doru Costea, the European Union, Canada and the United States have accused the council of focusing disproportionately on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[4][5][6] The United States boycotted the Council during the George W. Bush administration, but reversed its position on it during the Obama administration”.

Paradise Lost: Coptic Christians

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

Paradise Lost: Coptic Christians

 

 

The Plight Of Egypt’s Coptic Christians

by Wolff Bachner
The Inquisitr
March 29, 2012

Most of us in the West have little knowledge of what life is like for Christians in the Muslim world. Take for example, the Coptic Christians, who were once the dominant religious group in Egypt. Previously the mainstay of their nation, Copts are now living as an oppressed minority, denied religious freedom and equal status in Egyptian life. The Copts are routinely denied meaningful employment and may not hold positions in the Egyptian Civil Service. Copts are refused permission to build new churches and even a request to renovate a church that is badly in need of repair can lead to an outbreak of severe Muslim violence against the Copts. Recently, there have even been calls for a return to collecting Jizya from the Copts, a tax that the Qur’an instructs Muslims to charge to all Dhimmis (non-Muslims) whenever Muslims are in power.

To give our readers an accurate picture of the situation in Egypt, we asked Raymond Ibrahim to answer several questions about the Coptic Christians. Raymond is the son of Coptic Christian parents who were born in Egypt and he has firsthand knowledge about Coptic life under Islam. Raymond is a highly respected Middle East and Islam specialist, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. A widely published author, best known for The Al Qaeda Reader (Doubleday, 2007), he guest lectures at universities, including the National Defense Intelligence College. Raymond also briefs governmental agencies, such as U.S. Strategic Command and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Among other media, he has appeared on Inquisitr.com, MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, PBS, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, CBN, and NPR. Raymond is fluent in Arabic and he has studied the Qur’an and many ancient Islamic historical documents in the original language. You can find Raymond’s latest writings at http://www.raymondibrahim.com.

Here is our interview with Raymond Ibrahim:

1. Who are the Coptic Christians and what is their history?

Raymond Ibrahim:

The Copts are the indigenous inhabitants of Egypt, before the Arab/Muslim invasion around 641 A.D. The word “Copt” simply means “Egyptian”; however, because all Egyptians were Christian in the 7th century—Egypt was a major Christian center, so much so that Alexandria vied with Rome over ecclesiastical leadership—”Copt” also became synonymous with “Christian.” In short, the word Copt is similar to the word Jew: both words convey a people and a religion. Tradition teaches that St. Mark, author of the Gospel of the same name, proselytized the pagan Egyptians of the 1st century; by approximately the 3rd century, Christianity was the dominant religion; and by the 7th century when Islam burst into Egypt, Christianity was the religion.

2. When did persecution of the Copts begin and why?

Raymond Ibrahim:

Muslim persecution of the Copts begins with the Islamic invasion. It is true that, at the time, the Copts were already under nearly a decade of persecution by the Byzantine Empire over doctrinal disputes. However, with Islam’s entry, the persecution took on a different shape, and grew steadily worse, until the modern era and the age of colonialism. At first, and because the Copts were the majority people of Egypt, they were merely deemed a subject race, to be heavily taxed and kept in line by their Muslim overlords. Over the years, however, their subject status came to be codified in what is seen as Islam’s divine and immutable law, or Sharia.

3. What is Life like for a Copt today in Egypt?

Raymond Ibrahim:

There are approximately 10 million Copts in Egypt, roughly 12% of the population. This is not an insignificant number. In fact, in the entire Middle East, Copts make for the largest Christian minority. Accordingly, the everyday average Copt is not “persecuted”; however, everyday forms of discrimination are common (for instance, only Muslims get hired for the best jobs, and so forth). The problem, though, is that persecution of the sort that occurred centuries ago—for instance, the ongoing attacks on churches—is on the rise, unsurprisingly so, considering the overall Islamization of Egypt in recent decades, culminating with Islamists, who were once in jail for their extremist views, now sitting in Egypt’s new parliament.

4. What can the Copts do to protect their lives and preserve their religion? What does the future hold for the Copts? Can they survive in the Middle East and remain faithful Coptic Christians?

Raymond Ibrahim:

This is difficult to answer, as there are several variables and contexts. For starters, emigration is not the solution for most Copts; not only is it impractical for 10 million people to pack up and leave, many Copts do not wish to abandon Egypt, seeing it as their home more than Muslims; some even say they would rather die than abandon their motherland. Their best bet is for a secular and free government to form, the sort of government the youth who initiated the Revolution wanted. Of course, with each passing day it becomes clear that it is the Islamists, the Muslim Brotherhood followed by the Salafis, who will play the greatest role in shaping Egypt’s future. Still, there are many secular Egyptian’s who oppose the Islamists just as much, if not more than the Copts. Copts need to—and often do—ally with these parties, which stress, not “Muslim” or “Christian” as an identity, but “Egyptian.” For the bottom line is, an Islamist government will not only be bad for Christians, but secularized Muslims as well, and these too are not an insignificant group. Likewise, though this is out of the hands of Copts and seculars, U.S. diplomacy could help empower the former, though the Obama administration appears more interested in aiding Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood. So, overall, it is a bad situation, though only the future can tell what will ultimately happen, and one is not optimistic.

What Does The Future Hold? [Afterword by Wolff Bachner]

The fate of the Copts is the same as that of every Christian society in the Middle East living under the domination of Islam. Despite the portrayal of Islam as the ‘Religion of Peace and Tolerance” that Western Leaders and mainstream media constantly parrot like brainwashed Dhimmis, the truth is far different. Christianity in Muslim countries is experiencing its death throes at the hand of Islam. Lebanon has dwindled down from an 84% Christian majority to a 35% Christian Minority with hundreds more Christians fleeing the country every day. Iraq’s once vibrant Christian community has been reduced to less than 200,000 and according to Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, “Iraq’s ancient Christian community has run out of time and will disappear soon.” Echoing Archbishop Warda’s words was Rev. Jean Benjamin Sleiman, the Catholic Archbishop of Baghdad, who said, “I fear the extinction of Christianity in Iraq and the Middle East.”

While Iraq and Lebanon have been in the midst of upheaval and war for decades, Egypt has been at peace since the early 1970′s and the horrors of civil war cannot explain the destruction of Egypt’s Coptic Community. The long suppressed Muslim Brotherhood and Salafis, now freed from Mubarak’s tight leash on those advocating for Sharia and a Muslim Caliphate, have risen to the forefront of Egypt’s political and religious life. When Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria, the leader of the Coptic faith, died on March 17th, 2012, the Islamic leadership of Egypt was quick to condemn him in the vilest fashion possible. Prominent Egyptian Muslim cleric, Wagdi Ghoneim, said, “Praise be to Allah. With the grace of Allah, the head of unbelief and polytheism, known as Shenouda, died yesterday, may Allah exact revenge from him. God’s worshipers and the trees and the animals were all relieved by his death.”

This sort of bigoted, hateful Muslim rhetoric is not only reserved for those of the Jewish faith, who are routinely condemned to death and annihilation by one Islamic Imam after the other. Leading the current onslaught against Christianity in the Middle East, is Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Asheikh, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, the highest official of religious law in Islam, who said, “It is necessary to destroy all the churches in the region.” He reminded his listeners, that according to Mohammed, no other religion besides Islam can be allowed on the Arabian Peninsula.

The leaders of the West may deny the truth about the plight of non-Muslims in the Middle East. The leaders of the various sects of Christianity can remain as politically correct as ever. Doing so will not stop the eventual destruction of Christianity in the Middle East. Their denial will not stop the Egyptian Army from using their tanks to run over Copts peacefully protesting the burning of their churches by Muslim mobs, resulting in the death of 24 Copts on October 9, 2011. They will not stop Muslim religious authorities from calling for the burning of every church in the Middle East. Their willful ignorance of the modern Islamist supremacist movement will simply result in the death of all non-Muslim religions in the Middle East, as called for by Mohammed himself in the Qur’an. Until the world stops ignoring Islamist hatred of all other religions, the violence and oppression will only continue. It is time for Western leaders to understand that we are at the turning point in human history. The clash of civilizations, Western and Muslim, is real and it is just beginning.

Islam: Religion of peace…Muslims rape Christian until she converts

http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/06/christian-girl-being-sexually-abused-to-make-her-convert-to-islam.html

Paradise Lost: Media Whitewashes Muslim Persecution of Christians

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

How the Media Whitewashes Muslim Persecution of Christians

by Raymond Ibrahim
Gatestone Institute
April 13, 2012

When it comes to Muslim persecution of Christians, the mainstream media (MSM) has a long paper trail of obfuscating; while they eventually do state the bare-bone facts—if they ever report on the story in the first place, which is rare—they do so after creating and sustaining an aura of moral relativism that minimizes the Muslim role.

False Moral Equivalency

As previously discussed, one of the most obvious ways is to evoke “sectarian strife” between Muslims and Christians, a phrase that conjures images of two equally matched—equally abused, and abusive—adversaries fighting. This hardly suffices to describe reality: Muslim majorities persecuting largely passive Christian minorities.

Most recently, for instance, in the context of the well-documented suffering of Christians in Egypt, an NPR report declared “In Egypt, growing tensions between Muslims and Christians have led to sporadic violence [initiated by whom?]. Many Egyptians blame the interreligious strife on hooligans [who?] taking advantage of absent or weak security forces. Others believe it’s because of a deep-seated mistrust between Muslims and the minority Christian community [ how did the “mistrust” originate?].” Though the report does highlight cases where Christians are victimized, the tone throughout suggests that examples of Muslims victimized by Christians could just as easily have been found (not true). Even the title of the report is “In Egypt, Christian-Muslim Tension is on the Rise”; the accompanying photo is of a group of angry Christians, one militantly holding a cross aloft—not Muslims destroying crosses, which is what prompts the former to such displays of religious solidarity.

Two more strategies that fall under the MSM’s umbrella of obfuscating and minimizing Islam’s role—strategies that the reader should become acquainted with—appeared in recent reports dealing with the jihadi group Boko Haram and its ongoing genocide of Nigeria’s Christians.

First, some context: Boko Haram, whose full name in Arabic is “Sunnis for Da’wa [Islamization] and Jihad,” is a terrorist organization dedicated to the overthrow of the secular government and establishment of Sharia law (sound familiar?). It has been slaughtering Christians for years, with an uptick since last December’s Christmas day church bombing, which left 40 Christians dead, followed by its New Year ultimatum that all Christians must evacuate northern regions or die—an ultimatum Boko Haram has been living up to, as hardly a day goes by without a terrorist attack on Christians or churches, most recently, last Sunday’s Easter day church attack that killed nearly 50.

Blurring the Line between Persecutor and Victim

Now consider some MSM strategies. The first one is to frame the conflict between Muslims and Christians in a way that blurs the line between persecutor and victim, for example, this recent BBC report on one of Boko Haram’s many church attacks that left three Christians dead, including a toddler. After stating the bare-bone facts, the report goes on to describe how “the bombing sparked a riot by Christian youths, with reports that at least two Muslims were killed in the violence. The two men were dragged off their bikes after being stopped at a roadblock set up by the rioters, police said. A row of Muslim-owned shops was also burned…” The report goes on and on, with a special section about “very angry” Christians, till one all but confuses victims with persecutors, forgetting what the Christians are “very angry” about in the first place: unprovoked and nonstop terror attacks on their churches, and the murder of their women and children.

This is reminiscent of the Egyptian New Year’s Eve church bombing that left over 20 Christians dead: the MSM reported it, but under headlines like “Christians clash with police in Egypt after attack on churchgoers kills 21″(Washington Post) and “Clashes grow as Egyptians remain angry after attack”(New York Times)—again, as if frustrated Christians lashing out against wholesale slaughter is as newsworthy as the slaughter itself; as if their angry reaction “evens” everything up.

Dissembling the Perpetrators’ Motivation

The second MSM strategy involves dissembling over the jihadis’ motivation. An AFP report describing a different Boko Haram church attack—which also killed three Christians during Sunday service—does a fair job reporting the facts. But then it concludes with the following sentence: “Violence blamed on Boko Haram, whose goals remain largely unclear, has since 2009 claimed more than 1,000 lives, including more than 300 this year, according to figures tallied by AFP and rights groups.”

Although Boko Haram has been howling its straightforward goals for a decade—enforcing Sharia law and, in conjunction, subjugating if not eliminating Nigeria’s Christians—here is the MSM claiming ignorance about these goals (earlier the New York Times described Boko Haram’s goals as “senseless”—even as the group continues justifying them on doctrinal grounds). One would have thought that a decade after the jihadi attacks of 9/11—in light of all the subsequent images of Muslims in militant attire shouting distinctly Islamic slogans such as “Allahu Akbar!” and calling for Sharia law and the subjugation of “infidels”—reporters would by now know what their motivation and goals are.

——

Of course, the media’s obfuscation serves a purpose: it leaves the way open for the politically correct, MSM-approved motivations for Muslim violence: “political oppression,” “poverty,” “frustration,” and so forth. From here, one can see why politicians like former U.S. president Bill Clinton cite “poverty” as “what’s fueling all this stuff” (a reference to Boko Haram’s slaughter of Christians), or the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs insistence that “religion is not driving extremist violence” in Nigeria, which he said in response to last Sunday’s Easter day church bombing.

In short, while the MSM may report the most frugal facts concerning Christian persecution, they utilize their entire arsenal of semantic games, key phrases, and convenient omissions that uphold the traditional narrative—that Muslim violence is anything but a byproduct of the Islamic indoctrination of intolerance.

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

Paradise Lost: Syrian Christians

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

When atrocities happen, Syrian Christians pay a price

Mira Shalghanian, Caritas caseworker helping Syrian Christian refugees. (Trudy Rubin / Staff)

Zahle, Lebanon. The international community has condemned the massacre of dozens of women and children in Houla, Syria by pro- government forces.

But as I learned on my visit to Lebanon – to which many Syrian activists and refugees have fled – there’s a growing danger that atrocities like Houla will spark reprisal killings. Those minorities, including Syrian Christian (ten per cent of the population) who are seen as supportive of President Bashar Assad’s regime, are at particular risk.

I traveled over a winding mountain road to this Lebanese Christian town in the Bekaa Valley, not far from the Syrian border, where the Catholic charity Caritas, is helping Syrian Catholics who have fled the fighting in the Homs region. Figures are hard to come by, and many rural Christians are fleeing to relatives in Damascus, but Caritas has had 14 new cases in the last two weeks.

Mira Shalzhanian, a Caritas caseworker, told me that frightened families come walking across the border, mostly from mixed villages such as Qusayr, that are part of Homs province, and have a majority of Sunnis and a minority of Christians; often the refugees walk across the border with little but some clothes.

“All the Christians are coming from Qusayr because they are with the regime and they are scared,” Shalzhanian said. “President Bashar (Assad) was protecting them.”

What she meant was that, as a member of a minority (Alawite Shiite) sect, which has controlled the country for forty years, Assad has looked favorably on members of the Christian minority. They, in turn, saw the regime as a safeguard against any threat of Muslim fundamentalism, or an uncertain future under any post-revolution government.

But the number of atrocities perpetrated by Assad’s Alawite forces and militias against rebellious Sunnis is rising, and the Sunnis’ desire for revenge against his supporters is likely to grow. Houla villagers, all Sunnis, had the misfortune to live on a faultline near rural Alawite villages, and the killers are believed to be Alawite militiamen.

If Sunnis were seeking revenge for the killing of their civilians, their main target would be Alawites, but Christians could also be targeted because they are seen as supporters of Assad.

That’s why an extended family of Syrian Greek Catholics whom I visited decided to flee their homes.

This extended family of farmers and government employees were so fearful they ask me not to describe their jobs, use their names, or take photos. Several small children ran in and out of the bare two rooms they had rented, which were furnished only with sleeping mats and a couple of cots.

Their family residence in Qusayr was caught in a cross fire between rebels and the army, which was a major reason they left. But what finally drove them to flee was the kidnapping of Christians; several relatives were taken by masked men, some of whom had local accents, others not. One relative was killed and others were tortured by beatings with wooden sticks from which nails protruded.

The survivors were told they’d been taken because they were Christians and not with the revolution. No one can be certain whether the kidnappers were revenge-seekers, or simply thugs taking advantage of the chaos. In revolutionary times, criminals often masquerade as patriots.

“We hope we can go back, but we don’t know the situation” said one young mother of four, as drank coffee, the only thing they could offer.“ By next month the family will run out of money, and jobs are hard to find in Zahle. But if the Assad regime keeps encouraging massacres like the one in Houla, Syrian Christians are likely to pay the price.

 

Paradise Lost: ARMENIA, Remembering the post-Genocide years in Lebanon

Paradise is our native country, and we in this world be as exiles and strangers.
Richard Greenham (1535-1594)

Paradise Lost: Remembering the post-Genocide years in Lebanon

Published: Sunday June 10, 2012 By :  Hovsep M. Melkonian

I. “Cursed be the boat that brought you to this country “!

I was born in Beirut, Lebanon 68 years ago of Armenian parents.

My parents lived in a small one-bedroom apartment in one of the more popular sections of Beirut that was mostly inhabited by Arabic speaking people of modest means.

Lebanon is a small and ancient country known in history as Phoenicia that has always had a broad mixture of different religious communities that represent the ancient and historical divisions of both the Christian and Muslim faiths in all their denominations, complexities, specific traditions and contradictions that often defy a logical explanation. To live in Lebanon requires a mix of interpersonal and human skills where flexibility and resilience, business acumen and “joie de vivre”, opportunistic attitudes and deep-seated religious convictions and a belief of being Arab world’s only window into the western world define the national psyche. More specifically, it requires from all levels of the population, no matter how sophisticated, poor or illiterate the individuals in question are, a degree of acceptance of others that is based more on instincts of practical accommodation rather than on tolerance.

Although Armenian by birth, our family lived among Arabic speaking population. This was not uncommon in those days, though the majority of Armenians lived in areas east of the city, mostly inhabited by other Armenians and named after their original hometowns in Cilicia. My brother, my sisters and I spoke Armenian at home but were fluent in Arabic and as children had no inkling that we were different from the neighborhood kids, so great was our integration into the social environment we were born and raised in. Indeed, hearing us speak Arabic no one could for a moment believe that we were non-Arab Arabic speakers. In those days the majority of Armenians had difficulty learning the local language or mostly spoke a broken Arabic confusing the masculine and feminine genders in their speech when they meant the opposite. In that respect, we belonged to the privileged few among Armenians as far as Arabic was concerned. We conversed correctly with others, played with the children of the neighborhood, had the same toys, dressed like them, were welcomed in their homes and went to the same neighborhood school. People knew me as Joseph, and by my nickname Zouzou, the equivalent of Hovsep in Arabic.

What happened next was indeed unexpected.

I was 8 or 9 at the time and the event has marked me forever. In fact, I still carry the scars deep down my heart and my memory.

On that day, as usual, we were playing football (as we called our little game in our daily parlance in that part of the world) in the courtyard of the houses where we lived, when a minor incident among some of the children took an ugly turn. Soon the quarrel turned into a scuffle, blows were exchanged, cries were raised and the commotion brought out to the courtyard some of the parents who intervened to separate us. Seeing her son with a bloody nose, one of our neighbors, Um Suleiman, (it meant the mother of Suleiman, one of the kids involved in the melee) without ever making an effort to establish the identity of the real culprit, addressing herself to me said in anger: “Cursed be the boat that brought you people into this country”! Saying this, she dragged her son away screaming and crying, with a hateful and an angry look on her face that I have never forgotten.

I was stunned.

This unexpected outburst, the crudeness and coarseness of the language used on that occasion , and the harshness of the tone had a devastating effect on me. For the purposes of the article I have sanitized the uttered curse here, but whoever has lived in Lebanon knows that Lebanese, whether man or woman, especially of Christian origin, have an incredibly colorful and graphic way with their verbal expressions when angry. Um Suleyman’s curse left me speechless. We had known her for years as a neighbor, a kind woman though given to quick temper. She came from Deir el Kamar, a historical fiefdom of feisty people in Mount Lebanon , and on account of this she seemed to have a chip on her shoulder.

People in the neighborhood had always liked me, had always been kind to me and had treated me as a “good kid”. Hence, this unexpected tongue-lashing in public caused a deep humiliation and utter shame to me because the idyllic world of adult approval that I had enjoyed until then had been shattered. I felt as if I was dethroned and had been brought down from the pedestal of the high esteem where I was held since I remember walking the streets of the neighborhood. Therefore, my first reaction was a feeling of deep shame, and at the same time anger for I did not deserve the scorn! I had nothing to do with the scuffle but had been trying to separate the two fighting sides. However, I could not, on the spur of the moment , find any words to protest and proclaim my innocence.

The tension hung in the air throughout the evening until my mother called us home for dinner. The incident bothered me because I did not understand the meaning of what the neighbor said, although the words were clear to me. I felt something sinister was in store for me. Naturally, at the dinner table I turned to my mother, told her what happened, and asked her what the neighbor had meant. At first my mother did not react, but explained that we were Armenians and therefore we were different from the rest of the neighbors. However, she never explained to me why we were different from the neighbors, and what actually these words had meant.

At night, before he went to bed, my father had a few words with the neighbor. Things were patched up apparently, because the next morning Um Suleiman, when she saw me in the stairs going to school, smiled and said to me:

-You did not need to tell your parents about yesterday. You know I like you. Take this and run to school now.

She dipped her hand into her apron’s pocket and thrust in my hand a small bar of locally made chocolate. Off I went to school that morning feeling better.

However, after that incident my father started inexplicably to read to us Armenian books. Whenever he was early home from work, he would gather us around him and he would read to us one of the enchanting Armenian tales he had the secret of bringing alive before our eyes. I loved these tales, whether it was Dork Ankegh, Areknazan or Katch Nazar. These were magic moments and they would end when he told us to go to bed. We had never heard our dad read to us in Armenian before. Our daily life was limited to Arabic and French that we learned at school. We were familiar with Arab and French tales and stories but until then we were totally ignorant of anything that was written in Armenian. There was hardly any discussion or discourse on any thing related to Armenians, Armenia or history in general in our small dwelling. My parents were of limited means and of limited education, although I would see my father reading Armenian books whenever he could find time at night before going to bed. He never talked to us about anything he read. Furthermore, whenever there was any “adult” topic to discuss, my father and mother, as well as visitors to our house, spoke a different language among themselves that subsequently I learned was Turkish. Life for us was mostly limited to our games in the courtyard and to homework due the next day when classes resumed in the Arabic school.

Some other things changed over time too after the courtyard incident. Shortly thereafter, we started attending an Armenian school and with time we imperceptibly “became” Armenians and the difference with our surrounding sharpened. We no longer played with former friends and our circle of acquaintances shifted significantly. My name at school officially changed to Hovsep and I learned to live with two names depending where I was: Joseph or Zouzou for the neighborhood but Hovsep for the Armenian school and my classmates there.

However, it was many years later, when I started to attend the Armenian High School outside the neighborhood where we lived that the meaning and context of the angry neighbor’s words became clearer to me and assumed a heart-wrenching dimension.

It was a story, our story as Armenians, and the story of the first generation of Armenians growing up in Lebanon, my birthplace, my country but not my motherland.

I first learned that Armenians had arrived in Lebanon, as well as in the neighboring Arab countries, from their ancestral lands in what today is known as modern Turkey in 1918 as survivors and refugees of the genocidal massacres perpetrated on them by Ottoman Turks between 1915 and 1918. These massacres had caused the brutal death of 1.5 million Armenians. My parents, like thousand of others, who suffered the same fate and tragedy were among the orphaned survivors who had found refuge in Lebanon and were in the process of rebuilding their lives at the time the incident of our courtyard happened. Once a well to-do, educated, propertied and affluent community in Ottoman Turkey, the Armenians, as a result of the events of 1915-1918 , had become miserable and impoverished refugees across the Middle Eastern countries and they were not always welcome.

None of the Armenian boys and girls of my age, growing up in Lebanon or in the other neighboring Arab countries where the other survivors had found refuge, knew anything about the genocide , and its aftermath in those years. Our parents had avoided talking to us about the genocide and had kept a wall of silence around the events of which they had been the victims.

However, they had one obsession: to survive, to stand on their feet and to carry on. They needed safety and shelter, food and jobs and all their efforts were directed at securing these resources from an economically poor and limited market that offered them few opportunities to exercise their professional skills and knowledge that they had carried with them from their ancestral land. They could not speak the language of the country, they mostly lived in malaria infested slum areas and unlike our family did not mix with the local population and conducted business among themselves.

This was the daily life of the Armenian refugees in Lebanon in the early years and the surrounding local population had difficulty accepting their presence. Indeed, the unexpected and unwelcome arrival of poor, unsightly and sickly Armenians in Lebanon in 1918, weakened by months of forced march in the Syrian Desert, had exasperated the local population that had just come through an incredibly severe famine during the years of World War I. The famine was so severe, so devastating that it had sent thousands of the local population scurrying as immigrants to the Unites States and South America looking for a better future and brighter prospects. Thus, the arrival of foreign refugees at a time of national crisis could not but further strain the meager resources of the country and thus antagonize the local population.

But what about the boat that Um Suleiman had mentioned in her angry outburst?

Years later when talking to my grandmother, a survivor of the Adana massacres of 1905 and a subsequent deportee, I discovered that indeed some Armenians had come to Lebanon by boat from Adana and the Turkish port of Mersin. Um Suleiman may have witnessed their arrival or heard about it from her parents and family members who were not thrilled either seeing a new wave of refugees land in their country at this critical juncture of the history of their country. So cursing the boat, she was also cursing those that came on the boat to her country, including us who had caused so much trouble for her child!

Cursing the “boat” seems a universal human exercise to express one’s anger and frustration in a confrontation! Jared Diamond, the author of “Guns, Germs and Steel” puts similar angry words in the mouth of his hero when faced with a conflict: “Damn you, Fred Hirschy, and damn the ship that brought you from Switzerland”! he screams at his interlocutor in a key passage of the book.

For sure Um Suleiman did not dip into a literary text to come up with her colorful expression!

Remembering my childhood years and the misery we endured as offspring of surviving Armenians born in the diaspora as a direct result of the genocidal massacres bring to mind painful memories now.

None of our parents had talked to us about this and we discovered it the hard way. The terrible wall of silence that had surrounded our childhood finally crumbled when we achieved adolescence and youth and now we were faced with the terrible past and the difficulty to adjusting to duality: of being Armenian and Lebanese, Armenian and Syrian and/or Armenian and Jordanian at the same time: in one word being an Arab citizen when we as an ethnic group had nothing in common either with the people or civilization of the countries where we lived.

I do not know whether I have anger towards my parents for having raised us in this world of total silence about the past that is so inextricably interconnected with our being and common memory, or total incomprehension for their behavior and attitude in this matter. However, I discovered similar parental silences and experiences from other generation of Armenians born and raised in different countries of the Diaspora.

One of them, Peter Balakian, a Professor of English at Colgate University and an established American author and poet, has expressed the same feeling of ambiguity, hurt and shock at finding belatedly the truth about his parent’s past in his book titled “Black dog of faith” (published by Basic Books in 1997). Like other Armenian children of his generation who were born and raised a continent away in European or Middle Eastern countries, Balakian did not know about the trauma his family and ancestors had endured in 1915 during which more than one and half million Armenians perished, including many of his relatives.

“Except for those infrequent and awkward moments when my father made some kind of gesture that was directed at the meaning of Genocide, no one in my family considered the events of Armenia’s recent nightmare a reality suitable for conversation or knowledge” writes Balakian in his book. “The scalding facts of the Genocide had been buried, consigned to a deeper layer of consciousness, only to erupt in certain odd moments, as when my grandmother told me a story or a dream” wistfully remarks Balakian.

II. The weight of silence

My parents as well as Peter Balakian’s parents, had shrouded their story of the Genocide with a thick layer of silence and had created an artificial environment, a bubble of sort, where our generation of Armenians lived in relative ignorance, oblivious of the harsh reality and painful experience our parents had lived through and tried to protect us from the psychological consequences that were ours to discover in years to come. Perhaps it was a subconscious effort on their part to protect us from the pain they had endured or a way of safeguarding their mental sanity. That layer of silence accompanied my adolescence through high school and college years.

It was through the study of history and through my individual readings subsequently that I became aware of the Armenian Genocide, the events surrounding the crime committed against my parents and their like and the world’s general indifference and amnesia towards its aftermath and consequences. As I went through this painful discovery, I also discovered , like the rest of my generation, how little was known about the Armenian Genocide outside our immediate world and how little did the outside world care about what had happened. The victims had kept silent and the world around them had also conveniently emulated their silence.

It was only in 1965, in connection with the 50th Anniversary of the “forgotten” Genocide that the suppressed anger, frustration and the fury of victims yearning for recognition of their pain erupted in public. Whether it was in Lebanon, Syria, France, Australia or the United States masses of the first generation of Armenians after the Genocide came face to face with their destiny, the internal as well as the external demons of the fate that had befallen them. This was also the first generation of diasporan Armenians who were born in their adopted countries, conscious of their civic responsibilities as well as their rights as citizens, educated in universities across the Western world and suddenly aware of the enormous psychological weight and burden of the “silence” they had labored under while fully aware and cognizant of the worldwide struggle to bring freedom and equal rights to the downtrodden, the neglected and the invisible in many parts of Asia and Africa.

Thus a new generation of Armenians took over the leadership role in communities spread throughout the world, determined to share in the general progress the world had achieved and the promises it held for emerging nations. They understood well the language that the world spoke, and they knew how to articulate their thoughts and ideas through that common language of education, communication and solidarity. It was a new beginning, marked by activism, a new sense of belonging and self-discovery.

It was thanks to this generation of new Armenians that the modern world started to hear about the first Genocide of the 20th century, to take stock of the human toll, the psychological damage, the loss of life, the usurpation of property and confiscation of land as well as the need for justice, restitution and compensation. It took 50 years from the date of the Genocide for Armenians to wake up in 1965 and scream for justice and demand recognition for their pain.

This memorial stone to the Genocide at the Catholic Armenian patriarchate in Lebanon

The beginning of the final stroke

The beginning of the final stroke

Hamas Linked to : Hezbollah Link to Iran, are all over the Border

From Lebanon To Gaza

Hamas Linked to : Muslim Brotherhood Link to.. well except Tibet .. everybody, but now Full House in Egypt,

working in Jordan and hard working on Syria and Hammam in Turkey after working hours.

Arabic Coptic Rap

DUMB AND DUMBER
June 25, 2012 — The Rat

EGYPT’S NEW MUSBRO PRESIDENT AND THE O-MAN: THIS IS GONNA BE FUN !
In Translation : SHELTER EVERYONE !!!

http://counterjihadreport.com/2012/06/25/report-obama-said-i-am-a-muslim/

War scenarios about the Syrian issue.

BACK ON THE DAMASCUS ROAD !

“My brothers, you are at a historic moment…in a new cycle of civilization, God willing…we are in sixth caliphate, God willing.”

 “My brothers, you are at a historic moment…in a new cycle of civilization, God willing…we are in sixth caliphate, God willing.”

 

Regional rise of Islamists fraught with challenges

By Lin Noueihed

TUNIS, June 19 (Reuters) – From Libya to the Gulf, the rise of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has buoyed Islamists around the region, but the military’s bid to curb their power has also exposed the fragility of the gains Islamists have made since the Arab Spring.

Banned for decades until Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in the face of popular protest last year, the Brotherhood claimed victory on Monday for its presidential candidate Mohamed Morsy in a runoff against his military rival Ahmed Shafik.

But a sweeping legal manoeuvre byCairo’s military rulers made clear the generals planned to keep control for now, even if Shafik’s counter-claim that he had won the poll proved justified.

Since emerging from the shadows, the Brotherhood has shown it can draw votes, but remains stuck in a high-stakes game forEgypt’s future against an opponent with the power and the will to change the rules when deemed necessary.

The outcome of the power struggle in strategic heavyweightEgypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, is likely to have the biggest impact in the Gaza Strip, where a Morsy win will give a political boost to the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

Hamas hopes an Islamist-led Egypt will loosen the shackles of a long-running Israeli blockade. If the Brotherhood takes control, Hamas also hopes its position in the internal struggle with Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas may be strengthened.

“It is very normal that we are much happier that Mohamed Morsy, the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, should be the president ofEgypt,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zohri told Reuters.

But while it could prove a morale boost for Hamas, few believe a victory for Morsy will bring substantial change to either Egypt’s peace deal with Israel or the blockade, which has been maintained with the complicity of Egyptian authorities.

“I do not think that we will see changes regarding the blockade, as the Egyptian intelligence is responsible for this issue, taking into consideration the international agreements with Israel,” said Gaza-based analyst Mohamed Abu Seda.

“Egyptis facing a very complicated period that will lead to political uncertainty … as we witness contradictions of interests between the military council and the … Brotherhood.”

THE BACKLASH IN THE GULF

Indeed, much as the Brotherhood’s popularity at the polls has alarmedEgypt’s military rulers, it has seen conservative Gulf Arab governments, worried that the tide of revolt would eventually hit their shores, clamp down on their own Islamists.

Emboldened by the growing clout of Islamist groups who have won elections inTunisia,EgyptandMorocco, members of Islah, or Reform, in theUnited Arab Emirateshave stepped up demands for greater power to go to a semi-elected advisory council.

Unwilling to tolerate independent political parties or groups, the UAE has moved against its Islamist dissidents.

At least 10 Islamists were arrested in the past two months, including a ruling family member held at the ruler’s palace in the northern emirate of Ras al-Khaimah. The UAE has revoked the citizenship of seven Islamists it said posed a security threat.

Islamists in the UAE say they share an ideology but no direct link withEgypt’s Brotherhood, which at over 80 years old is seen as the grandfather of Islamist groups around the world.

“The UAE is clearly worried about local Islamists… It has a problem with Islah and its own Islamists,” said Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdullah.

While the UAE government is likely to accept whatever leader emerges victorious inEgypt’s run-off, the growing clout of the Brotherhood and its potential emulators at home could yet strain ties within the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

“The UAE has serious problem with the Qataris trying to support a regional role for the Brotherhood,” said Ayham Kamel, London-based analyst at Eurasia Group.

“Abu DhabiandDubaisee the regional rise of the Muslim Brotherhood as a threat. Qatari support for them is likely to create tensions within the GCC and even on a bilateral level.”

NEIGHBOURS WATCH CLOSELY

While Egyptians go through a tortuous transition process that has seen parliamentary polls cancelled and the power of president cast into doubt, Tunisians breathe a sigh of relief.

Their own journey has been far smoother, with no military rulers to turn the tables against the Islamist Ennahda party that won the first election of the Arab Spring in October.

Unlike the Brotherhood, Ennahda kept its promise not to run in presidential elections, going some way to reassuring the powerful secularist establishment, though a victory for the military’s Shafik could embolden members of the former regime who have already formed a party ahead of next year’s polls.

Watching even more closely are the Libyans, who go to the polls in early July for the first national elections since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in a NATO-backed rebellion last year.

As in other North African countries, the local incarnation of the Brotherhood has emerged as a key player in elections.

For the first time in their history, youths fromLibya’s once-banned Brotherhood are campaigning onTripolistreets, distributing brochures for their Justice and Development Party.

“Morsy winning will give a boost to our cause inLibya,” said Marwan al-Katib, 21. “Libyans will say: oh, the Brotherhood won inEgyptso we need to learn more about this group and maybe they are the right people for us.” (Reporting by Crispian Balmer inJerusalem, Rania ElGamal inDubaiand Hadeel Al Shalchi inTripoli; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Thanks And H/T to :

http://eastangliandivision.wordpress.com/2012/06/25/rise-of-islamists-in-middle-east-is-fraught-with-challenges/

 

http://af.reuters.com/article/tunisiaNews/idAFL5E8HJCNX20120619?sp=true

TWO MAIN THREATS

Two Main Threats

Mr. Nasr sees two main threats arising from today’s Shiite revival. The first is Iranian nationalism, fueled by perceptions in Iran that a Sunni Arab-U.S. nexus wants to stifle its rise as a regional power. That explains the widespread support among Iranians for their country’s nuclear program, he says. It also explains why some Iranian leaders have been sounding less like Islamic revolutionaries and more like the late shah, a Persian nationalist who extended Iran’s influence into Shiite and Farsi-speaking areas beyond its borders.

The second major threat, he says, is the Sunni reaction to the Shiite revival. As Iraq’s insurgents have shown, hatred of Shiites is ingrained in Sunni militancy, Mr. Nasr says. He worries about a replay of the 1980s and 1990s, when Saudi money poured into Sunni extremist groups throughout the region to counter the Shiite fervor coming out of Iran after the revolution. The same groups became the backbone of al Qaeda, Mr. Nasr says.

In a speech last year in New York, the Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, said it “seems out of this world” that U.S. forces would protect allies of Iran who are building a power base in Iraq. “Now we are handing the whole country over to Iran without reason,” the prince said.

But Mr. Nasr says U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq may converge because both want lasting stability there. Comparing Iran to 19th-century Prussia and Japan of the 1930s, he says it is important to manage the rise of regional powers. “You can’t regulate them by isolating them,” he says.

 PETER WALDMAN

 

 

Ennahda’s tight rope act on religion

 

This past Sunday, the Tunisian Islamist party Ennahda — fresh off its win in last month’s elections — came under fire following a rally in Sousse, Tunisia with Houda Naim, a member of Hamas. Besides Naim, Ennahda’s general secretary, Hammadi Jebali, who has been proposed as the new Prime Minister of Tunisia, made some controversial remarks about the return of the Caliphate. Jebali stated: “My brothers, you are at a historic moment…in a new cycle of civilization, God willing…we are in sixth caliphate, God willing.” This quickly raised alarm bells with Tunisia’s secular and liberal elements who had been warning prior to the elections about Ennahada’s purported double speak: saying one thing publicly while saying something more nefarious privately to its followers.

In response to Jebali’s pronouncement, Ettakatol, a party that won the fourth largest bloc of seats in the recent election and is in coalition talks with Ennahda, said the party was suspending its participation in talks on a governing coalition in the forthcoming Tunisian Constituent Assembly. Khemais Ksila, a member of the executive committee of Ettakatol, stated: “We do not accept this statement. We thought we were going to build a second republic with our partner, not a sixth caliphate.” While Lobna Jeribi, an Ettakatol Constituent Assembly member, proclaimed that Jebali’s statements raised major concerns that needed to be clarified before any coalition talks resumed.

 

This is not the first controversy that Ennahda has been embroiled in since they won a little more than 40 percent of seats to draft the constitution in the new Constituent Assembly. A little more than a week ago, Souad Abderrahim, a prominent female member of Ennahda, talking to Radio Monte Carlo Doualiya stated that single mothers are a disgrace to Tunisia, “do not have the right to exist,” there are limits on “full and absolute freedom,” and that one should not “make excuses for people who have sinned.” In both cases, Ennahda had to walk back the statements of both Jebali and Abderrahim, downplaying their significance.

Are these two recent examples a sign of double speak finally seeing the light of day in the aftermath of its election victory — or is it a sign of Ennahda’s political immaturity and lack of experience? The latter is more likely. Prior to and following the election there have been no signs of some type of hostile Islamist takeover by Ennahda that would then try and institute a radical interpretation of the shari‘ah.

A few days before the election, the president of Ennahda, Rached Ghannouchi, emphasized the importance of reconciliation even if Ennahda did not win a plurality, stating: “We will congratulate the winner and will collaborate with them just as other parties should do the same if we end up winning; Tunisia is in need of everyone. The keyword is reconciliation, our foremost concern is reconciliation in composing the upcoming government without regard to ideological differences.” Ghannouchi later stressed after the election that Ennahda did not plan to instrumentalize the new constitution as a blunt tool to force a certain interpretation of Islam at Tunisian citizens, arguing, “Egypt says shari‘ah is the main source of its law, but that didn’t prevent (deposed President Hosni) Mubarak from being a dictator.” Ghannouchi in the past has also pointed to Turkey as an example where one can balance both democratic and religious values without compromising either.

Further, Ennahda has been in talks over the past several weeks with two secular parties, Congress for the Republic and Ettakatol, to form a coalition government for the new Constituent Assembly. As one can see from the above comments by Ettakatol, the two secular parties will no doubt play a productive role and provide a check on any potential Ennahda overreach.

One should be cognizant, though, that the transition will not be perfect. Moreover, with every potential accommodation Ennahda makes now that they are in power, it could erode potential grassroots support. More radical youth elements may believe that after years of suffering under the yoke of former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali it is time to finally implement the oft-quoted phrase “al-Islam huwa al-Hal”; or “Islam is the Solution.” By not living up to these words one could foresee a scenario where some support is shifted to the less mainstream Salafi movement, fomenting a potential culture war in Tunisia in the medium future.

Ennahda’s pledge to respect women’s rights and not regulate social issues, such as wearing a bikini at the beach or the sale of alcohol, could become contentious issues in future elections that could pull Ennahda further to the right. Even if they do not, as more time passes since the fall of the Ben Ali regime and there are more freedoms and openness in Tunisian society, the contestation of the role of religion, its meaning, and interpretation will become a heated debate. In the near-term, though, with Ghannouchi stewarding Ennahda through the transition, such potential drift or confrontation is less likely.

Ennahda’s transition from banned opposition party to a leading voice of reform for civic Islamism is still playing out. There will be ups and downs over the next year, but its political discipline and maturity will rise over time. If there is one political party in the Middle East and North Africa that can navigate the tough challenge ahead on debating the contentious issue of the role of religion in society, Tunisia’s Ennahda party is best situated for the task. Although talk of the Caliphate is a head-turning event for many in Tunisia and in the West, since last January, Ennahda’s actual actions to date should be speaking louder than some of their ill-conceived words.

Aaron Y. Zelin is a research associate in the Department of Politics at Brandeis University. He is a co-editor of the al-Wasat blog and maintains the website Jihadology.net.

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“This is what we feared,” Chelbi said.

Tunisian women’s groups also have been skeptical of Al-Nahda’s moderation, saying there has been an increase in verbal and physical abuse since President Zine Abidine Ben Ali resigned in the wake of a popular uprising.

Party leaders tried to contain the damage, telling Reuters that Jbeli was talking about “good governance and a break with corruption … not the establishment of an Islamic regime.”

Although Al-Nahda’s breach of Tunisian secularism dominated reports on the controversial political rally, including Reuters’ article, speakers also promoted the military conquest of Israel. The event also marked the first time Al-Nahda invited a Hamas representative, Houda Naim of the Palestinian Legislative Council inGaza, to address a political rally inTunisia.

Naim expressed hope that the liberation ofTunisiawould lead to the “liberation ofPalestine,” which Hamas believes can only be achieved through violence or “resistance.” Al-Nahda’s secretary general echoed Naim’s call, stating, “The liberation ofTunisiawill, Allah willing, bring about the liberation ofJerusalem.”

Support for Hamas and the complete “liberation of Palestine” have been consistent messages from Al-Nahda’s political leaders and its charter. Hamas has reciprocated with its support forTunisia’s revolt against dictatorship and embracing political Islam.

The Arab Spring “will achieve positive results on the path to the Palestinian cause and threaten the extinction of Israel,” Party leader and ideologue Rashid Ghannouchi said in a May interview with the Al Arab Qatari website. “The liberation ofPalestine from Israeli occupation represents the biggest challenge facing the Umma [Muslim nation] and the Umma cannot have existence in light of the Israeli occupation.”

Further, in the same interview, Ghannouchi said: “I give you the good news that the Arab region will get rid of the bacillus [bacteria] of Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, said thatIsraelwill disappear by the year 2027. I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this.”

Ghannouchi has also given his support to specific types of terror carried out by Hamas, including rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and “martyrdom operations.”

In June 2001, Ghannouchi appeared in an al-Jazeerah panel discussion in which he blessed the mothers of Palestinian suicide bombers:

“I would like to send my blessings to the mothers of those youth, those men who succeeded in creating a new balance of power…I bless the mothers who planted in the blessed land of Palestine the amazing seeds of these youths, who taught the international system and the Israel (sic) arrogance, supported by the US, an important lesson. The Palestinian woman, mother of the Shahids (martyrs), is a martyr herself, and she has created a new model of woman.”

Ghannouchi has even gone beyond rhetoric, calling for Muslims to fund and provide logistical support for Hamas. He signed the controversial “Istanbul Declaration,” issued by Muslim clerics in support of Hamas afterIsrael’s January 2009 war inGaza. The declaration stated that there was an “obligation of the Islamic nation to open the crossings – all crossings – in and out of Palestine permanently” to provide supplies and weapons to Hamas to “perform the jihad in the way of Allah Almighty.”

Ghannouchi’s statements are consistent with Al-Nahda’s platform, which declares that the party “struggles to achieve the following goals … To struggle for the liberation of Palestine and consider it as a central mission and a duty required by the need to challenge the Zionist colonial attack. The platform also refers to Israel as an “alien entity planted in the heart of the homeland, which constitutes an obstacle to unity and reflects the image of the conflict between our civilization and its enemies.”

In September, the organization stated that it “supports the struggle of peoples seeking liberation and justice and encourages world peace and aims to promote cooperation and collaboration and unity especially among Arab and Islamic countries and considers the Palestinian struggle for liberation to be a central cause and stands against normalization.”

Standing against peace. Envisioning a new Caliphate. Meet the moderate Al-Nahda party.

 

The 6th Extinction -The 6th Caliphate-The 6th Extinction-The 6th Caliphate… :

We like to thanks Nato for providing Guns and Military Equipments

The UN for the help on misinforming people on bad treatments

The EU for all the money for our infrastructures and personal amusements

And Mr Obama for making it all come true !

Thank You !

Morsi’s First Move as Egyptian President? Attack Israel

Morsi’s First Move as Egyptian President? Attack Israel

Arab dictators and radical Islam – from february 2011

Arab dictators and radical Islam – from february 2011
Tack Brother ! and NO SURRENDER !
Don’t Give UP !

Obama Sides With Muslim Brotherhood, America No Longer Trustworthy

Obama Sides With Muslim Brotherhood, America No Longer Trustworthy