Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

  (Photo added by Love For His People editor.)

Obama Throws Christian Refugees to Lions

By Raymond Ibrahim  Breaking Israel News  Oct. 3, 2015

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

To the Obama administration, the only “real” refugees are those made so due to the actions of Bashar Assad. As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called “rebel” forces fighting Assad — including the Islamic State — their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

The Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians. The State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives. While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Christians at hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the “human rights” of the jihadi murderers.

In Islamic usage, the “cause of Allah” is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah’s laws on earth, or Sharia. In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they do not, the “locations and abundance” of the West are theirs.

Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijrah, or jihad by emigration.

The fate of those Iraqi Christians who had fled from the Islamic State only to be incarcerated in the United States has finally been decided by the Obama administration: they are to be thrown back to the lions, where they will likely be persecuted, if not slaughtered, like so many Iraqi Christians before them.

Fifteen of the 27 Iraqi Christians that have been held at a detention center in Otay Mesa, California, for approximately six months, are set to be deported in the coming weeks. Some have already been deported and others are being charged with immigration fraud.

Many of the Iraqi Christian community in San Diego — including U.S. citizen family members vouching for the refugees — had hopes that they would eventually be released. Mark Arabo, a spokesman for the Chaldean community, had argued that “They’ve escaped hell. Let’s allow them to reunite with their families.” One of the detained women had begged to see her ailing mother before she died. The mother died before they could reunite, and now the daughter is to be deported, possibly back to the hell of the Islamic State.

Members of California’s Iraqi Christian community and their supporters protest the months-long detention of Iraqi Christian asylum-seekers at the Otay Mesa detention center. (Image source Al Jazeera video screenshot)

Why are Christian minorities, who are the most to suffer from the chaos engulfing the Middle East, the least wanted in the United States?

The answer is that the Obama administration defines refugees as people “persecuted by their government.” In other words, the only “real” refugees are those made so due to the actions of Syrian President Bashar Assad. As for those who are being raped, slaughtered, and enslaved based on their religious identity by so-called “rebel” forces fighting Assad — including the Islamic State — their status as refugees is evidently considered dubious at best.

As Abraham H. Miller argues in “No room in America for Christian refugees“:

“What difference does it make which army imperils the lives of innocent Christians? Christians are still be[ing] slaughtered for being Christian, and their government is incapable of protecting them. Does some group have to come along — as Jewish groups did during the Holocaust — and sardonically guarantee that these are real human beings?”

In fact, from the start of Western meddling in the Middle East in the context of the “Arab Spring,” Christians were demonized for being supportive of secular strongmen like Assad. In a June 4, 2012 article discussing the turmoil in Egypt and Syria, the Independent’s Robert Fisk scoffed at how Egyptian presidential candidate “Ahmed Shafiq, the Mubarak loyalist, has the support of the Christian Copts, and Assad has the support of the Syrian Christians. The Christians support the dictators. Not much of a line, is it?”

More than three years later, the Western-supported “Arab Spring” proved an abysmal failure and the same Christian minorities that Fisk took to task were, as expected, persecuted in ways unprecedented in the modern era.

The Obama administration never seems to miss an opportunity to display its bias for Muslims against Christians. The U.S. State Dept. is in the habit of inviting scores of Muslim representatives but denying visas to solitary Christian representatives. While habitually ignoring the slaughter of Christians at hands of Boko Haram, the administration called for the “human rights” of the jihadi murderers. And when persecuted Egyptian Copts planned on joining the anti-Muslim Brotherhood revolution, Obama said no. Then there is the situation that every Arab nation the Obama administration has meddled in — for example, Libya and Syria — has seen a dramatic nosedive in the human rights of Christian minorities.

The Obama administration’s bias is evident even regarding the Iraqi Christians’ illegal crossing of the U.S.-Mexico border, the occasion on which they were arrested. WND correctly observes: “At the same time the Obama administration [is] deporting Christians, it has over the years allowed in hundreds of Muslim migrants from Africa and the Middle East who crossed the Southern border the same way the Chaldeans did.”

Meanwhile, as the Obama administration nitpicks at the definition of refugee and uses it against severely persecuted Christian minorities, it turns out that four out of five migrants — or 80 percent — are not even from Syria.

And while Christian minorities pose little threat to the United States — indeed, they actually bring benefits to U.S. security — Muslims all around the U.S. are supporting the Islamic State and Muslim clerics are relying on the refugee influx to conquer Western nations, in the Islamic tradition of Hijrah, or jihad by emigration. As Koran 4:100 puts it:

And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him — his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah.

In Islamic usage, the “cause of Allah” is synonymous with jihad to empower and enforce Allah’s laws on earth, or Sharia. In this context, immigrating into Western lands is a win-win for Muslims: if they die in the process somehow, paradise is theirs; if they do not, the “locations and abundance” of the West are theirs.

All the while, the Obama administration is turning away Christian refugees fleeing the same hostile Muslim forces as Muslims — who are being welcomed into America and Europe.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/49757/obama-throws-christian-refugees-to-lions-opinion/#i81Lz1l06xrAO3iz.99

Ben Carson Exposes Islamic ‘Taqiyya,’ But There’s Even More You Should Know

Ben Carson

Ben Carson Exposes Islamic ‘Taqiyya,’ But There’s Even More You Should Know

By Raymond Ibrahim September 29, 2015 Breaking Israel News

Of all the points presidential hopeful Ben Carson made in defense of his position that he “would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation,” the most poignant was his referencing of taqiyya, one of Islam’s doctrines of deception.

According to Carson, whoever becomes president should be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran”:

“I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” Carson said, referencing the Islamic law derived from the Koran and traditions of Islam. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”

Carson said that the only exception he’d make would be if the Muslim running for office “publicly rejected all the tenants of Sharia and lived a life consistent with that.”

“Then I wouldn’t have any problem,” he said.

However, on several occasions Carson mentioned “Taqiyya,” a practice in the Shia Islam denomination in which a Muslim can mislead nonbelievers about the nature of their faith to avoid religious persecution.

“Taqiyya is a component of Shia that allows, and even encourages you to lie to achieve your goals,” Carson said.

Considering that the current U.S. president has expunged all reference to Islam in security documents and would have Americans believe that Islamic doctrine is more or less like Christianity, it is refreshing to see a presidential candidate referencing a little-known but critically important Muslim doctrine.

However, the widely cited notion that taqiyya is only a Shia doctrine needs to be corrected. This is false, and it lets the vast majority of the world’s Muslims, the Sunnis, off the hook.

According to Sami Mukaram, one of the world’s foremost authorities on taqiyya:

Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.[i]

Taqiyya is often associated with the Shias because, as a minority group interspersed among their Sunni rivals, they have historically had more reason to dissemble. Today, however, Sunnis living in the West find themselves in the place of the Shia. Now they are the minority surrounded by their historic enemies — Western “infidels” — and so they too have plenty of occasion to employ taqiyya.

Making Muslims swear on Bibles would not be any defense against taqiyya. As long as their allegiance to Islam is secure in their hearts, taqiyya allows Muslims to behave like non-Muslims. Praying before Christian icons, wearing crosses, making the sign of the cross — anything short of actually killing a Muslim could be allowed. (In several instances, Muslims in the U.S. military exposed their true loyalties when they reached the point of having to fight fellow Muslims in foreign nations.[ii])

For those with a discerning eye, taqiyya is all around us. Muslim refugees have pretended to convert to Christianity (in the past and the present); an Islamic gunman gained entrance inside a church by feigning interest in Christian prayers. Examples abound on a daily basis.

Consider the following anecdote from Turkey. In order to get close enough to a Christian pastor to assassinate him, a group of Muslims — including three women — feigned interest in Christianity, attended his church for over a year, and even participated in baptism ceremonies. Said the pastor, Emre Karaali:

These people had infiltrated our church and collected information about me, my family and the church and were preparing an attack against us. … Two of them attended our church for over a year and they were like family.

If some Muslims are willing to go to such lengths to eliminate the already downtrodden Christian minorities in their midst, does anyone doubt that a taqiyya-practicing Muslim presidential candidate might have no reservations about swearing on a stack of Bibles?

Precedents for such treachery litter the whole of Islamic history, and begin with the Muslim prophet himself.

During the Battle of the Trench (627 AD), which pitted Muhammad and his followers against several non-Muslim tribes collectively known as “the Confederates,” a Confederate called Naim bin Masud went to the Muslim camp and converted to Islam. When Muhammad discovered the Confederates were unaware of Masud’s deflection to Islam, he counseled him to return and to try to get his tribesmen to abandon the siege. “For war is deceit,” Muhammad assured him.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/useful_banner_manager_banners/61-RaymondIbrahim-600WIDE.jpg

Masud returned to the Confederates without their knowledge that he had switched sides, and began giving his former kin and allies bad advice. He also intentionally instigated quarrels between the various tribes until, thoroughly distrusting each other, they disbanded and lifted the siege, allowing an embryonic Islam to grow. (Here, a Muslim site extols this incident for being illustrative of how Muslims can subvert non-Muslims.)

If a Muslim were running for president of the U.S. in the hopes of ultimately subverting America to Islam, he could, in Carson’s words, easily be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran” and “publicly reject all the tenants of Sharia.” Indeed, he could claim to be a Christian and attend church every week.

It speaks well about Carson that he is aware of, and not hesitant to mention, taqiyya. But that doctrine’s full ramifications regarding how much deception it allows, and its practice by all Muslim denominations, not just the Shia, still needs greater awareness.

The chances of that happening are dim. Already “mainstream media” like the Washington Post have, incorrectly, taken Carson to task for “misunderstanding” taqiyya – that is, for daring to be critical of anything Islamic. These outlets could benefit from learning more about Islam and deception per the below links:

• My expert testimony being used in a court case to refute “taqiyya about taqiyya.”
• The even more elastic doctrine of tawriya, which allows Muslims to deceive fellow Muslims by lying “creatively.”
• My 2008 essay “Islam’s Doctrines of Deception,” commissioned and published by Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst.
• Recent examples of formerly good Muslim neighbors turning violent once they grow in strength and numbers.

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/49811/ben-carson-exposes-islamic-taqiyya-but-theres-even-more-you-should-know-opinion/#7OTrC5ojcRsMpZBS.99

Christians in Deep Danger: 'We Dare Not Be Silent'

By Gary Lane

CBN News Sr. International Correspondent

Friday, June 26, 2015

From Egypt, to Syria and Iraq, ancient Christian communities --among the world's oldest -- are under threat of extinction.

"Christians and other minorities are in deep danger and we dare not be silent. The time to speak is now," said Katrina Lantos Swett, chairman of the United States Commission on International Freedom.

Swett delivered that message at the recent 6th Annual Coptic Solidarity Conference in Washington, D.C., on persecution in the Middle East.

So, why should Americans, or other Westerners, get involved? Swett says religious extremism crosses oceans and continents.

"When Coptic Christians in Egypt are jailed for blasphemy or attacked by extremists for supposedly violating such laws and we are silent, we should not be surprised when attacks commence in the streets of Paris or elsewhere," she said.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said," America is in a place to stop the persecution of Christians in numbers never before seen in the world. God has allowed us to be at that place."

But before America and other nations can respond effectively, they must face the truth about what is happening and why.

Middle East analyst and author Raymond Ibrahim blames the media.

"We know about this ISIS thing because ISIS wants you to know and the media if anything has responded by giving us a plethora of editorials trying to convince us that what ISIS is doing is not Islamic," he explained.

Ibrahim says American leaders must speak the truth about the atrocities -- like the beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya.

"According to the White House, it was just 21 Egyptians who were randomly killed, not because they're Christians, not because of their faith and so forth," Ibrahim said.

U.S. Religious Freedom Ambassador at Large Rabbi David Saperstein is urgently concerned about Iraqi and Syrian Christians. Their numbers have dwindled to a fraction of what they were just 20 years ago.

"Now, if we're going to preserve those communities, we know what needs to be done," Saperstein said. "First, until ISIL is pushed out, those displaced communities need to be able to live with a quality of life that will be an incentive for them to remain."

And that means providing security and stability for them, along with better health care and schools for their children.

Rep. Diane Black, R-Tenn., says people of the United States need to act.

"We cannot stand by and watch this," Black said. "We have a moral obligation to act in defense of our brothers and sisters abroad."

So, Christian activists in Washington are once again speaking loudly, reminding President Barack Obama and the U.S. Congress that something needs to be done quickly to protect these ancient Christian communities from annihilation. And they say they'll keep speaking until something is done -- and they start listening.

Islam Unveiled - Raymond Ibrahim CBN News Contributor, Middle East and Islam Expert

Ibrahim: Islam Unveiled

Raymond Ibrahim

CBN News Contributor, Middle East and Islam Expert

www.raymondibrahim.com

<< US Chose to Stay Silent on Muslim Persecution of Christians |Blog Home

Kidnapped Nuns 

No Longer 

Bear the Cross

A new video of the 12 Christian nuns kidnapped in Syria recently appeared. In it, the nuns are taped sitting in a room and being questioned by an unseen man, presumably a member of the kidnappers. He asks them how they are, if they’ve been mistreated, etc.

They respond that they are being treated fine, that they very much look forward to being returned to their convent, that they heartily thank the world for its concern, and that they continually pray that God grant peace to all nations.

Their words say one thing, their expressions and demeanor another. Put differently, as female captives of Islamic jihadis, what else could they say but what they were told to say? (See, for example, how the nun in glasses had to be forced to face the camera at 1:46.) Even if one of them dared to say the “wrong thing,” it naturally would have been edited out. Who knows how many takes it took to get the video—which includes a bizarre clip of the nuns having a snowball fight with their abductors—just right?

One thing, however, although minor, speaks volumes concerning the nature of their captivity. Although these same nuns, in pictures before they were kidnapped, often appear wearing the large pectoral crosses that nuns often wear, these are all gone in the recent video.

This is to be expected, considering the “pious” nature of their captors. According to strict Islamic teaching, Christians and other non-Muslims are forbidden to show any signs or expressions of their “polytheism” (shirk in Arabic). Indeed, this is spelled out clearly in the Conditions of Omar, which mainstream Muslim teaching attributes to the second caliph of the same name.

After the seventh century armies of Islam conquered a particular Christian region—possibly and ironically in Syria—Omar stipulated several conditions for Christians to accept, including “Not to display a cross on them [churches], nor raise our voices during prayer or readings in our churches anywhere near Muslims; Not to produce a cross or [Christian] book in the markets of the Muslims” (see Crucified Again, pgs. 24-27 for my new translation of the entire text of theConditions of Omar).

From here we understand the true plight of the captive nuns: to their captors, not only are the Christian women hostages to be used for leverage, but ideologically speaking, they are “infidel” inferiors—near sub-humans who are more akin to animals. Indeed, the same Caliph Omar whom Syria’s jihadis are hearkening to regarding the ban on Christian crosses is also on record saying that the life of a non-Muslim is equal to the life of a dog (Western readers should bear in mind that in Arab/Muslim culture, dogs are among the lowest life forms.)

As such, the plight of the kidnapped nuns remains precarious—all their scripted words aside. (See here for more on the history of Islamic jihad on Christian nuns.)

As for the effects of removing the nuns’ crosses, an Arabic column by one Father George makes an interesting point highlighting the difference between outwardly observant “Salafi” Muslims, presumably like the kidnappers—with their beards and prayer callouses on their foreheads—and inwardly observant Christians like these nuns:


St Paul says “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world” (Galatians 6:14). You removed the cross from the nuns’ breasts. Remove it! We do not rely on the visible. But know that the cross is firmly planted in the hearts of each and every one of those nuns.

View All CBN News Blogs

View All CBN Blogs

World Magazine

Raymond Ibrahim: Islam Unveiled - CBN News

Ibrahim: Islam Unveiled

CBN News

Raymond Ibrahim

CBN News Contributor, Middle East and Islam Expert

www.raymondibrahim.com

View All CBN News Blogs

View All CBN Blogs

The Existential Elephant in the ‘Christian Persecution’ Room


Open Doors USA recently released its widely cited 2014 World Watch List—a report that highlights and ranks the 50 worst nations around the globe persecuting Christians.

The one glaring fact that emerges from this report is that the overwhelming majority of Christian persecution around the globe today is being committed at the hands of Muslims of all races, languages, cultures, and socio-political circumstances: Muslims from among America’s allies (Saudi Arabia) and its enemies (Iran); Muslims from economically rich nations (Qatar) and from poor nations (Somalia and Yemen); Muslims from “Islamic republic” nations (Pakistan) and from “moderate” nations (Malaysia and Indonesia); Muslims from nations rescued by America (Kuwait) and Muslims claiming “grievances” against America (fill in the space __).

A common denominator, a pattern, exists, one that is even more extensive than Open Doors implies. According to that organization’s communications director, Emily Fuentes, “of the 50 worst nations for persecution, 37 of them are Muslim,” or 74 percent.

In fact, while this number suggests that the other 13 countries making the top 50 are not Muslim—for example Kenya and Ethiopia—those doing the persecution there are.

In other words, those persecuting Christians in 41 of 50 nations are Muslims; that is, a whopping 82 percent of all persecution around the globe is being committed by adherents of Islam—sometimes in Christian majority nations, for example, the Central African Republic which, after the 2013 Islamic takeover, now ranks No. 16, “severe persecution” (the Christian-majority nation did not even appear in the previous year’s top 50).

As for the top ten absolute worst nations, where, according to the 2014 World Watch List, Christians suffer “extreme persecution,” nine—that is, 90 percent—are Muslim.(Indeed,Open Doors’ global map of Christian persecution can easily be confused with a global map of the Islamic world, with the exception of China (ranked 37, “moderate persecution”) and some sporadic countries dominated by crime and godless tyranny, Colombia, North Korea, etc.)

Similarly, a recent Morning Star News report listing 2013’s ten most horrific anecdotes of Christian persecution around the world finds that nine out of ten—again, 90 percent—were committed at the hands of those professing Islam.

Still, considering that the 2014 World Watch List ranks North Korea—non-Islamic, communist—as the number one worst persecutor of Christians, why belabor the religious identity of Muslims?

Here we come to some critically important but blurred distinctions. While Christians are indeed suffering extreme persecution in North Korea, these fall into the realm of the temporal, the aberrant, even. Something as simple as overthrowing the North Korean regime would likely end persecution there almost overnight—just as the fall of Communist Soviet Union saw religious persecution come to a quick close.

In the Islamic world, however, a similar scenario would not alleviate the sufferings of Christians by an iota. Quite the opposite; where dictators fall—Mubarak in Egypt, Qaddafi in Libya, and ongoing attempts to oust Assad in Syria—Christian persecution rises.

The reason for this dichotomy is that Christian persecution by non-Muslims (mostly communists) is often rooted to a temporal regime or ideology. Conversely, Muslim persecution of Christians is perennial, existential, and far transcends this or that regime or ruler. It is part and parcel of the history, doctrines, and socio-political makeup of Islam—hence its tenacity; hence its ubiquity.

Still, the significance of all this is often overlooked. Thus, “Dr. David Curry, CEO and president of Open Doors USA, told The Blaze ‘Not every circumstance is the same. For example, in North Korea, you have a quasi-Stalinist government that is the most difficult place to call yourself a Christian on the planet — and has been for the last 12 years,’ he noted. But while North Korea’s government is the real culprit, in places like Iraq, ‘roving extremist groups’ are waging attacks against Christians, while government officials are seemingly powerless to stop the carnage, he explained.”

True; but atheistic Stalinism/communism is a relatively new phenomenon—about a century old—and, over the years, its rule (if not variants of its ideology) has greatly waned, so that only a handful of nations today are communist.

On the other hand, “roving extremist groups” (also known in other contexts and countries as “Islamists,” “terrorists,” “mujahidin,” “mobs,” “radicals,” “people-with-grievances,” etc.) attacking and killing “infidel” Christians have been around since the dawn of Islam. It is a well-documented, even if suppressed, history

To further understand the differences between temporal and existential persecution, consider: Russia, once a staunch Orthodox Christian nation, led the communist movement and persecuted its own Christians; yet today, a century later, it is becoming more orthodox again, prominent among Western nations for showing support for persecuted Christians

North Korea—where its leader, Kim Jong-Un, is worshipped as a god and the people are shielded from reality, including outside their borders—seems to be experiencing what Russia did under the Soviet Union and thus living in a delusional state.

But if the once mighty USSR could not persevere, surely it’s a matter of time before tiny North Korea’s walls also come crumbling down, with the resulting religious freedom that former communist nations have experienced. Tellingly, the only countries that were part of the USSR that still persecute Christians are Muslim, such as Uzbekistan (ranked No. 15, “severe persecution”) and Turkmenistan (ranked NO. 20, also “severe persecution”).

Time, however, is not on the side of Christians living amid Muslims; quite the opposite. Since the 7th century, when Islam came into being, Muslims have been invading and conquering Christian lands so that more than half of the territory that was once Christian in the 7th century—including all of North Africa and the Levant—are today the heart of the “Muslim world.”

Muslim persecution of Christians exists in 41 nations today as part of a continuum that started nearly 14 centuries ago. As I document in Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians, the very same patterns of Christian persecution prevalent throughout the Muslim world today are often identical to those from centuries past. The facts speak for themselves.

Put differently, long after North Korea’s Kim Jong-Un has gone the way of the dodo, Islam will still be here and—short of a miraculous “reformation”—still treating Christians and other “infidels” like it did for centuries.

Confronting this understandably discomforting and better-left-unsaid fact is the first real step to alleviating the sufferings of the overwhelming majority of Christians around the world.

Unfortunately, however, while some are willing to point out that Christians are being persecuted around the Muslim world—why that is the case, why 82 percent of the world’s persecution is committed by Muslims from a variety of backgrounds and circumstances—is the great elephant in the room that few wish to address. For doing so would cause some long held and cherished premises of the modern West to come crashing down.

CBN News contributor Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians. He is a Shillman Fellow, David Horowitz Freedom Center; Associate Fellow, Middle East Forum; and 2013 Media Fellow, Hoover Institution.

West Ignores 'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria' - ISRAEL TODAY

West Ignores 'Largest Massacre of Christians in Syria'

Monday, November 25, 2013 |  Raymond Ibrahim  

Share on facebookShare on twitterShare on emailShare on printMore Sharing Services

Related Stories

• Jerusalem church continues bold stand despite arson attack
• Georgian Christians honor King David
• Whose Prayer Does God Hear?

Topics:

Christians

One of the worst Christian massacres—complete with mass graves, tortured-to-death women and children, and destroyed churches—recently took place in Syria, at the hands of the U.S.-supported jihadi “rebels”; and the U.S. government and its “mainstream media” mouthpiece are, as usual, silent (that is, when not actively trying to minimize matters).

The massacre took place in Sadad, an ancient Syriac Orthodox Christian habitation, so old as to be mentioned in the Old Testament. Most of the region’s inhabitants are poor, as Sadad is situated in the remote desert between Homs and Damascus (desert regions, till now, apparently the only places Syria’s Christians could feel secure; 600 Christian families had earlier fled there for sanctuary from the jihad, only to be followed by it).

In late October, the U.S-supported “opposition” invaded and occupied Sadad for over a week, till ousted by the nation’s military. Among other atrocities, 45 Christians—including women and children—were killed, several tortured to death; Sadat’s 14 churches, some ancient, were ransacked and destroyed; the bodies of six people from one family, ranging from ages 16 to 90, were found at the bottom of a well (an increasingly common fate for “subhuman” Christians).

The jihadis even made a graphic video (with English subtitles) of those whom they massacred, while shouting Islam’s victory-cry, “Allahu Akbar” (which John McCain equates to a Christian saying “thank God”). Another video, made after Sadad was liberated shows more graphic atrocities.

Here are the words of Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Homs and Hama (another detailed account, with pictures, appears here):

”What happened in Sadad is the most serious and biggest massacre of Christians in Syria in the past two years and a half… 45 innocent civilians were martyred for no reason, and among them several women and children, many thrown into mass graves. Other civilians were threatened and terrorized. 30 were wounded and 10 are still missing. For one week, 1,500 families were held as hostages and human shields. Among them children, the elderly, the young, men and women…. All the houses of Sadad were robbed and property looted. The churches are damaged and desecrated, deprived of old books and precious furniture… What happened in Sadad is the largest massacre of Christians in Syria and the second in the Middle East, after the one in the Church of Our Lady of Salvation in Iraq, in 2010.”

In the Iraqi attack of 2010, al-Qaeda linked jihadis stormed the church during service killing some 60 Christian worshippers (see here for graphic images of the aftermath).

While the archbishop is correct that this is the “largest massacre of Christians in Syria,” it is but the tip of the iceberg of the persecution the nation’s Christian minority has suffered—including beheadings, church bombings, kidnappings, rapes, and dislocation of hundreds of thousands of Christians—since the war broke out (see Syria entries in monthly persecution series).

A month before Sadad, another ancient Christian region, Ma‘loula, one of the world’s very few regions that still spoke Aramaic, the language of Jesus, was besieged by the jihadis, its churches bombarded and plundered, its inhabitants forced to convert to Islam or die. The last words of one man who refused were: "I am a Christian, and if you want to kill me for this, I do not object to it."

The archbishop concluded his statement concerning Sadad by asking: "We have shouted aid to the world but no one has listened to us. Where is the Christian conscience? Where is human consciousness? Where are my brothers? I think of all those who are suffering today in mourning and discomfort: We ask everyone to pray for us.”

Serge Trifkovic—who hails from a European region especially acquainted with Islamic jihad—responds to the archbishop as follows:

_”That no “human consciousness” is to be found in the White House, or in the editorial offices of the leading Western media, is now a matter of well-established record. Just try searching for “Sadad” (or alternatively “Saddad”) on the websites of the Department of State or The New York Times. Ditto the leading European dailies, the CNN/BBC/RTF, the human-rights defending “NGOs” et al.

“The problem, of which Archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh appears unaware, is no longer in the Western elite’s mere indifference to the impending demise of Christianity in the lands of its birth, but in its active, ongoing, and open contribution to that demise. Cyprus (1974) and the Balkans (1991-9) provided the test, Iraq (2003-today) the conclusive proof. In Syria the Obama administration remains committed to supporting the rebels—ah, yes, only the “moderate” ones, like the Christian-murdering “Free Syrian Army” (discretion advised again), not “even though” the result will be the same, but precisely because it will be.”_

In one of the Arabic videos documenting the aftermath of the Sadad massacre, as the mutilated bodies of one family are drawn from a well (around :30 second mark), a middle-aged male relative, in tears, says:

”The most precious in the whole universe [his family], are now gone, leaving me alone, but thank God I am still surrounded by these loving people who remain. I want to say, let people [the jihadis] return to their minds. The problems of the world can only be solved by knowledge and brains. Enough insanity, the nerves of the people are shredded. Enough, enough—return to your minds; you people, you humans—return to your humanity, enough crimes.”

As a sign of the times, here is a Syrian, an “easterner,” evoking rationalism and humanity, products of the Christian West, at a time when the post-Christian West is governed by anything and everything—propaganda, emotionalism, mindless indoctrination—but the twain.

_Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians _

Want more news from Israel?
Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates

Christians slaughtered in Pakistan, Kenya

Sunday, September 29, 2013 |  Raymond Ibrahim, Israel TodayShare on blogger

Share on twitterShare on facebookShare on gmailMore Sharing Servi

Related Stories

• King Solomon vs. the Godfather
• UK: Israel must let us influence its policies!
• Waves of hate and love for Israel on Twitter

Topics:

Global

The following by contributor Raymond Ibrahim is again telling of how the world has an obsession with picking out every perceived flaw with Israel, while ignoring the very real persecution of Christians and other minorities around the world.

Muslim slaughter of non-Muslim “infidels,” while a habitual thing, saw an especially dramatic weekend in the nations of Pakistan and Kenya. Even so, these are simply the latest in a long list of jihadi attacks on the Christians of both nations.

Last Sunday, September 22, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Islamic suicide bombers entered the All Saints Church compound right after Sunday mass and blew themselves up in the midst of some 550 congregants, killing, according to the latest count, nearly 90 worshippers, including many Sunday school children, women, and choir members, and injuring at least another 120. The now destroyed Protestant church was built in Peshawar some 130 years ago. The Taliban claimed the attacks.

According to Margrette, a parishioner who survived (though her sister’s status was unknown), “I heard two explosions. People started to run. Human remains were strewn all over the church.”

Armed attacks on churches are hardly uncommon in Pakistan, even though Christians are less than 2% of the population, while Muslims are 97%. In 2001 Islamic gunmen stormed St. Dominic’s Protestant Church, opening fire on the congregants and killing at least 16 worshippers, most women and children. Last Christmas, “when Christian worshipers were coming out of different Churches after performing Christmas prayers, more than one hundred Muslim extremists equipped with automatic rifles, pistols and sticks attacked the Christian women, children and men.” The attack came in response to fatwas condemning Christmas celebrations.

As for Muslim mob violence (as opposed to preplanned terrorist strikes) this is a common fixture that regularly flares up against Pakistan’s Christians and other minorities, most often in the context of “blasphemy,” that is, offending Islam or its prophet. A few months ago, in March, because one Christian was accused of blasphemy, some 3,000 Muslims attacked the Christian Joseph Colony of Lahore, burning two churches and 160 Christian homes.

According to one Christian eyewitness, “The police was doing what it does best—nothing! Their bias towards Christians is quite evident, because when the Muslims were raiding our church and property, they just watched, but when we confronted them, they started hitting us with batons and used live ammunition to deter us.”  

In 2009 in Gojra, eight Christians were burned alive, 100 houses looted and 50 homes set ablaze after another blasphemy accusation.

Thousands of miles away in Kenya (83% Christian and 11% Muslim), on Saturday, September 21, Islamic terrorists linked to neighboring Somalia’s Al Shabaab (“the youth”) raided the Westgate shopping mall, slaughtering at least 62 people and injuring at least 150.

Among the Islamic terrorists are several Americans.

Yet, to anyone following events in Kenya closely, this jihadi raid simply follows a long line of attacks targeting, as in Pakistan, Christians, often in their churches. For example, in just the four months between April-August 2012, at least 14 Kenyan churches were attacked by Al Shabaab-linked Islamic terrorists, with many Christians killed. Since then, even more have been attacked, often by hand-grenades, leaving many dead, again, often including women and Sunday school children.

In the mall attack, the jihadis further made it a point to try to differentiate between Muslims and non-Muslims, to slaughter only the latter. According to Elijah Kamau, “The gunmen told Muslims to stand up and leave. They were safe, and non-Muslims would be targeted.” Another Christian eyewitness who managed to escape said, “an Indian man came forward and they said, ‘What is the name of Muhammad’s mother?’ When he couldn’t answer they just shot him.”

Al Shabaab boasted of its care to distinguish between “infidels” and Muslims a barrage of Twitter messages: “Only Kuffar [“infidels”] were singled out for this attack. All Muslims inside #Westgate were escorted out by the Mujahideen (Islamic Holy Warriors) before beginning the attack.”

This is an old jihadi tactic often used when attacking places other than churches, which do not require this extra care (presumably, according to jihadi thinking, everyone inside a church deserves death, whereas a Muslim may be in an open mall). For example, in Nigeria in October 2012, Islamic militants stormed the Federal Polytechnic College, “separated the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their throat,” killing up to 30 Christians.

And in September 2011, Muslim militants “went to shops owned by Christians at a market at about 8 p.m., ordering them to recite verses from the Quran. If the Christian traders were unable to recite the verses [and thus proving they are not Muslim], the gunmen shot and killed them.”

While it is good that the world has been exposed to these two latest attacks on non-Muslim “infidels,” let there be no mistake:these are no “aberrations,” but rather the natural culmination of jihadi hatred for non-Muslims, chief among them Christians, which has been manifesting itself with increased frequency in both Pakistan and Kenya for years.

Raymond Ibrahim is author of Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians

Want more news from Israel?
Click Here to sign up for our FREE daily email updates

Love for His People Editor's Comment: We love and support, and receive, Israel Today magazine. we have for over 7 years. Hope you will too, if not already! Click the links below. Steve Martin

Israel Today magazine - support link

Israel Today magazine - subscription link