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Monday, July 30, 2012

The US: Islamic Jihad is “fight for freedom” « News that matters

The US: Islamic Jihad is “fight for freedom” « News that matters

The US: Islamic Jihad is “fight for freedom”

The Obama administration refuses to call Hezb”Allah and Muslim Brotherhood for terror-organizations.
Behind closed doors, The Commander in Chief Barack Hussein Obama demands John Brennan support for Islamic freedoms fighters.
On Wednesday, John Brennan, US President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah’s massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week
 The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is “Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Koran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the path of Allah is our highest hope.”
How could such a high-level US official claim that such an organization is “largely secular”?
Every day Muslim Brotherhood leaders call for the violent annihilation of Israel.  And those calls are often combined with calls for jihad against the US.
For instance, in a sermon from October 2010, Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie called for jihad against the US. As he put it “Resistance [i.e. terrorism] is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.”
Source:  Opinion in Jerusalem Post, by Caroline B. Glick.
My comment:
To what can we compare the acceptance of Hezb’Allah and the Muslim Brotherhood as “peace partners”?
The best historical parallel, is the viewpoints of US Ambassador to the United Kingdom,  Josepth P. Kennedy.  He told Washington that the United States should make Nazi-leader Adolf Hitler as their “peace partner”.
This was uttered by Kennedy in 1940, after Hitler had started his “holy war” to build his Millennium Nazi Kingdom.
Both Nazi leaders and the leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood works for their millennium kingdoms to come. Their “holy wars” gives their members license to kill those who disagree with them.
Would you have supported Hillary Clinton, if she wanted you to sign a “peace agreement” with Adolf Hitler?
If the answer is no. Why do you expect Israel to accept such falsehood?
The only valid explanation of the warm US’s support of Islamic Jihad, is that the Commander in Chief in the White House believe that “allah” is the“god” we all should follow.
Written by Ivar

‘Old friends’ reuniting?

‘Old friends’ reuniting?

wnd.com
BEIRUT, Lebanon – What is described as an old Cold War alliance among the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, a long-time friend to both countries, seems to be re-emerging as the U.S. seeks to re-establish military ties with Pakistan, according to a report in Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.
The U.S. regards Pakistan as pivotal to its new Asia policy to, in effect, contain China.
The U.S. also is bringing Saudi Arabia into this hasty arrangement because of their close ties.
At the same time, however, India is keeping a wary eye on Washington’s initiatives, especially after much fanfare by the Obama administration a few months ago with New Delhi for a renewed alliance.
“All this is great ‘public diplomacy,’” said former Indian Ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar “But are Indians such duffers as not to begin to seriously wonder what is the meaning of the deep rumblings at their side facing the West where the U.S.-Pakistan security and military tie-up is getting restored?”
The U.S.-India relationship, too, is seen as a means of containing China as Washington encourages New Delhi to spread its influence more into the East China Sea which China has declared as being in its own historical domain.
That position, however, is not only being challenged by the U.S., but by other countries in the area who view the South China Sea with its islands and seabed as having abundant reserves of oil and other minerals. India, too, has been working with such countries as Vietnam in the region for oil drilling, which has created yet another level of friction between Beijing and New Delhi.
Not only is the new Pakistani spy director, Lt. General Zaheerul Islam coming to visit with his U.S. counterpart, Central Intelligence Director David Petraeus, but the Obama administration has decided to release some $1.1 billion which it held up for the Pakistani military. Pakistani army chief Gen. Parvez Kayani, who has been particularly critical of the U.S., also is expected to visit.
At the same time, the Saudis have offered Pakistan lucrative energy deals if it only will lessen its already close ties with Tehran. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia are in a virtual sectarian war, with Saudi Arabia being the seat of Sunni Islam, while Tehran is the base for Shi’a Islam.
The Middle East situation with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad in its alliance with Iran about to fall apart has emboldened Saudi Arabia to make its move against Iran to lessen its influence among the other Gulf Arab states – a position to which Washington is not opposed.
Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

UN cell calls for global Sodoma and Gomorrah « News that matters

UN cell calls for global Sodoma and Gomorrah « News that matters

UN cell calls for global Sodoma and Gomorrah

The world must get rid of “punitive” laws against prostitution – or what it calls “consensual sex work”.
The General Secretary of United nations, Ban-ki-moon.
A report issued by the United Nations-backed Global Commission on HIV and the Law; recommends that nations around the world get rid of “punitive” laws against prostitution – or what it calls “consensual sex work” — and decriminalize the voluntary use of illegal injection drugs in order to combat the HIV epidemic.
The commission, which is made up of 15 former heads of state, legal scholars and HIV/AIDS activists, was convened in 2010 by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and is jointly backed by the United Nations Development Programme and UNAIDS – the Joint U.N. Programme on AIDS/HIV.
The commission recommends repealing all laws that prohibit “adult consensual sex work,” as well as clearly distinguishing in law and practice between sexual trafficking and prostitution.
Source: Cnsnews.com
My comments:
To abolish laws against prostitution, will be legalizing adulatory and unlimited sexual sins.
Today, sleuths and hockers can be of both sexes. With the laws against sex trade is abolished, slavery will come back with full force.
The UN will eventually end up supporting lawlessness, damnable with eternal punishment in Hell.
People who live by their shameless lusts, will also be free to tempt us everywhere. Even inside schools and public offices.
Without us having any legal sanctions available to curb their filth.
Today, it is difficult for judges to find a clear cut difference between free sex and forced sex, or what we call sex crimes.
With the laws against prostitution abolished, the legal distinction will disappear. Our cities and tows will be turned into filthy sites for massive shameless orgies.
Jesus has warned us, that this degenerated culture of unlimited filth will resurface in the last days.
Luke 17:28-30
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building.  But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
 “It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
Welcome to our last days, the global copycat of Sodoma and Gomorrah.
Written by Ivar Fjeld

Thousands of Christians run for their lives

Thousands of Christians run for their lives

wnd.com
Some military analysts and human rights groups say that the Syrian civil war may soon be over – but that reassurance isn’t enough to prevent the country’s Christians from fleeing from the violence.
Dutch journalist and human rights analyst Martin Janssen reports from Jordan that Christians are fleeing Syria in record numbers. Janssen says the Christian refugees first fled because of an ultimatum.
“An exodus of Christians is taking place in Western Syria,” Janssen said. “The Christian population has fled the city of Qusayr, near Homs, following an ultimatum issued by the military chief of the armed opposition, Abdel Salam Harba.
“This is what local sources told Vatican news agency Fides, pointing out that since the conflict broke out, only a thousand of the city’s 10,000 faithful, were left, and they are now being forced to flee immediately,” Janssen said.
Janssen says the city’s mosques have reissued the ultimatum for the Christians to leave.
“Some of the city’s mosques have issued the message again, announcing from the minarets: ‘Christians must leave Qusayr within six days, ending Friday,’” Janssen said. “The ultimatum therefore expired on June 8 and spread fear among the Christian population.”
Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra confirms the Christians’ desire to flee the violence but says there are few places to which they can go.
“Although Christians in Syria and leaders do not desire or want to leave, yet the question still prevails, ‘What is the free world doing to prepare for that exodus?’ a Christian from Syria asks,” Dykstra said.
“Who is going to welcome the Syrian Christians?” Dykstra asked. “One Syrian source says that the churches in Syria know very well what happened to the Iraqi Christians.
“They were in many countries not really welcome, so we are afraid that the same will happen to Syrian refugees, and that would be a disaster,’” Dykstra said, quoting the Syrian source.
Dykstra says the pressure to flee comes in many forms.
“Protests, assaults, bombings, thefts [and] kidnappings are all part of daily life in Syria,” Dykstra said. “The almost 10 percent Christians of the Syrian population fear for the future, many are already thinking of leaving the country.
“Christians in Syria wonder what will happen with their daily life, when a new government will come to power,” Dystra continued. “This uncertain and unknown future might lead to an exodus of Christians from Syria (like what happened to Iraqi Christians), and that is what Syrian Church leaders do expect.”
Dykstra compares the Syrian Christians’ plight to the Iraqi Christians who fled Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.
“In Iraq hundreds of thousands Christians left that country due to all the violence targeting them. But where will a Syrian exodus lead to? Which country will welcome hundreds of thousands Christian refugees in a period where borders seem to become more and more closed borders?” Dykstra asked.
Terrorism and foreign policy think tank Gerard Direct stated in a report recently released that the battle for Syria’s second largest city could determine whether Assad’s regime stands.
“The battle for Syria’s second city, Aleppo, is a crucial fight that could determine the direction of the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad,” the report said.
Reports coming from Aleppo say the rebels survived an offensive by the Syrian army.
Janssen believes the fight for Aleppo is key in Assad proving that his government can stand. Janssen adds that Assad’s problems are being compounded by large numbers of fighters coming from outside Syria.
“At this moment the biggest problems are in Aleppo. I heard that more than 5,000 rebels entered the area across the Turkish border,” Janssen said.
Janssen also says ethnic Kurds are entering the fight: “It seems that the Kurdish Democratic Union party (the Syrian branch of the PKK) controls great swaths of land in Syrian Kurdistan. They are at the same time fighting with the Syrian Army and the Free Syrian Army.”
“There is some talk about the presence of Peshmerga fighters from Iraqi Kurdistan,” Janssen said.
Janssen adds the outside support signals that the rebellion has become a “holy war.”
“Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia invented the idea of in indirect military intervention in Syria and the West followed and approved. Money and weapons poured from across the borders into Syria and with them thousands of foreign fighters,” Janssen said. “This last development changed the nature of the Syrian crisis profoundly. The crisis became a full-blown, internationally-sponsored, civil war.
“These foreign fighters consider themselves to be holy war warriors, jihadists fighting against an atheist regime. They are not interested in democracy and human rights for minorities. It paved the way for a dangerous and growing presence of al-Qaida inside Syria,” Janssen said.
Christian human rights group Open Doors USA confirms Janssen’s conclusion, saying that al-Qaeda has joined the fight.
“According to Reuters News, the rebels include the Free Syrian Army, al-Qaeda-style jihadists, the Muslim Brotherhood and local pro-democracy Sunni liberals,” the Open Doors report said.
The Open Doors report also says that while Assad is unpopular, Christians aren’t supporting Assad’s overthrow.
“While the defeat of Assad and the military would be welcome news to most, the sizeable Christian community of over 1.5 million is fearful for its future,” the Open Doors report said.
“Under Assad, Christians enjoyed a measure of freedom to worship in Syria, which is 90 percent Muslim. In fact, Christians were granted a degree of religious freedom not seen in most other Middle Eastern countries – before and after Arab Spring,” the Open Doors report also said.
“If Assad falls, Christians in Syria are fearful of what will happen when a new government – probably a radical Islamic one – will come into power,” says Open Doors USA President and CEO Dr. Carl Moeller,” the report said.
“Will their freedom to worship end? Will persecution increase? Will they have to flee Syria with their families as have thousands of believers in Iraq?” the report asked, quoting Moeller.
Reports of an end to Assad’s regime, however, may be premature. Janssen reports from Jordan that Assad still controls Damascus.
“Currently the situation in Damascus seems to be under the control of the Syrian army despite some fighting in certain neighborhoods,” Janssen said.

Judge Temporarily Stops Administration from Forcing Christian Family to Act Against Faith | CNSNews.com

Judge Temporarily Stops Administration from Forcing Christian Family to Act Against Faith | CNSNews.com

Judge Temporarily Stops Administration from Forcing Christian Family to Act Against Faith


Barack Obama, Kathleen Sebelius
President Barack Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
(CNSNews.com) - U.S. District Judge John L. Kane issued an injunction Friday that temporarily prohibits the Obama administration from forcing a Christian family in Colorado to act against its faith in the way it operates its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning business.
The injunction spares the family from complying with an Obamacare regulation while the judge decides on its merits the lawsuit the family has brought contending the regulation violates their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized the regulation earlier this year. It requires health care plans to provide--without cost-sharing--sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptives, including those that induce abortions.
William, Paul and James Newland and their sister, Christine Ketterhagen, who are Catholics, own Colorado-based Hercules Industries, which the family founded in 1962 and which they have grown to where it now employs 265 people.
James Newland, Newlands
James, Andrew, Paul and William Newland of Hercules Industries
The Newlands’ Catholic faith teaches that sterilization, contraception and abortion are intrinsically immoral and that Catholics cannot be involved in them. It also teaches them that they must live all aspects of their lives—including how they run their business—in keeping with Catholic moral teachings. With this understanding the Newlands have not only provided their workers with generous health-care benefits through a self-insurance program that they maintain at Hercules Industries, they also have not covered sterilizations, contraception or abortion through that insurance program.
Last month, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously adopted a statement declaring that Sebelius’s regulation is an “unjust and illegal mandate” that violates the  “personal civil rights” of individual workers and business owners who are forced to buy insurance plans that cover sterilization, contraception and abortion-inducing drugs in violation of Catholic teaching.
In his injunction, Judge Kane explained that the Newland family needed to demonstrate a number of crucial points to win the injunction.
“A preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy; accordingly, the right to relief must be clear and unequivocal,” said the judge. “To meet this burden, a party seeking a preliminary injunction must show: (1) a likelihood of success on the merits; (2) a threat of irreparable harm, which (3) outweighs any harm to the non-moving party, and that (4) the injunction would not adversely affect the public interest.”
The judge determined that because the Obama administration had already exempted or waived so many others from complying with Obamacare at this time that giving the Newland family temporary relief from a regulation that would infringe on their religious freedom would not adversely affect the public interest.
“On balance, the threatened harm to Plaintiffs, impingement of their right to freely exercise their religious beliefs, and the concomitant public interest in that right strongly favor the entry of injunctive relief,” the judge said. “Although the less rigorous standard for preliminary injunctions is not applied when ‘a preliminary injunction seeks to stay governmental action taken in the public interest pursuant to a statutory or regulatory scheme,’ the government’s creation of numerous exceptions to the preventive care coverage mandate has undermined this alleged public interest.”
However, the judge clearly left open the possibility that when he decides Newland v. Sebelius on its merits he may decide the administration does have the authority to force a family-owned business to act against the moral and religious beliefs of the family that owns it.
“The questions [raised by the suit] merit more deliberate investigation,” said the judge.
“Even if, upon further examination, Plaintiffs are able to demonstrate a substantial burden on their free exercise of religion, however, the government may justify its application of its preventive care coverage mandate by demonstrating that application of that mandate to Plaintiffs is the least restrictive means of furthering a compelling interest,” he said.
If the regulation stands, Catholic business owners like the Newlands--and business owners of other denominations who share the Newlands’ moral and religious convictions on sterilization, contraception or abortion—will have no escape from government action forcing them to act against their moral and religious beliefs.
Because the Supreme Court has upheld Obamacare and its mandate that all individuals must buy health insurance, the Newlands and their employees must buy health insurance.  If the Newlands dropped their company’s self-insured health care plan, they and their employees would be required to turn elsewhere for insurance and the plans available to them in the Obamacare-governed health-care market would need to comply with the Sebelius regulation.  Thus, the Newlands, and any workers who share their religious and moral beliefs, would be required to violate those beliefs anyway.
Additionally, Obamacare requires businesses like the Newlands’ that have more than 50 full-time employees to provide their employees with health-care coverage that complies with the regulatory schemes promulgated under Obamacare. If a business fail to offer its employees insurance, it must pay a fine of about $2,000 per worker per year. A business like the Newlands that employs 265 people would pay a federal penalty of approximately $530,000 per year for not buying insurance.
If a business like the Newlands were to flout the regulation by continuing to provide their workers and themselves with insurance that does not cover the sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs the Sebelius regulation requires, they would be subject, under Obamacare, to a penalty of about $100 per day per worker. For a business with 265 workers like the Newlands’, that works out to a penalty of about $26,500 per day—or $9,672,500 over 365 days.
Judge Kane stressed that his injunction preventing the Obama administration from enforcing the Sebelius regulation against the Newlands while he decides their suit on its merits, applies only to the Newlands.  Other businesses must comply with the regulation unless it is reversed by Congress or thrown out by a higher court.
House Speaker John Boehner, a Catholic who previously had called the regulation an “attack on religious liberty,” indicated on Thursday that the Republican-majority House may now provide the Obama administration with the funding it needs to implement the regulation after the legislation currently funding the federal government expires on Sept. 30.
“Sometimes resolving these issues can sometimes best be done other than legislative avenues,” said Boehner of the regulation.
The Newlands are being represented in their suit by attorney Matt Bowman ofthe Alliance Defending Freedom.
“Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith,” said Bowman. “For the time being, Hercules Industries will be able to do just that.”
“This lawsuit seeks to ensure that Washington bureaucrats cannot force families to abandon their faith just to earn a living,” said Bowman. “Americans don’t want politicians and bureaucrats deciding what faith is, who the faithful are, and where and how that faith may be lived out.”
The regulation takes effect on Wednesday.

israel today | Israel News | From Islam to Christianity – Apostasy that Enlightens - Part I - israel today | Israel News

israel today | Israel News | From Islam to Christianity – Apostasy that Enlightens - Part I - israel today | Israel News

From Islam to Christianity – Apostasy that Enlightens - Part I

From Islam to Christianity – Apostasy that Enlightens - Part I
In January 2012, Gatestone Institute, an international policy council and think tank, reported that more than one hundred thousand converts to Islam reside in the UK alone. France is rapidly catching up with its neighbor, listing some 70,000 new adherents of the religion; with Spain and Germany also witnessing a wave of conversions as 50,000 and 20,000 people (respectively) adopted Islam in the past several years.
Hailed by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's fastest growing religion, The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life backs this fact with impressive statistics.
Currently counting some 1.6 billion people worldwide, the population of Muslims is expected to increase by about 35% in the next 20 years, totaling 2.2 billion by 2030. In twenty years’ time, experts estimated, the US will be home to some 6.2 million Muslims (compared to 2.6 million in 2010), whereas Europe will have 58.2 million, up from 44.1 million.
Yet the report concluded that the expected growth is explained primarily by high fertility rates among Muslims, immigration to the Americas and Europe, as well as an increase in life expectancy rather than conversion.
Nevertheless, despite the noteworthy statistics, Islam’s spread pales in significance when compared to the numbers leaving the religion for Christianity.
The issue was first raised in 2003 by Qatar’s news channel Al-Jazeera, which aired an interview with Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani, the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law, a Muslim preacher-training center in Libya. “Every year, 6 million Muslims become Christians [in Africa alone],” said the man, believed to be an expert on evangelization and Christianization. “What used to be a majority religion is now turning into minority,” complained the cleric, pointing a blaming finger at the western missionaries, who take advantage of people’s poverty and ignorance to lure them into a new religion.
Though his number may be exaggerated, it is consistent with the general trend. A study published in 2010 by the Pew Forum established that Christians outnumber Muslims by 2 to 1, with the number of adherents to Christianity in sub-Saharan Africa growing from seven million in 1900 to 470 million today.
In a bid to explain the phenomenon, the World Christian Encyclopedia claimed Christianity received about 2,883,011 converts between 1990 and 2000. But Pew’s study arrived at a different conclusion. The survey, conducted in 19 nations in sub-Saharan Africa in 2009, showed that “neither Christianity, nor Islam was growing significantly at the expense of the other through religious conversions.” The study emphasized that “there was no substantial net gain or loss in the number of adherents to Islam globally.”
At the same time, as more Muslims choose Christianity as their adopted belief system, some experts wonder about the causes underlying this phenomenon.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for Part II of this story

Muslim Persecution of Christians: June 2012

Muslim Persecution of Christians: June 2012

frontpagemag.com
Originally published by the 
U.S.-backed rebels are committing Christian genocide in Syria, where they are sacking churches and issuing threats that all Christians will be cleansed from rebel-held territory.  A mass exodus of thousands of Christians is taking place, even as mainstream Western reporters like Robert Fiskdemonize those same Christians for being supportive of the secular regime.
The bloody jihad waged against Nigeria’s Christians, which has seen hundreds killed this year alone, now includes plans to kill Christians with poisoned food, as part of the Islamic organization Boko Haram’s stated goal of purging Nigeria of all Christian presence.
During Egypt’s presidential elections, Al Ahram reported that “the Muslim Brotherhoodblockaded entire streets, prevented Copts from voting at gunpoint, and threatened Christian families not to let their children go out and vote” for the secular candidate.
Meanwhile, under President Obama, the U.S. State Department, in an unprecedented move,purged the sections dealing with religious persecution from its recently released Country Reports on Human Rights.  Likewise, the Obama administration insists that the Nigerian crisis hasnothing to do with religion, even as Obama offered his hearty blessings to Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood president, in the midst of allegations of electoral fraud.
Categorized by theme, June’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.
Church Attacks
Egypt:  Because many visitors were in attendance, Muslims surrounded a Coptic church during Divine Liturgy “demanding that the visiting Copts leave the church before the completion of prayers, and threatening to burn down the church if their demand was not met.” The priest contacted police asking for aid only to be told to comply with their demands, “and do not let buses with visitors to come to the church anymore.” Christian worshippers exited halfway through liturgy to jeers outside. As they drove away, Muslims hurled stones at their buses.  Also, repairs to a Coptic church that was torched and gutted a year ago by rioting Muslims were woefully inadequate, leaving the congregation with a staggering debt from further necessary repairs.
Indonesia: A Muslim mob of 300 wrecked a store that was being used for a Sunday church service on the pretext that it had not obtained “permission to hold Mass.”  The mob wrecked the first floor of the store, breaking windows and damaging furniture.  Police stopped them before reaching the third floor, where some 60 Christians had congregated.   None of the Muslims were arrested, although 12 Christians were taken into custody for questioning. Separately, in compliance to calls by Islamic clerics, authoritiesordered 20 churches to be torn down, following the closure of 16 smaller Christian places of worship in the same district last month.  The congregations continue to hold services inside their sealed-off buildings as other members stand guard outside.
IranAuthorities ordered the closure of yet another church in the capital, Tehran, “amid a government campaign to crack down on the few recognized churches offering Farsi-speaking services,” according to a human rights group. The church originally served Assyrian background Christian members; however, “due to an increasing number of Farsi-speaking believers—mostly MBBs [Muslim Background Believers]—it [the church] has become a cause of concern for the authorities and they now ordered it to shut down.”
Kashmir: A 119-year-old church was torched by Muslims.  The local bishop “said that the Muslim fundamentalists want Christians to leave the state… He said that the church had filed a case with the police but had been advised not to ‘play up’ such incidents.”  Christian minorities “are coming under growing threat from Kashmir’s Muslim majority. A Christian human rights group in India said that over 400 Christians have been displaced as a result.”
Kazakhstan: Land use regulations are being exploited “as a means to prevent religious communities and their members exercising freedom of religion or belief.” Most recently, authorities “forced a Methodist church to ‘voluntarily’ close and fined the wife of the Church’s Pastor, who further paid for an announcement in newspapers saying the church was ‘liquidating itself,’” simply because “We do not want more punishment from the authorities.”
Nigeria:  Islamic militants attacked several churches during every Sunday of the month with bombs and guns killing dozens of Christian worshippers, and critically wounding hundreds, including many children.  Growing numbers of Christians “dare not” attend church services anymore, even as reports suggest that some police are intentionally abandoning their watch prior to such attacks.
Sudan:  Authorities bulldozed two church buildings to the ground and confiscated three Catholic schools, as a response to the secession of South Sudan in July 2011, saying that such buildings are associated with now unwelcome, largely Christian South Sudanese in the Islamic-ruled country.  Another church building belonging to the Full Gospel Church was destroyed in the same area two months ago, also on the claim that it belonged to South Sudanese.
Turkmenistan:  An Evangelical church in the Muslim-majority nation was raided by authorities: “All adult believers at the meeting were questioned about their faith and all of their Christian literature was confiscated.”  Their literature was returned two weeks later.
Apostasy, Blasphemy, Proselytism
Egypt: A Christian student handing out Christian literature in Assuit University “raised the ire of Muslim students,” resulting in clashes on campus, “amid shouts of sectarian chants,” leading to many injuries.  Likewise, a Salafi leader declared on Egyptian TV that Muslims have no right “to convert to Christianity.”
Iran:  Five months after five Christian converts were arrested, their condition and fate remain unknown. They are accused of “attending house church services, promoting Christianity, propagating against the regime and disturbing national security.” Being imprisoned for 130 days without word “is an obvious example of physical and mental abuse of the detainees….  one of the prison guards openly told one of these Christian detainees that all these pressures and uncertainties are intended to make them flee the country after they are released.” Also, a young Iranian woman, who recently converted to Christianity and was an outspoken activist against the Islamic regime, was found dead, slumped over her car’s steering wheel, with a single gunshot wound to her head.
Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the DHFC, is a widely published author on Islam, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Join him as he explores the "Intersection"—the pivotal but ignored point where Islam and Christianity meet—including by examining the latest on Christian persecution, translating important Arabic news that never reaches the West, and much more.

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Pakistan: A banned Islamic group filed a blasphemy case against a 25-year-old mentally retarded Christian man.  Muslims had converted him to Islam two years earlier, to use him as a pretext to annex his Christian village. In the words of a witness: “These people (Muslims) do not let us live. We are poor but are working hard to survive. On the night of the incidence a mob of Muslim clerics gathered [around] our colony to burn us all because of the blasphemy Ramzan [the retarded man] committed. Everyone was very scared. We all have small children in our houses and we didn’t know what to do. The mob surrounded our colony and raised a slogan to burn all the houses, they had torches in their hands and petrol in the cans. We called police and thank God police arrived just in time.
Saudi Arabia: Thirty-five Ethiopian Christians arrested in December for praying in a private home remain jailed, even as Saudi officials offer contradicting reasons for their arrest.  Meanwhile, they have been beaten and subjected to interrogations and strip searches. Saudi Arabia formally bans all religions other than Islam. However, in 2006, Saudi authorities told the United States that they would “guarantee and protect the right to private worship for all, including non-Muslims who gather in homes for religious practice.”
Sudan: A Muslim woman divorced her husband, a convert to Christianity, causing the court automatically to grant her custody of their two sons. When the father tried to visit his children, his wife threatened to notify authorities.  “They might take the case to a prosecution court, which might lead to my sentencing to death according to Islamic apostasy law—but I am ready for this,” said the Christian. “I want the world to know this. What crime have I done? Is it because I became a Christian? I know if the world is watching, they [Sudanese authorities] will be afraid to do any harm to me.”
United States: Two Christian men in Saint Louis, Missouri received death threats from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, apparently for converting to Christianity and preaching it.  One of the men formerly served in the Revolutionary Guard and was once even assigned a suicide mission against Israel, before converting and immigrating to the U.S. “The two men believe that Islam is a religion that could easily radicalize a Muslim into a terrorist.” Likewise, in Dearborn Michigan, Christian demonstrators exercising their free speech rights were stoned by Muslimsshouting “Allahu Akbar!”
Dhimmitude
[General Abuse, Debasement, and Suppression of Non-Muslims as “Tolerated” Citizens]
Indonesia: “The number of violations of Christians’ religious rights in Indonesia reached 40 in the first five months of the year, nearly two-thirds the amount of anti-Christian actions in all of last year,” according to the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum.  The Christian minority in Indonesia faced 64 cases of violations of religious freedom last year, up from 47 in 2010.” Violence against Christians also increased.
Mali: “Islamists in control of northern Mali are enforcing a strict version of Sharia law thatvictimizes Christians, women and other vulnerable groups.” The radicals took control of northern Mali in April after ousting the armed forces of the government.  “All the Christians have left Timbuktu (the main city in north Mali) because of the Sharia law as well as because of the presence of people linked with al-Qaeda,” said a Christian leader who fled from northern Mali.
Pakistan:  Police are siding with the Muslims accused of beating a pregnant Christian woman, causing her to miscarriage twins, and gang-raping her 13-year-old Christian niece.  “Muslim criminals believe police and courts will give little credence to the complaints of Christians in the country, which is nearly 96 percent Muslim,” adds the report.  The Christian family is “paying a huge price for being poor … and for being Christian,” said the uncle:  “What can we expect from the police when they are not paying heed even to the court orders?  They are distorting facts and have even gone to the extent of accusing a 13-year-old [raped girl] of committing adultery with three men.” Another Christian politician’s ID mistook him for a Muslim, causing him to insist “on the floor of the Punjab Assembly that he was born a Christian and appealed to them and the media not to indulge in propaganda against him that could incite Muslim extremists to kill him.”
South Africa: More than 70 students were kicked out of the Coastal KZN As-Salaam campus dormitories and are currently homeless, because campus officials tried to make them observe Islam, including by banning Bibles, which the students resisted. “All we wanted was to be free to practice our own religions and not be forced to follow Islam, but now we have been punished by being deprived of safe accommodation,” said one student.
Turkey:  Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Hagia Sophia—formerly Christendom’s greatest cathedral now a museum—shouting, “Allahu Akbar!” and demanding the building be opened as a mosque in honor of the jihadi sultan who conquered Constantinople in the 15thcentury.
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. Intrinsically, to document that which the mainstream media does not: the habitual, if not chronic, Muslim persecution of Christians.
2. Instrumentally, 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; apostasy and blasphemy laws; sexual abuse of Christian women; forced conversions to Islam; theft and plunder in lieu of jizya (tribute); overall expectations for Christians to behave like cowed “dhimmis” (barely tolerated citizens); and simple violence and murder. Oftentimes it is a combination thereof.
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.
Previous Reports
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Raymond Ibrahim, a Shillman Fellow at the DHFC, is a widely published author on Islam, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Join him as he explores the "Intersection"—the pivotal but ignored point where Islam and Christianity meet—including by examining the latest on Christian persecution, translating important Arabic news that never reaches the West, and much more.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s American Defenders

The Muslim Brotherhood’s American Defenders

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Dalia Mogahed, Muslim affairs adviser
Originally published in The Jerusalem Post. 
On Wednesday, John Brennan, US President Barack Obama’s assistant for homeland security and counterterrorism, made a quick trip to Israel to discuss Hezbollah’s massacre of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria last week.
Hopefully it was an instructive meeting for the senior US official, although his Israeli interlocutors were undoubtedly dumbstruck by how difficult it was to communicate with him. Unlike previous US counterterror officials, Brennan does not share Israel’s understanding of Middle Eastern terrorism.
Brennan’s outlook on this subject was revealed in a speech he gave two years ago in Washington. In that talk, Brennan spoke dreamily about Hezbollah. As he put it, “Hezbollah is a very interesting organization.”
He claimed it had evolved from a “purely terrorist organization” to a militia and then into an organization with members in Lebanon’s parliament and serving in Lebanon’s cabinet.
Brennan continued, “There are certainly elements of Hezbollah that are truly a concern for us what they’re doing. And what we need to do is find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”
Perhaps in a bid to build up those “moderate elements,” in the same address, Brennan referred to Israel’s capital city Jerusalem as “al Quds,” the name preferred by Hezbollah and its Iranian overlords.
Brennan’s amazing characterization of Hezbollah’s hostile takeover of the Lebanese government as proof that the terrorist group was moderating was of a piece with the Obama administration’s view of Islamic jihadists generally.
If there are “moderate elements,” in Hezbollah, from the perspective of the Obama administration, Hezbollah’s Sunni jihadist counterpart – the Muslim Brotherhood – is downright friendly.
On February 10, 2011, Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper made this position clear in testimony before the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Clapper’s testimony was given the day before then Egyptian president and longtime US ally Hosni Mubarak was forced to resign from office. Mubarak’s coerced resignation owed largely to the Obama administration’s decision to end US support for his regime and openly demand his immediate abdication of power. As Israel warned, Mubarak’s ouster paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood’s ascendance to power in Egypt.
In his testimony Clapper said, “The term ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ is an umbrella term for a variety of movements. In the case of Egypt, a very heterogeneous group, largely secular which has eschewed violence and has decried al-Qaida as a perversion of Islam. They have pursued social ends, betterment of the political order in Egypt, etc.”
Watching Clapper’s testimony in Israel, the sense across the political spectrum, shared by experts and casual observers alike was that the US had taken leave of its senses.
The slogan of the Muslim Brotherhood is “Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Koran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the path of Allah is our highest hope.”
How could such a high-level US official claim that such an organization is “largely secular”?
Every day Muslim Brotherhood leaders call for the violent annihilation of Israel. And those calls are often combined with calls for jihad against the US. For instance, in a sermon from October 2010, Muslim Brotherhood head Mohammed Badie called for jihad against the US.
As he put it “Resistance [i.e. terrorism] is the only solution against the Zio-American arrogance and tyranny, and all we need is for the Arab and Muslim peoples to stand behind it and support it.”
Badie then promised his congregants that the death of America was nigh. In his words, “A nation that does not champion moral and human values cannot lead humanity, and its wealth will not avail it once Allah has had His say, as happened with [powerful] nations in the past. The US is now experiencing the beginning of its end, and is heading towards its demise.”
The obliviousness of Brennan and Clapper to the essential nature of Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood are symptoms of the overarching ignorance informing the Obama administration’s approach to Middle Eastern realities.
Take, for instance, the Obama administration’s policy confusion over Syria. This week The Washington Post reported that the Obama administration lacks any real knowledge of the nature of the opposition forces fighting to overthrow the Syrian regime. Whereas one senior official told the paper, “We’re identifying the key leaders, and there are a lot of them. We are in touch with them and we stay in touch,” another official said that is not the case.
As the latter official put it, “The folks that have been identified have been identified through Turkey and Jordan. It is not because of who we know. It’s all through liaison.”
The fact that the US government is flying blind as Syria spins out of control is rendered all the more egregious when you recognize that this was not inevitable. America’s ignorance is self-inflicted.
In the 16 months that have passed since the Syrian civil war broke out, the administration passed up several opportunities to develop its own ties to the opposition and even to shape its agenda. Two examples suffice to make this clear.
First, in October 2011, according to the Beirut-based Arabic news portal al Nashra, Dalia Mogahed, Obama’s adviser on Muslim affairs, blocked a delegation of Middle Eastern Christians led by Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai from meeting with Obama and members of his national security team at the White House. According to al Nashra, Mogahed canceled the meeting at the request of the Muslim Brotherhood in her native Egypt.

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The White House canceled the meeting days after Rai visited with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy in Paris. During that meeting Rai angered the French Foreign Ministry when he warned that it would be a disaster for Syria’s Christian minority, and for Christians throughout the region, if the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad is overthrown. Rai based this claim on his assessment that Assad would be replaced by a Muslim Brotherhood- dominated Islamist regime.
And nine months later it is obvious that he was right. With Syria’s civil war still raging throughout the country, the world media is rife with reports about Syria’s Christians fleeing their towns and villages en masse as Islamists from the Syrian opposition target them with death, extortion and kidnapping.
Then there are the US’s peculiar choices regarding the opposition figures it favors. Last August, in a bid to gain familiarity with the Syrian opposition, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with opposition representatives at the State Department. Herb London from the Hudson Institute reported at the time that the group Clinton met with was dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. Members of the non-Islamist, pro-Western Syrian Democracy Council composed of Syrian Kurds, Alawites, Christians, Druse, Assyrians and non-Islamist Sunnis were not invited to the meeting.
Clinton did reportedly agree to meet with representatives of the council separately. But unlike the press carnival at her meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood members, Clinton refused to publicize her meeting with the non-Islamist opposition leaders. In so acting, she denied these would-be US allies the ability to claim that they enjoyed the support of the US government.
The question is why? Why is the Obama administration shunning potential allies and empowering enemies? Why has the administration gotten it wrong everywhere?
In an attempt to get to the bottom of this, and perhaps to cause the administration to rethink its policies, a group of US lawmakers, members of the House Intelligence and Judiciary Committees led by Rep. Michele Bachmann sent letters to the inspectors-general of the State, Homeland Security, Defense, and Justice departments as well as to the inspector-general of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In those letters, Bachmann and her colleagues asked the Inspectors General to investigate possible penetration of the US government by Muslim Brotherhood operatives.
In their letters, and in a subsequent explanatory letter to US Rep. Keith Ellison from Rep. Bachmann, the lawmakers made clear that when they spoke of governmental penetration, they were referring to the central role that Muslim groups, identified by the US government in Federal Court as Muslim Brotherhood front organizations, play in shaping the Obama administration’s perception of and policies towards the Muslim Brotherhood and its allied movements in the US and throughout the world.
That these front groups, including the unindicted terror funding co-conspirators, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), play a key role in shaping the Obama administration’s agenda is beyond dispute. Senior administration officials including Mogahed have close ties to these groups. There is an ample body of evidence that suggests that the administration’s decision to side with the hostile Muslim Brotherhood against its allies owes to a significant degree to the influence these Muslim Brotherhood front groups and their operatives wield in the Obama administration.
To take just one example, last October the Obama administration agreed to purge training materials used by US intelligence and law enforcement agencies and eliminate all materials that contained references to Islam that US Muslim groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood had claimed were offensive. The administration has also fired counterterrorism trainers and lecturers employed by US security agencies and defense academies that taught their pupils about the doctrines of jihadist Islam. The administration also appointed representatives of Muslim Brotherhood-aligned US Muslim groups to oversee the approval of training materials about Islam for US federal agencies.
For their efforts to warn about, and perhaps cause the administration to abandon its reliance on Muslim Brotherhood front groups, Bachmann and her colleagues have been denounced as racists and McCarthyites.
These attacks have not been carried out only by administration supporters. Republican Senator John McCain denounced Bachmann from the floor of the Senate. Republican Senator Marco Rubio later piled on attacking her for her attempt to convince the administration to reconsider its policies. Those policies again place the most radical members of the US Muslim community in charge of the US government’s policies toward the Muslim Brotherhood and other jihadist movements.
It is clear that the insidious notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is a moderate and friendly force has taken hold in US policy circles. And it is apparent that US policymaking in the Middle East is increasingly rooted in this false and dangerous assessment.
In spearheading an initiative to investigate and change this state of affairs, Bachmann and her colleagues should be congratulated, not condemned. And their courageous efforts to ask the relevant questions about the nature of Muslim Brotherhood influence over US policymakers should be joined, not spurned by their colleagues in Washington, by the media and by all concerned citizens in America and throughout the free world.
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