{"id":2079,"date":"2011-01-05T01:04:16","date_gmt":"2011-01-05T00:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/?p=2079"},"modified":"2011-01-06T11:12:36","modified_gmt":"2011-01-06T10:12:36","slug":"first-they-came-for-the-saturday-people-the-egyptian-copts-and-why-a-one-state-solution-in-the-middle-east-is-not-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/2011\/01\/05\/first-they-came-for-the-saturday-people-the-egyptian-copts-and-why-a-one-state-solution-in-the-middle-east-is-not-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"First they came for the Saturday people – the Egyptian Copts and why a one-state solution in the Middle East is not possible"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>

\n\"\"<\/a>

(AP Photo\/Ben Curtis) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)<\/p><\/div>\n

We are all probably now painfully aware of the onslaught against the Christians of Iraq.<\/p>\n

I have previously written about the harassment of the Christians of Bethlehem and the Middle East here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Less is reported about the plight of the ancient Coptic Christian community in Egypt.<\/p>\n

Ami Isseroff has published the contents of a letter by a Coptic Christian living in the US to President Obama. It makes painful reading. (see IsraelNews at\u00a0http:\/\/www.zionism-israel.com\/israel_news\/2011\/01\/04\/letter-from-a-coptic-christian-to-president-obama\/<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The Copts are increasingly being harassed and murdered by Islamists. The clear intent is to drive them out.<\/p>\n

If Israel \/ Palestine became a single state with a Muslim majority or even a large minority filled with the bile of Hamas, Hizbullah and Fatah, who do you think would be harassed first? And then they will come for the Sunday people.<\/p>\n

This is the expressed aim of Hamas and Hizbullah and a cornerstone of PLO\/Fatah: destroy Israel and drive out the Jews.<\/p>\n

And then they will come for the Sunday people and the Druze and the Baha’is.<\/p>\n

As in Egypt, so would it be in a future Palestine that has consumed Israel.<\/p>\n

I reproduce the letter here in full. It is a warning of how things will go if the world doesn’t wake up to this madness. It was written on Dec 24th. The very next week 21 Copts were murdered by a suicide bomber in Alexandria, Egypt as they celebrated mass on New Year’s Day.<\/p>\n

Friday, December 24, 2010<\/p>\n

Letter from a Coptic Christian<\/a><\/p>\n

Mike, a Coptic Christian who has immigrated to the United States, has asked<\/em> Restrain the Blade to publish this letter to President Barack Obama. Out of concern for his safety, only the author\u2019s first name is made public.
\n<\/em>
\nPresident Barack Obama
\n1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
\nWashington D.C.<\/p>\n

Dear President Obama,<\/p>\n

I am writing to you as Coptic Christian who immigrated to the United States in the late 1970s.<\/p>\n

I am an American citizen.<\/p>\n

I have grave concerns about what is going in Egypt regarding the Copts.<\/p>\n

To put it bluntly, I fear that something very bad is going to happen to this community in the very near future.<\/p>\n

Coptic Christians have been the victims of systematic abuse and oppression in Egypt for a long time. On November 17, 2010, the U.S. Department of State recently issued a report on religious freedom in Egypt that details the abuses they suffer on a daily basis. January of this year, six Coptic Christians were murdered outside their church after celebrating Christmas.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I fear another attack will happen again sometime in the near future.<\/p>\n

The tendency of blaming the State of Israel for every problem in Egypt, and linking it to the Copts, is on the rise, especially in the past a few months. By associating the Copts with the Jewish state, extremists and government officials are inciting hostility toward a beleaguered, defenseless minority.<\/p>\n

The anti-Israel polemic is fairly well known. One official accused recent shark and jellyfish<\/a> for attacks on swimmers at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Mossad. The alleged goal was to kill the tourism season.<\/p>\n

What is less well known is that Muslim Imams throughout the Middle East are demonizing Coptic Christians in Egypt. One oft-repeated claim is that Israel is using Coptic churches to store all kinds of weapons to attack Muslims. Such accusations lead to threats of violence.<\/p>\n

For example, Sheik Wagdi Ghoneim recently said in a video message<\/a> from the State of Qatar \u201cI swear by God, you will not have time stay alive until America and the West arrive, this is for your own good, if you understand. Do you think the Muslims inside Egypt will say thank you and may Allah give you health? \u201cNo, by God.\u201d<\/p>\n

And on September 16, 2010 Mr., Muhammad Salim Al-Awa, Secretary-General of the International Union of Muslim Scholars announced on Al-Jazeera TV<\/a> (Qatar): Copts Amass Weapons in Egyptian Churches and Are \u201cPreparing for War against the Muslims\u201d.<\/p>\n

Copts are even being blamed for the violence perpetrated against them by Muslim extremists in Egypt. For example, after a mob of 5,000 Egyptians recently attacked a Christian service building, President\u2019s Mubarak former assistant, Dr. Mustafa El- Feki from Ain Shams University stated that Israel and the Copts were at fault for the attack and the two deaths that resulted from it. Dr. El Feki stated that Israel was behind the subsequent protests: \u201c\u201dIt is almost certain that the Mossad is involved in these events. The State is dealing with dangerous events that could not have succeeded without external intervention with Israel at its head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here, it is important to note why the mob attacked the building in the first place. While the Egyptian government does not allow Christians to build churches, it does allow them to build \u201cservice buildings\u201d where social services can be provided to the elderly and to young people in the Coptic Christian community. The mob attacked this service building after hearing rumors that the building itself was going to be used as a church and not merely to provide social services to its members.<\/p>\n

Mr. President, in light of numerous acts of incitement and previous acts of violence, I fear that Coptic Christians in Egypt are going to have a very tough Christmas season. I implore you to use your good offices to insist that the Egyptian government protect the rights of its Christian citizens.<\/p>\n

For reasons of my own safety, I can only sign my first name, but nevertheless, I offer wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.<\/p>\n

I ask that you use your influence to make sure Christians in Egypt can celebrate their holidays in safety.<\/p>\n

Michael
\nDec. 24, 2010<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/div>

We are all probably now painfully aware of the onslaught against the Christians of Iraq. I have previously written about the harassment of the Christians of Bethlehem and the Middle East here. Less is reported about the plight of the ancient Coptic Christian community in Egypt. Ami Isseroff has published the contents of a letter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223,1],"tags":[238,783,4,785,310,201,784],"class_list":["post-2079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-israel-palestine","category-uncategorized","tag-christians","tag-egyptian-copts","tag-israel","tag-massacres","tag-middle-east","tag-palestine","tag-preesident-obama","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2079"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2091,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2079\/revisions\/2091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.raymondcook.net\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}