Recently in Muslim Brotherhood Category

This is the same situation that is created by the dhimmi laws: second class status is institutionalized for Christians, and if they complain, the "contract of protection" is annulled and they can lawfully be killed. And now, Christians are being forced to accept the Muslim Brotherhood regime, even though it means discrimination and harassment for them (and ultimately perhaps even the return of those dhimmi laws), and warned that they could be killed if they try to better their lot by demonstrating against the Muslim Brotherhood regime.

"Islamists Warn Christians From Demonstrating to Topple Egyptian President," by Mary Abdelmassih for AINA, June 15 (thanks to Pamela Geller):

(AINA) -- The youth-led Tamarod (rebel) Initiative has collected more than their targeted 15,000,000 signatures calling for a no-confidence vote against President Mohammed Morsi and forcing early elections in Egypt, causing the ruling Muslim Brotherhood party and its Islamists partners to feel seriously threatened, say political observers. Millions are expected to join a nationwide anti-Morsi and anti-Brotherhood demonstration set for June 30, to coincide with Morsi's first anniversary as president. Protesters in Cairo will go to the Presidential "Unity" Palace in the Heliopolis suburb of Cairo with their demands. "We will stay there until Morsi leaves," said Mahmoud Badr, spokesman for Tamarod. In every other Egyptian province local protests will be held. Expatriate Egyptians will also hold demonstrations in their respective countries.

This week Assem Abdel Maged, a leader of the Egyptian extremist group Gamaa Islamiya, said that those calling for the demonstrations are "extremists Copts" and issued a warning to the Coptic church and Christian citizens who plan to join in the protests on June 30. Speaking on an Islamist satellite channel (video), he said "Do not sacrifice your children, Muslim public opinion will not tolerate toppling the President."

Abdel Maged denounced the Coptic rights group Maspero Youth Union as "extremist Copts" whom he holds responsible for the Maspero massacre on October 9, 2011 which claimed the lives of 27 Copts and injured 329, with no Muslim casualties (AINA 10-10-2011). "They held battons in the shape of crosses and assaulted the Egyptian soldiers and smashed the heads of the army recruits with stones while they were in their armored vehicles." His criticism targeted another rights group, Copts Without Shackles, whom he claims is made up of communists and atheists.

Abdel Maged, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in the terrorist attacks in the late eighties in Minya on police headquarters, killing 117 policemen, is coordinator for the Tagarrod Movement to support Morsi and counter the Tamarod initiative. "Not one single Copt signed our petition," he said.

"Who will be responsible if fanatics slaughter the Copts because of this incitement?" asked renowned Egyptian TV anchor Amr Adeeb, on his nightly program.

It was reported that the Presidential palace applied pressure on Coptic Pope Tawadros II in order to forbid the Coptic Orthodox Christians from joining the demonstrations. However, the Pope told the media the "Copts are free to choose." This was also confirmed after a multi-denominational meeting of Christian leaders this week in Wadi Natrun, which stressed the freedom of Egyptian Copts in determining their position on the events of June 30, and the Egyptian churches do not impose a specific position on the Copts. "The church does not play politics," said Coptic judge Amir Ramzy of the Cairo Criminal Court, adding that Pope Tawadros is different from the late Pope Shenouda III, who had asked the Copts not to join the protests of January 25, 2011 Revolution, which ousted former president Mubarak. "The Copts still joined, so even if Pope Tawadros asks the Copts to boycott the June 30 demonstrations, they will still go out."

Maspero Youth Union announced that they have pressed charges against Abdel Maged on grounds of threatening Egyptian citizens, attempting to threaten social peace and instigating sedition. They will hold him fully responsible in the event that Coptic property or churches are subjected to any attacks before and during the event of June 30 through his instigations.

During the Presidential elections in 2012 which, brought Morsi to power, over 6,000,000 Copts voted, excluding those who were prevented by force by Islamists from leaving their villages to cast their votes, which would not have gone to the Muslim Brotherhood candidate.

Addressing the Copts, Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief of Al Tahrir newspaper and TV presenter, wrote "you are not a minority, you are many and influential, and your participation on June 30 will cause panic to the Muslim Brothers and their partners."

"You cannot speak up." Indeed not, without being smeared, vilified, and demonized. It is good to see one man who still has the courage to do so. "Jesuit criticizes Western support of Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt," by Deborah Gyapong for Catholic News Service, June 11 (thanks to None):

OTTAWA, Ontario (CNS) -- A priest who directs the Jesuit Cultural Center in Alexandria, Egypt, blasted Western support of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during a visit to Parliament Hill.

Jesuit Father Henri Boulad, 82, a Melkite Catholic, singled out the United States, France and Great Britain for their support of the Islamist group, which he said has created a regime far worse than the military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak that preceded it. He warned of looming catastrophe.

"How democratic countries can support such movements is disgusting," Father Boulad told a meeting of the Middle East Discussion Group at a luncheon hosted by Canadian Sen. Ann Cools.

The Jesuit described Egypt as unstable and that the government is running out of money to provide basic services. Income from tourism has decreased because of strict restrictions on tourist activity and a dangerous lack of security, he said.

Forces comprised of a wide array of thinkers, journalists, youth, Christians and a large number of Muslims who oppose the aims of the Muslim Brotherhood are rallying to challenge the regime, he said.

"Grass-roots people are more and more convinced these people are liars," Father Boulad said. Muslim opponents, he explained, "don't want this kind of Islam."

"I am speaking up and saying 'Don't be intimidated by these people,'" he said. "Resist in the name of your principles."

Father Boulad charged that the Muslim Brotherhood has a systematic plan to harass Christians so that they will leave Egypt and that among their tactics is the kidnapping and rape of Christian girls.

The organization also invokes human rights to silence critics in France, Canada and elsewhere, using the courts against people who speak up, he said. The government cries "Islamophobia" and it "is politically incorrect to be an Islamophobe," he said.

"The United States, France and Great Britain are supporting this. It's crazy," he added.

"Intellectual and factual terrorism is being implemented not only in Egypt but all over the world. You cannot speak up. They go to court; they accuse you."

"As long as Islam is not reformed, we are going to catastrophe," Father Boulad warned.

Fortunately, he continued, some people have the courage to speak up. He said he hoped liberal democracies would support the growing coalition opposing the Egyptian ruling party.

Don't hold your breath, Abouna.

This week, the world’s premiere chat show just got better. In this very, very special edition of the Glazov Gang, superstar PolitiChick Ann-Marie Murrell filled in as host for Jamie “Wally Pipp” Glazov and made it one of the best episodes yet. Her guests were Nick Searcy, a Peabody Award-Winning international film and TV star, Bill Whittle, Virtual President & Political Pundit, and Morgan Brittany, movie and TV star.

Wally Pipp, as you baseball fans will recall, was the New York Yankees' first basemen until June 2, 1925, when he came to Yankee Stadium with a terrific headache. Yankee manager Miller Huggins replaced him in the lineup with an untested kid named Lou Gehrig. Gehrig didn't miss a game for nearly fourteen years, and became one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Jamie Glazov, whose substitute here is the brilliant and talented Ann-Marie Murrell, makes a pip of a Pipp.

The Gang members gathered to discuss how Huma Abedin is the scariest person in America. The discussion occurred in Part II (at the 8:50 mark) and focused on the danger posed by the wife of a prospective New York City mayor being a Muslim Brotherhood operative. In Part I, the Gang discussed Obama’s ongoing denial of jihad. The Murrell Mob also sheds light on John McCain’s Syria odyssey and much, much more.

A star is born. Don’t miss this BLOCKBUSTER episode of the Murrell Mob, filled to the brim with passionate intensity and conviction.

According to Arabic media, during a recent conference in Egypt, Dr. Abdul Rahman al-Birr—the mufti of the Muslim Brotherhood—declared that “Israel will soon be gone, for it is a foreign body in the region and [its] history, and that Jerusalem will be liberated, not at the hands of the previous Muhammads but the current one, President Muhammad Morsi."

According to reports, he also added that "the attempts of some to separate Egypt from Palestine will not succeed" and that "the mujahidin [jihadis] will remain in Palestine and in Egypt to liberate Jerusalem.”

However, in a recent statement, al-Birr said he was taken out of context, that the "liberation" of Jerusalem at the hands of Morsi was not his prediction, but rather a tradition among the rabbis of Israel, who, according to the Brotherhood's mufti, knew that Israel's demise was inevitable, and that it would come not at the hands President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, nor Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, but the “third Muhammad”—the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad.

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood is staging an anti-Israel rally in Cairo to protest Israeli airstrikes in Syria and the detention of a Muslim cleric.

Chants of “the people want destruction of Israel” rang out Friday inside Al-Azhar mosque, the centuries-old seat of Sunni Muslim learning.

The rally is the first such protest by the Brotherhood, from which Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi hails, since it gained prominence after 2011 uprising that ousted president Hosni Mubarak.

Group officials say they are protesting the Israeli detention of top Palestinian Muslim cleric in the Holy Land in a rare crackdown on a leading religious figure that drew fierce condemnation from Palestinians. The demonstrators also were denouncing Israeli airstrikes in Syria that targeted alleged shipments of advanced Iranian missiles thought to be bound for Hezbollah.

This is one of the most extraordinary analyses I have ever read. For years people have wondered why Obama acts in a manner so favorable to Sharia and Islamic supremacism. Speculation has centered on his own religious beliefs, but here, Daniel Greenfield offers a less personal and ultimately more compelling explanation -- one that elucidates it all in a way that makes sense of the Left's having signed on to Obama's general enabling of the Muslim Brotherhood. "Obama’s Big Brotherhood Bet," by Daniel Greenfield at FrontPage, May 6:

In the spring of 2009, Obama went down to Cairo. He skipped the gaming tables at the Omar Khayyam Casino at the Cairo Marriott and instead went over to the Islamist baccarat tables at Cairo University and bet big on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Obama had insisted on Muslim Brotherhood attendance at a speech that was part apology and part abandonment. The apology was for American power and the abandonment was of American allies.

The text of the speech was largely inconsequential in the same way that most of the words that scroll across the teleprompters of politicians are. In politics, the speech is often the medium while the timing, the audience and the location are the message. And the message was that the Brotherhood’s hour had come.

Obama was following through on an idea that had long been an article of faith on the left. The idea was that the United States had invested in a defunct status quo and that our biggest problems were our allies. The only way out was to toss them all overboard.

Generations of diplomats had griped from their walled compounds in Riyadh, Kuwait City or Doha that many of our problems in the region would go away if Israel somehow went away. But this was bigger. It involved dumping every single allied government in the region to start fresh with new governments elected through popular democracy and enjoying popular support. It would be a new beginning. And a new beginning was also the title of the Cairo speech.

The idea wasn’t new, but it was right up there with proposals to unilaterally abandon our nuclear arsenal or dedicate ten percent of the budget to foreign aid; ideas that a lot of diplomats liked, but that they knew no one would ever be crazy enough to pull the trigger on.

And then Obama tried to pull the trigger on two out of three. What he wanted was for the Brotherhood to win so that it could make the War on Terror irrelevant.

As much as the advocates of smart and soft power insisted that Islamic terrorism had nothing to do with Islam, they knew better. They knew that Al Qaeda wanted to create Islamic states that would form into a Caliphate. Central to its thinking was that it would have to fight to create these states. But what if the Caliphate could be created without a war?

To make it happen, all America had to do was surrender the Middle East.

The attacks of September 11 had created a serious crisis for liberal policymakers. Unlike the bombing of the World Trade Center on Clinton’s watch, these attacks could not be ignored or swept under the rug. But neither could liberals accept a clash of civilizations that would destroy their multicultural society or an extended series of international police actions that would militarize the country.

The logic that led from September 11 to the Cairo speech to Benghazi was impeccable. It combined the clean sweep theory with grand scale appeasement.

“Islamic terrorists are carrying out attacks because they want their countries to be ruled by Islam. Why not help them to do it?”

The United States withdrew support from its allies. It apologized, surrendered and waited for the takeovers to begin. When the dictators wouldn’t step aside voluntarily, the bombers were sent in.

The grand bargain with the Muslim Brotherhood was supposed to end the War on Terror by trading the Muslim Brotherhood’s brand of political Islamism for Al Qaeda’s campaign of terror. It was as if FDR had struck a deal with the Bolsheviks to get rid of the Trotskyites (and indeed such a bargain did operate briefly during WW2).

Obama’s grand bargain came to a squalid end on September 11. In Benghazi, the Muslim Brotherhood militia that was supposed to protect the mission instead sold it out and abandoned it.

The Brotherhood would accept American support, but it wouldn’t stop terrorist attacks against America. Its front groups in America would not cooperate with the FBI, its governments and militias in the Middle East would not protect American diplomatic facilities.

On September 11, the American embassy in Cairo was besieged by protesters with the support of the Muslim Brotherhood. In Tunis, the new Islamist government turned its back on the embassy, forcing Hillary Clinton to plead with President Marzouki to send out his own presidential guard to defend it.

In Benghazi and Cairo, Al Qaeda attacked while the Brotherhood played dumb. In Syria, Brotherhood and Al Qaeda militias worked together, while Brotherhood spokesmen insisted that they were the only secular alternative. In the United States, Al Qaeda terrorists carried out their “lone wolf” attacks while the Brotherhood front groups which ran most of the Islamic organizations in America claimed not to know what was going on.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s victories did not make Al Qaeda go away. Instead the two found common ground while playing a game of Good Terrorist and Bad Terrorist. Or as the mainstream media calls it, Moderates and Extremists.

Obama had stacked all of our allies in the Middle East that didn’t have enough oil to matter and bet them at the Brotherhood’s casino on a single spin of the wheel. And the Brotherhood took it all.

But Obama is still at the casino stacking up more chips. The next round of the game moves to Syria. Instead of the Brotherhood using its new power to protect the United States, the United States is expected to get involved in another Iraq in order to help the Brotherhood take over Syria to complete the Islamist triumphs of the Arab Spring.

The United States has become a tool of Muslim Brotherhood expansionism. Obama helped the Brotherhood overthrow governments by political means, but now the Brotherhood is demanding military intervention to help a Brotherhood/Al Qaeda coalition take over Syria. And if Obama goes along with it, he will have turned the United States military into the mercenaries of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The root cause of terrorism is not American foreign policy, but Muslim foreign policy. Appeasement turns American foreign policy into an arm of Islamic expansionism.

Americans have died because of Obama’s dirty deal with the Muslim Brotherhood. The question now is whether Obama will send American soldiers and pilots to die for the Brotherhood.

Today is Orthodox Easter, and for the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood regime, that meant is was the occasion for a bit more Islamic supremacism. "No 'Happy Easter': The Muslim Brotherhood's Bizarre Religious Intolerance," by Eric Trager in the Atlantic, May 3:

Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi's decision not to attend this coming Sunday's Coptic Easter mass was entirely predictable. Morsi, after all, declined to attend Pope Tawadros II's November investiture and, during his previous stint as chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, Morsi visited a church on Christmas but made a point of emphasizing that he exited before services started. Yet because Morsi's decision comes on the heels of a Brotherhood fatwa prohibiting Muslims from wishing Christians a "Happy Easter," Morsi's coldness towards Christians reflects a central paradox of the Brotherhood's Islamism: despite its longtime promise to "implement the sharia" upon achieving power, the Brotherhood only offers specific interpretations of Islamic legal principles when it needs to justify its most intolerant impulses.

The fatwa, authored by Brotherhood leader Abdel Rahman al-Barr, is noteworthy for its degree of analytical detail. In it, Barr quotes extensively from the Qur'an to argue that Muslims should only greet Christians on their holidays "so long as this greeting does not come at the expense of our [Islamic] religion." In other words, Barr writes, Muslims cannot wish Christians a "Happy Easter," because "our belief as Muslims, which makes ambiguity impossible, is that [Jesus] wasn't killed or crucified," though Muslims can greet Christians on Easter with the non-sectarian Arabic salutation " kulu sana wa-entum tayyibun," which roughly means "hope you are well this year" and is used for all sorts of occasions, including birthdays. By contrast, he adds, wishing Christians a "Merry Christmas" is permissible, because Muslims view Jesus as a human prophet and thus acknowledge his birth.

Coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing has ignored admitted bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s connection to his college’s Muslim Student Association, a group that has close relations with both the Muslim Brotherhood and a local imam friendly with an al-Qaida operative.

Although a student leader and the mainstream media have downplayed Tsarnaev’s ties to the the group, Tsarnaev associated frequently with the Muslim Student Association (MSA) at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.

The Washington Post on April 27 reported that Tsarnaev, who has admitted his role in the Marathon terrorist bombing to police, played intramural soccer with MSA members, contradicting earlier reports that the U. Mass-Dartmouth student spurned an invitation to join the controversial Muslim Brotherhood-linked student organization.

“For a time, Jahar played on an intramural soccer team composed of students involved with the campus Muslim Student Association,” explained the Post’s Marc Fisher, a fact that has since been missing from coverage.

In fact, Tsarnaev played soccer with the Muslim Student Association nearly every week, according to MSA Secretary Bassel Nasri in an interview with George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer on April 19, 2013. Nasri simply neglected to say they were MSA games. Although Stephanopoulos described Nasri as “a soccer buddy” of Tsarnaev, neither he nor Sawyer mentioned that they were co-religionists and that the soccer games were organized by the Muslim Student Association.

Nasri was later interviewed by CNN and again didn’t mention that he had known Tsarnaev through the Muslim Student Association’s weekly soccer games.

“We used to play soccer together,” Nasri told Piers Morgan. “We used to hang out a few times. We weren’t too close — we were more acquaintances than friends. But he was really mostly a pretty good guy in that sense. He would always like ask for — if you needed any help with anything. So I’m really surprised at the outcome of what happened in the past week or so.”

A day later, Nasri told 60 Minutes that he tried to recruit Tsarnaev to the Muslim Student Association, without any luck. He left out that the soccer games where Tsarnaev was a regular player were MSA activities. He even seemed to suggest to Scott Pelley that had Tsarnaev joined MSA more seriously, the bombing wouldn’t have happened. According to the 60 Minutes report:

These friends saw him two weeks ago. He was a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Ahmad Nassri and Bassel Nasri tried, without luck to get him to join the MSA, the Muslim Student Association.

Scott Pelley: Did you see him at mosque? You see him at prayers? Nothing like that?

Group: No.

Bassel Nasri: No, unfortunately.

Scott Pelley: Unfortunately?

Bassel Nasri: I would’ve loved for him to come to the MSA a few times so he can maybe understand his religion better. Maybe that would, that would’ve helped in what happened, I would say.

Assuming Nasri is telling the truth — he, along with half a dozen other MSA members and their faculty sponsor, Neil Fennessey, did not return request for comments — he is wrong about the Muslim Student Association’s not being a haven for radicalism, explains David Reaboi, Vice President of the Strategic Policy Center.

“As the first group established by expat Muslim Brothers in America in the 1960s, the MSA has a history of Islamist radicalism,” Reaboi explains. “At the time, educational grants and fellowships in the US brought large numbers of university-age students from the Middle East to study, especially in the Midwest. The MSA began as a front for Brotherhood activity in this country by providing cover for these recently emigrated Brothers to meet and connect.”

In fact, several Muslim Student Association students have been brought up on terrorism charges. In April 2012, Muslim Student Association member Tarek Mehanna, who earned a doctorate at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, was sentenced to 17 and a half years for  conspiring to aid al-Qaida. Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki (a.k.a. Omar Hammani), a terrorist leader and former president of the University of South Alabama’s Muslim Students’ Association, was added to the FBI’s Most Wanted List in 2012.

The Facebook page of the Muslim Student Association at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth has over one hundred members and routinely advertises speeches and seminars taught by radical imams and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)’s Todd Gallinger, who visited the campus in the days after the Boston bombing.

The Muslim Brotherhood's Essam Elerian is assuming that the Boston bombings were jihad attacks. He must be a greasy Islamophobe. "Boston attacks began in Mali, top Muslim Brotherhood official says," from Al Arabiya, April 17 (thanks to Pedro):

A high-ranking Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood official has linked the deadly Boston attacks to the U.S.-backed French war in Mali.

Essam Elerian, vice chairman of the Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), wrote in a statement posted in Arabic on his Facebook account that the “events began with the sending of French battalions to Mali in a war against organizations that are said to be part of al Qaeda.”

Elerian expressed sympathy with the families of the victims, but said the attacks “do not stop us from reading into the grave incident.”

“Who interfered in democratic transformations, despite the difficult transition from despotism, corruption, poverty, hatred and intolerance to freedom, justice, tolerance, development, human dignity and social justice?” he asked. “Who created Islamophobia through research and media? Who funded this violence?”...

Who created Islamophobia? Insofar as anyone has any negative feelings toward Islam, they were created by Islamic jihad terrorists.

Muslims brutalize Christians, and the Christians get arrested. That's life in Muslim Brotherhood Egypt -- oh, and also in Sharia Britain. "Four Copts arrested for complicity in Cathedral clashes," by Rana Muhammad Taha for Daily News Egypt, April 12 (thanks to Lookmann):

At least four Coptic activists were arrested on Friday dawn for complicity in St. Mark’s Cathedral clashes which erupted outside the cathedral on Sunday as Coptic families were preparing a funeral procession for those who were killed in Al-Khasous the day before.

The Coptic Maspero Youth Union announced that Michael Morqos was arrested on Friday alongside three other activists. The union condemned his arrest, calling it an escalation against Coptic youth and likening it to Mubarak’s violations against Copts where “the violator is free and the victim gets jailed and humiliated”.

“This is a natural consequence of the reconciliation between Muslims and Christians in Al-Khasous and what some priests agreed to,” said Magdy Saber, vice head of the union’s media committee. “It brings us back to the old bargaining scenario where the criminals are released.”

Saber said that this method has long been used in any sectarian conflict. “Reconciliation sessions take place followed by Coptic arrests. Then both the Copts and the criminals are simultaneously released to end the conflict.”

Saber claimed that the four arrested Copts were all randomly arrested. He added that Morqos was at the St. Mark’s Cathedral clashes where he almost asphyxiated due to the large amount of teargas fired.

The union called on all human rights organisations to condemn the arrests. They also vowed to escalate by involving international human rights organisations.

The Maspero Youth Union released a statement on Thursday condemning the reconciliation sessions. They described the reconciliation as “burying fire under the ashes”.

“Why not wait until the investigations prove who the perpetrator was?” The union questioned in its statement. “Don’t you know that innocent youth were killed, properties and churches burnt?”

Copts without Chains, another Coptic movement, also criticised the reconciliation in a statement released on Thursday. The movement stated that although reconciliation is always welcome, reconciliation which brings about humiliation is not.

“The reconciliation which equates the victim to the perpetrator brings about evil and is a shame on the state and the society,” Copts without Chains said. “It is a crime committed by anyone who takes part in the reconciliation or accepts it.”

The movement said that the reconciliation sessions are only cosmetics for the “Fascist Muslim Brotherhood regime”. They demanded fair retribution in accordance with the law....

The Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III Laham said in 2006 that "after 11 September, there is a plot to eliminate all the Christian minorities from the Arabic world." That's an Islamic jihadist plot, not an Israeli Zionist one.

"Egypt's Coptic Christians live in fear of Islamic extremists," by Jeffrey Fleishman for the Los Angeles Times, April 12 (thanks to Darcy):

CAIRO — The Mass was celebrated as if from centuries past: A bearded priest veiled in incense chanted for grace in a church along the Nile, near the spot where Christians believe Jesus and his mother sought refuge in an earlier age of bloodshed and uncertainty.

Marianne Samir knelt and prayed for the Coptic Christians killed in a spasm of sectarian violence that has further shaken a nation engulfed in economic and political anxieties.

"I feel unsafe," said Samir, a high school philosophy teacher with a cross tattooed on her wrist. "The Islamists want war. They want strife. But this is our land too. It is a country blessed by God, and there's no way we'll leave it to them."

Wind gusted and whitecaps rose and fell on the river bending around the Church of the Virgin Mary.

"They set a Christian man on fire the other day," Samir added. "They threw a gasoline bomb at him and no one did anything."

Seven Copts and one Muslim have died in clashes in recent days. The latest violence began after Coptic youths in a village north of Cairo drew offensive images, including a swastika that was mistaken for a cross, on the wall of a Muslim institute. Gun battles broke out and a church was set aflame, a sign that President Mohamed Morsi's Islamist-led government has failed to defuse religious enmity.

Notice how the Los Angeles Times writes that, even in a story that is generally sympathetic to the Copts. With Muslims harassing, brutalizing and persecuting Copts all over the country, the Times focuses on an incident that "Coptic youths" allegedly instigated. Then once the Coptic youths have done their dirty work, "gun battles broke out and a church was set aflame" -- all passive voice. The gun battles broke out like a case of the measles, and "a church was set aflame" by no one the Times dares to name. They can write that "Coptic youths...drew offensive images," but they will not write "Muslims set a church aflame."

Note also the nomenclature: it's fine for the Times to call the alleged Coptic offenders "Coptic youths," but when they refer to Muslim aggressors at all, it's as "Islamist radicals." Why not call the alleged Coptic offenders "Coptist radicals," or some other absurdity parallel to "Islamist radicals," so as to distance their aggression from the religion itself -- which, after all, is the foremost purpose of the term "Islamist"?

Scores of Copts have been killed in sectarian conflict since early 2011, including 24 worshipers who died in a church bombing in Alexandria and 27 who were attacked by soldiers and thugs at a rally to protest the burning of a church. Those incidents occurred before the political ascendancy of Islamists that same year. Since then, thousands of Christians have left Egypt and more are expected to follow.

"Copts are facing organized oppression and forced emigration," Azmi Wadie, a 28-year-old engineering student, said as he leaned on a railing at the river's edge. "Islamist radicals want to get rid of Christians across the Middle East. Preachers and sheiks on satellite channels say the Coptic Church wants to get involved in politics and they won't let that happen."

A popular ultraconservative Salafi preacher known as Abu Islam has chided Copts on his TV program:

"If you're sure of yourselves and you have a grain of self confidence, speak," he said. "I say that you are heathens, say we are not heathens; I say you are infidels, say we are not infidels.... I say your women are naked and that this is not fit for Islam or Christianity."

Copts make up about 10% of Egypt's population of 84 million. They have faced discrimination throughout history but have coexisted in relative peace with the Muslim majority. The 30-year rule of secular autocrat Hosni Mubarak offered limited protection amid growing violence and persecution. Since Mubarak's downfall in 2011, Copts have felt increasingly threatened by an array of Islamist voices.

"Mubarak painted a pretty picture but he didn't help us," said Wadie, who plans to leave Egypt after he receives a master's degree. "Today, things are more systematic against us. Copts are definitely arming themselves, but the problem is the weapons dealers are Muslims."

Egypt was startled Sunday when a funeral for four of the Copts killed in the village clashes was attacked at St. Mark's Cathedral in Cairo. One Copt died in bursts of tear gas, gunfire and gasoline bombs outside the cathedral; another was killed that day in fighting back in the village.

"A funeral for four of the Copts killed in the village clashes was attacked." By whom? Rogue Chalcedonians?

Morsi told Pope Tawadros II, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, that he considered any "aggression against the cathedral an aggression against me personally." But the pope blamed Morsi for not providing enough security, which, he said, "comes under the category of negligence" that the church has not encountered even in the most oppressive times.

Egypt's Christians have long been suspicious of Morsi. The president and the Muslim Brotherhood backed a constitution that Copts say jeopardizes religious and civil freedoms. Copts complain of facing restrictions on church construction and school curriculums often tailored to Islam.

Salafi preachers accuse Copts of kidnapping Christians who want to convert to Islam. Sectarian hatred spills into violence on rare occasions when a Copt and a Muslim start a romance. A video, reportedly recorded in 2009 and uploaded this week to YouTube, shows a mob of Muslim men yelling "God is great" while sexually assaulting two Coptic women.

The marginalization of Christians has been sharpened against the nation's economic and political turmoil. Morsi and the Brotherhood, which controls the government, have shut out opposition voices amid joblessness, inflation, gas shortages, widening public debt and plummeting foreign reserves. Protests and labor strikes erupt daily and Egyptians are balanced between bewilderment and rage.

"The country's general chaos is causing everything to escalate and allows a radical Muslim ideology to propagate violence," said biomedical engineer Karim Samuel, a Copt. "I sometimes sit on the Metro [subway] next to men reading the Koran. I wonder if they really understand what they're reading or do they blindly follow sheiks."

He paused and calculated the political math against his faith and other minorities.

"Morsi and the Brotherhood don't care about Copts, liberals or leftists," Samuel said. "I don't know what we can do as a Christian community."

Samir left the Mass, the scent of incense upon her, the priest's voice echoing from the altar into a breeze along the river, where fishermen gather nets and wooden boats drift in the sun beyond marshes and broken cliffs. She said Egypt needs a moderate voice and, unlike many these days, she opposes suggestions that the military might return to power.

"Copts died under army rule too," she said. "I want a civilian government."

She squinted into the sun; a few tourists lingered at the church's gift shop.

"I know a lot of Christians who have left. There are so many now in Australia and Canada," she said. "We are facing blind [Islamist] fundamentalism.... The Brotherhood wants to create conflict between all religions. They're trying to drum us out of the country, but we'll hold on even more to our faith."

"Until the January 25 revolution both Egypt’s military and police academies routinely rejected students who held political views or were members of political movements the authorities judged to be subversive, even going so far as rejecting recruits if members of their family had any such views or ties to Islamist organizations." Islamization of Egypt Update: "Egypt Fears ‘Ikhwanization’ of Military," by Mohamed Abdu Hassanein for Asharq Al-Awsat, March 20 (thanks to Larry):

Fears of the “Ikhwanization” of the Egyptian army have been raised after Egyptian Military Academy Director Major General Esmat Murad revealed that students with links to the Muslim Brotherhood or Salafist political factions have been accepted into the academy, including President Mohamed Mursi’s own nephew.

An Egyptian soldier, speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the condition of anonymity, revealed that “for the first time, students whose families or relatives are involved in political activism, whether for the Muslim Brotherhood or anybody else, are being accepted into the Egyptian armed forces which had traditionally investigated the [political] background of recruits, rejecting those with any such connection.”

Until the January 25 revolution both Egypt’s military and police academies routinely rejected students who held political views or were members of political movements the authorities judged to be subversive, even going so far as rejecting recruits if members of their family had any such views or ties to Islamist organizations.

However since the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Mursi came to power in late June 2012, and particularly after he forced out Field Marshal Tantawi, there have been escalating fears of the “Ikhwanization” of the military, although this is something that senior military figures have repeatedly denied.

However, Major General Esmat Murad, director of Egypt’s prestigious Military Academy, held a press conference yesterday during which he revealed that the academy’s graduating class number 109 includes students who have a Muslim Brotherhood background.

He said: “They may be the sons of the Muslim Brotherhood leadership. I will not reject a qualified student because his father is a member of the Brotherhood.”

He clarified: “Not everybody who comes out of a Muslim Brotherhood homes is fated to be a member of the Brotherhood, and the same applies to Salafists and liberals.”...

Here is a good report on my talk at the Breitbart News' "Uninvited" panel at the Conservative Political Action Conference last Saturday. In case you missed it, the video of my talk is above. "'Uninvited': Spencer: Where is Opposition to Jihadis?," by Mike Flynn for Breitbart News, March 19:

Robert Spencer, Director of Jihad Watch, participated Saturday in Breitbart News' wide-ranging "Uninvited" panel on the final day of the annual CPAC. Covering issues from crony capitalism, global jihad and the global persecution of Christians, the "Uninvited" panel was the only opportunity CPAC attendees had to discuss several issues critical to our national security.

Spencer's remarks were framed around the provocative title, "Why I'm Not a Conservative." The title was toungue-in-cheek, of course, as Spencer has a long history in conservative activism, devoting much of his career to defending the constitution. Because his focus is on the threat to the constitution from the imposition of Islamic Sharia Law, however, his work has been unwelcome at recent CPAC gatherings.

Spencer noted that, in recent years, discussing the threat Sharia Law poses to our basic freedoms, "is suddenly that's so toxic, that's so controversial, that's so evil that they only way I can get here, even to the Conservative Political Action Conference is on a panel called the 'uninvited.'"

Spencer wondered aloud where the opposition was to the rising global jihad movement. He noted that in the 3rd Presidential debate, Mitt Romney simply agreed with Obama whenever the President discussed his plans to arm or assist jihadis in Syria, Libya or elsewhere.

"Where is the opposition?" Spencer asked. "If we do not fashion on opposition to [jihadis], at this point, then the consequences to this are going to be staggering and beyond anybody's calculation at this point."

The remarks by Spencer and other "Uninvited" panelists were in the spirit of Andrew's desire to bring more voices, not fewer, to the policy debate. Beyond that, however, Andrew also felt we had to be willing to discuss important issues, even at the expense of making some allies uncomfortable.

Ignoring a threat doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Pretending a threat doesn't exist isn't a strategy, it is a willful surrender.

Why isn't Obama supporting these pro-democracy demonstrators? "Egyptian protesters clash with police outside Brotherhood’s HQ," from Al Arabiya, March 18 (thanks to Lookmann):

Hundreds of Egyptian protesters clashed with riot police on Sunday, outside the Muslim Brotherhood’s headquarters in Cairo.

Security forces attempted to disperse protesters and more of them showed up to protect the Muslim Brotherhood headquarters. The police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters, Al Arabiya reported.

Anger at President Mohammed Mursi was on display again when protesters took their demands to the Brotherhood’s doorstep.

On Saturday night, clashes between Muslim Brotherhood members and oppositional protesters escalated in a southeastern Cairo suburb, with reports of “sticks and iron chains” being used during the attacks.

The crowd was responding to an assault on journalists, who claimed they were attacked by Brotherhood members Saturday evening during coverage of a meeting.

The journalists said that after a group of activists sprayed anti-Brotherhood graffiti on the ground outside the group’s Cairo headquarters, the Brotherhood guards attacked with sticks and chains.

Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said in a statement that guards outside the building were provoked and insulted by the activists and journalists.

Many of the group’s offices were attacked across the country in December during violent protests over the drafting of the constitution....

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house.” When I report that Muslims say this, and that they base the idea on Islamic teaching, I'm a greasy Islamophobe. When the New York Times does it, they're the paper of record.

"Muslim Brotherhood’s Statement on Women Stirs Liberals’ Fears," by Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times, March 14:

CAIRO — During its decades as an underground Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood has long preached that Islam required women to obey their husbands in all matters.

“A woman needs to be confined within a framework that is controlled by the man of the house,” Osama Yehia Abu Salama, a Brotherhood family expert, said of the group’s general approach, speaking in a recent seminar for women training to become marriage counselors. Even if a wife were beaten by her husband, he advised, “Show her how she had a role in what happened to her.”

“If he is to blame,” Mr. Abu Salama added, “she shares 30 percent or 40 percent of the fault.”

Now, with a leader of the Brotherhood’s political arm in Egypt’s presidential palace and its members dominating Parliament, some deeply patriarchal views the organization has long taught its members are spilling into public view. The Brotherhood’s strident statements are reinforcing fears among many Egyptian liberals about the potential consequences of the group’s rise to power and creating new awkwardness for President Mohamed Morsi as he presents himself as a new kind of moderate, Western-friendly Islamist.

In a statement Wednesday on a proposed United Nations declaration to condemn violence against women, the Brotherhood issued a list of objections, which formally laid out its views on women for the first time since it came to power.

In its statement, the Brotherhood said that wives should not have the right to file legal complaints against their husbands for rape, and husbands should not be subject to the punishments meted out for the rape of a stranger.

A husband must have “guardianship” over his wife, not an equal “partnership” with her, the group declared. Daughters should not have the same inheritance rights as sons. Nor should the law cancel “the need for a husband’s consent in matters like travel, work or use of contraception” — a reform in traditional Islamic family law that was enacted under former President Hosni Mubarak and credited to his wife, Suzanne....

Some Egyptian feminists, though, called the statement a vindication of their warnings that the Brotherhood might lead Egypt in a more conservative and patriarchal direction.

“They do not believe that when domestic violence is present, the women should resort to the justice system or the legal process,” said Ghada Shahbandar of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights. “It should be kept at home and under the protection of the family — that is their claim. And there is no such thing as marital rape because a husband is entitled to have sex with his wife any time that he wants.”

“This is the first time we have heard it said publicly on the world stage,” she said, “but this has been in their rhetoric for ages.”

In his seminar for prospective Islamist marriage counselors, Mr. Abu Salama justified the group’s approach to marriage by explaining that Islam also required husbands to be compassionate, just as it required women to be obedient.

Quoting Muhammad’s injunction that a man “must not fall on his wife like an animal,” a textbook in Mr. Abu Salama’s class said Islam instructed men to engage in foreplay before sex and attend to their partner’s satisfaction. As for inheritance, Islamic scholars have argued that a son should have a greater share, but also an obligation to look after the financial well-being of a sister.

But Mr. Abu Salama also argued that husbands should keep their wives under tight control. “It’s the nature of the weak to overstep the required framework if she is given the space and the freedom, like children,” he said in the seminar. Most of the women nodded in agreement.

Closing its statement on the proposed United Nations declaration, the Brotherhood appeared to go even further. The provisions discussed are “destructive tools meant to undermine the family as an important institution,” the statement concluded, and “would drag society back to pre-Islamic ignorance.”

They'd prefer their own ignorance, thank you very much.

On this week’s episode of the world's challenging chat extravaganza, the Glazov Gang, joining Jamie are Bob Zeidman, award-winning novelist, Larry Greenfield, Senior Fellow at the American Freedom Alliance, and Howard Hyde, author of the new pamphlet, Pull the Plug on Obamacare. The Gang members discussed "Why Obama Prefers to Deal With Dictators." The dialogue occurred in Part I and focused on the post-Chavez era. Part II dealt with Hyde’s pamphlet and whether it is too late to resist Obama’s health care plan. The segment also included an analysis of Obama’s billion-dollar giveaway to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Just like the Mufti of Libya. How did this Tiny Minority of Extremists get into positions of authority?

Passages referring to sexual violence seem to be the points of contention here. And it is no wonder: when the Qur'an mandates the beating of disobedient women (4:34) and Muhammad forbids women to refuse sex to their husbands under any circumstances (cf. Bukhari 4.54.460 and Ibn Majah 1854, etc.), how can the Muslim Brotherhood oppose sexual violence?

"Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood says UN document on violence against women violates Islamic rules," from the Associated Press, March 13:

CAIRO — Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood sharply criticized an anticipated U.N. document on combatting violence against women, saying on Wednesday that it was “deceitful,” clashed with Islamic principles and undermined family values.

The text of the document has not been published because negotiations are continuing, regarding how to address sexual violence and rights of women to control their sexuality as well as sexual and reproductive health and rights.

Diplomats and observers tracking the debate are optimistic of agreement before the two-week meeting of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women wraps up Friday in New York. One participant said Egypt is seeking to introduce an opt-out clause to allow each country to implement the document according to its own traditions.

According to the Brotherhood, which has emerged as the most powerful political faction in Egypt since the 2011 uprising, the draft under discussion advocates sexual freedoms for women and the right to abortion “under the guise of sexual and reproductive rights.”

In its strongly worded statement, the Brotherhood also decried the document’s defense of homosexual rights, which are not recognized in Islam, and the equating between children born in and out of wedlock.

It said the title of the document addressing violence is “deceitful.”

“It contains articles that clash with Islamic principles and its basics mentioned in the Quran (Islam’s holy book) and in Islamic traditions,” the Brotherhood statement said. “It eliminates Islamic values, and seeks to destroy the family ... which would lead to social disintegration.”

The Brotherhood, which won Egypt’s presidency and controls parliament, called on other Muslim nations, women’s groups and Islamic organizations to reject the document. It called it an infringement on the thought, culture and uniqueness of Islamic societies.

The Brotherhood urged women’s rights groups not to be “lured by phony calls for civilized behavior and by misleading and destructive processes.”

Libya’s top cleric also raised similar concerns, rejecting the document for violating Islamic teachings.

The head of the U.N. women’s agency, Michelle Bachelet, said she hoped the meeting would produce a document that becomes a tool to improve the fight against violence against women.

When the commission took up the issue a decade ago, governments were unable to reach agreement. Differences over sex education, a woman’s right to reproductive health, and demands for an exception for traditional, cultural and religious practices stymied an accord.

The Brotherhood’s statement appeared to reflect those persistent differences, saying that religious traditions and values are threatened by such a universal document.

Francoise Girard, executive director of the New York-based International Women’s Health Coalition, a nonprofit organization which promotes the reproductive and sexual rights of women and young people, told The Associated Press she expected “strong” conclusions to the debate.

Girard said a range of issues in the text are still unresolved including several references to sexual violence, the connection of violence against women and sexual and reproductive health and rights, and what governments need to do to prevent sexual violence.

The Politichicks interview.

These Christians must be misunderstanders of Islam, who don't realize that Sharia is benign and completely compatible with Western principles of human rights. "Thousands of Christians flee religious persecution in Egypt," from the Voice of Russia, March 5 (thanks to The Religion of Peace):

Life for Christians under the government of Mohammed Morsi in Egypt has become difficult. Reports are emerging that up to 100,000 Christians have left Egypt since the Muslim Brotherhood came to power. Some of those have arrived in Moscow. VoR’s Brendan Cole went there to investigate.

This week Cairo saw the launch of a Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice designed to protect 'Islamic morality'. Many Christians fear that Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood may further limit their ability to live and worship freely.

John Guandolo is the former FBI agent who broke the story that Obama's nominee for CIA director, John Brennan, converted to Islam while in Saudi Arabia -- which would explain why he is so hospitable to the Muslim Brotherhood. Last Wednesday on my ABN show, I interviewed John Guandolo.