The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that no goods or supplies would enter the enclave until further notice, reaffirming that Jerusalem will not agree to a ceasefire without the release of its hostages.
People block the entrance to Ashdod Port during a
protest against aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip, Feb. 1, 2024. Photo
by Chaim Goldberg/Flash90.
The Israeli government announced on Sunday
morning that it has suspended all humanitarian aid to Gaza after the
Hamas terrorist organization rejected the ceasefire extension proposed
by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
announced that no goods or supplies would enter Gaza until further
notice, reaffirming that Jerusalem will not agree to a ceasefire without
the release of its hostages.
Since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19,
25,200 aid trucks carrying food, water and medicine have entered Gaza,
alongside more than half a million tents and 2,100 fuel tankers. Israeli
officials estimate that Hamas has stockpiled supplies sufficient for
four to six months.
Hamas
insists on moving to Phase 2 of the ceasefire, which includes talks on a
permanent end to hostilities, Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza,
reconstruction and a prisoner-hostage exchange.
Hamas responded to the Witkoff
framework, which was adopted by Israel, by stating: “The only way to
bring back the hostages is to complete the agreement” by moving to Phase
2. The terror organization also sent a message ahead of last week’s
Cairo summit that it rejects any non-Palestinian governance and opposes
the presence of foreign forces in Gaza.
Under the U.S. proposal, half of the
remaining hostages (living and deceased) are to be freed on the first
day of the extension; the rest will be released if a permanent ceasefire
is agreed upon.
The framework was accepted by Israel
following a high-level security meeting on Saturday night. Under the
proposal, the extension, which is to last 42 days, through the Ramadan
and Passover holidays, may be further extended to facilitate
negotiations.
If talks prove ineffective, Israel retains
the right to resume military operations after 42 days, a condition
backed in a side letter by the previous Biden administration and
supported by the current Trump administration.
The Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday that Jerusalem is preparing to resume the
war in Gaza in four to six weeks. This “decisive” campaign, aimed to
wipe out Hamas, could be paused if the terrorist group’s leadership
agrees to free hostages, or agrees to disarm and go into exile, the
report added.
Amid the ongoing uncertainty with regard
to the situation in Gaza and the region generally, Israel’s government
on Sunday morning approved an extension of legislation allowing the
call-up of 400,000 reservists.
Ramadan started on Friday night and runs until March 29, while Passover begins on April 12 and ends on April 19.
Israeli assessments indicate that
Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza are holding 59 hostages. Of these,
24 are believed to be alive—all men—while 35, including three women, are
believed to be deceased. Two of the living hostages and three of the
deceased are foreign nationals.
"The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment to Israel’s security,"
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio holds a joint press availability
with Costa Rican President Rodrigo Chaves in San Jose, Costa Rica, Feb.
4, 2025. Credit: Freddie Everett/U.S. State Department.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday signed a declaration to expedite $4 billion in military assistance to Israel.
The Trump administration has approved
nearly $12 billion in military sales to Israel since taking office on
Jan. 20, said Rubio in a statement.
“The Trump Administration will continue to
use all available tools to fulfill America’s long-standing commitment
to Israel’s security, including means to counter security threats,” the
statement continued.
“This important decision coincides with
President Trump’s repeal of a Biden-era memorandum which had imposed
baseless and politicized conditions on military assistance to Israel at a
time when our close ally was fighting a war of survival on multiple
fronts against Iran and terror proxies,” said Rubio.
The $4 billion in military assistance is a
reversal of the Biden administration’s partial arms embargo, “which
wrongly withheld a number of weapons and ammunition from Israel,” he
added.
The Trump administration on Feb. 25 moved
to axe a Biden-era regulation preventing United States arms transfers
from being used in violation of international law. The directive
required recipients of U.S. arms to provide written assurances within 45
days that they were abiding by international law. Israel provided those assurances in a letter on March 20, 2024.
Prior to Rubio’s announcement, the U.S. Department of Defense announced on Friday that it had authorized a $2.04 billion sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel. Deliveries are estimated to begin in 2026.
“The proposed sale will improve Israel’s
capability to meet current and future threats, strengthen its homeland
defense, and serve as a deterrent to regional threats. Israel will have
no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces,” according
to a Pentagon statement.
Israel’s Minister of Defense Israel Katz thanked the Trump administration in a post to X on Sunday.
“I want to express my gratitude to the
Trump administration, @SecRubio and @SecDef for the urgent approval of
the arms sale to Israel. As we defend our nation in this just and
prolonged war, your steadfast support strengthens our defense and
reaffirms the deep bond between our nations.”
The Biden administration denied it had
withheld weapons, except for a shipment of 2,000-pound bombs. However,
pro-Israel U.S. politicians revealed that the White House had held up
far more, slow-walking shipments via bureaucratic means.
The situation reached a boiling point in June 2024 when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went public with the issue.
“[I]t’s inconceivable that
in the past few months the administration has been withholding weapons
and ammunition to Israel … Israel, America’s closest ally, fighting for
its life, fighting against Iran and our other common enemies,” the
premier said in a video message.
Zelensky’s refusal to wear a suit in the Oval Office wasn’t just a fashion choice—it was theater, signaling defiance, playing to his audience, and raising questions about respect and diplomacy.
I believe that most students, when first reading Hamlet, are inclined to regard Polonius as a sententious fool, present mostly for comic relief.
Sententious he may be. But it strikes me that most of his advice is wise and to the point.
Is there a single item among Polonius’s “few precepts” that rings false?
I think that the speech, though pitched a bit high rhetorically, is
full of good advice, from the bits at the beginning about holding one’s
tongue to the concluding “to thine own self be true” admonition at the
end.
Thinking about Volodymyr Zelensky’s performance in the Oval Office on
Friday, it occurred to me that the Ukrainian president might profit by
emulating certain of Polonius’s strictures. I am not thinking of Dane’s
advice that one should “Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any
unproportioned thought his act.” Nor am I thinking of Polonius’s sage
advice, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.” Both, to be sure, are
sound prescriptions that the President of Ukraine might practice to his
advantage.
But no: what impressed me as I digested the theater of the Zelensky
Oval Office outing was something apparently more trivial. It revolved
around what Polonius said about clothes, especially his observation that
“the apparel oft proclaims the man.” Before the fireworks really
started, at about minute 40 of the 50-minute Oval Office press conference when Zelensky and J.D. Vance got into it, someone asked why the President of Ukraine was not wearing a suit.
I thought that was a good question. President Trump, when he greeted
Zelensky at the White House that morning, joked that he was “all dressed up today.” In fact, Zelensky was wearing some variation on his signature black bohemian fatigues.
Gents, if you were to go to the White House to meet with the
President on a matter of supreme urgency, would you show up accoutered
as did Volodymyr Zelensky? Or would you wear a suit?
In answer to a question posed in the Oval Office, we know that Zelensky does own a suit. He wore one not so long ago when he met with Klaus Schwab.
Why, then, would he choose to forgo that elementary sartorial mark of
respect when going to meet with the President of the United States? Was
it a calculated act of disrespect or contempt?
Maybe in part. But I think it had a positive goal. In brief, I think
that it was calculated to appeal to the nascent Jane Fonda that dwells
in the breast of every would-be liberal supporter of the putatively
downtrodden. Zelensky, I suspect, dresses the way he does for the same
reason that Fidel Castro always dressed in olive green military
fatigues. He thought it burnished his reputation as an OK
revolutionary™, and it did.
Zelensky, who began his career as a sort of performance artist,
is clearly very conscious of the theatrical dimension of politics. It’s
not so much that he has dressed for success as that he dresses to make
an impression. Which makes his behavior in the Oval Office all the more
curious. The meeting had barely concluded before the Babylon Bee posted a story quipping that Zelensky “tries bold new strategy of insulting people he is begging money from.”
Satire? Or the simple truth?
A couple of points. One, I suspect that Zelensky was improperly
briefed. There have been many reports that he had been advised to be
tough in his meeting with Trump. If so, he was being given bad advice.
The journalist Scott Jennings cut to the chase when he observed that
Zelensky’s task in that meeting was actually quite simple. “All he had
to do,” Jennings said,
“was walk in and say, thank you. I’m really grateful to be here. We
want to be partners with the United States. We’re grateful for your
leadership. Where are the papers and what are we having for lunch?
That’s all he had to do.”
But behind the exigencies that bore upon this one episode is the
complex history of Ukraine’s relations with Russia and the equally
complex history of the character of Volodymyr Zelensky.
We are encouraged by many people to see the former as a simple
morality play in which Russia, or at least Vladimir Putin, is the
irredeemable bad guy while Ukraine is the noble victim.
I won’t open that fraught story except to say, even if Putin’s
behavior will not bear scrutiny, what has been happening in Ukraine
these past few years is not exactly edifying, as anyone who asks about
elections, freedom of the press, censorship, and anti-Semitism will
know.
About Zelensky himself, The Spectator recently published an eye-opening reflection by a former senior aide to Zelensky. Entitled “Only Trump—not Zelensky—can save Ukraine,”
the column, published under a pseudonym, is a chronicle of
disillusionment. “I cannot,” the unnamed author writes, “remain silent
about how Zelensky is weakening Ukraine under the guise of war. As a
result of this new climate of fear, I must write these words under the
veil of anonymity—a necessary precaution against retaliation from the
very regime I once served.”
Ukraine has become a paradox: a nation fighting for its
sovereignty while dismantling its own democratic foundations. For years,
the West has indulged in the illusion of Zelensky as the “face of
democracy.” In reality, he has undermined our democracy, institutions,
and economy, making Ukraine much weaker in the face of an existential
threat—and in the process, destroying our nation’s motivation to fight
the Russian aggressor. . . . Today, Zelensky and his circle have
consolidated nearly total control over the state. They can manipulate
elections, suppress dissent, and imprison whomever they choose.
Independent media are officially banned from television and radio
airwaves, while opposition and anti-corruption activists active online
have been threatened with arrest.
This runs deeply counter to the approved narrative. Vladimir Putin
has been pre-selected for the role of villain. Introducing another
without ceremony only confuses people.
Many hundreds of thousands of people have died in the Ukraine war.
Donald Trump wants to end the slaughter by bringing Russia and Ukraine
to the bargaining table. Zelensky says that without “security
guarantees” from the United States, any deal is hollow. I thought Trump
himself countered that argument effectively in his exchanges with
Zelensky in the Oval Office. And Marco Rubio, speaking with Caitlin Collins later that day, patiently laid out the president’s strategy.
It is an open question, I think, whether Zelensky is primarily after
peace or a continued place holding the reins of power under the
gratifying klieg lights of media celebrity. His cavalier neglect of
Polonius’s sound advice about haberdashery is not encouraging.
DEI was the biggest con of the century, embedding bureaucratic hustlers in academia while fueling ideological extremism—now, as it collapses, new labels emerge to mask its failure.
The DEI Con has enriched thousands of hustlers nationwide. It has
embedded many hundreds of apparatchiks and supernumeraries in college
bureaucracies, and it will require herculean efforts to root them all
out. And it continues to attack the average person for the most dubious
of ideologically motivated reasons in “training” sessions, both on the
campuses and in corporate America.
I first heard the actual acronym DEI expressed while I was in a
7-11 on the campus during the early days of the COVID pandemic, and it
was two masked graduate students discussing the wonderful employment
possibilities of this new initiative, which sounded like someone trying
to monetize kumbaya. Already steeped in leftist ideology and its
tactic of renaming and relabeling its hooey for new generations of
suckers, I was only vaguely aware that this was just the latest brand
for the newest social justice foray in higher education.
“Diversity” had already been around for many years, its hustler
scratching at the university door. Not actual diversity, mind you, but
the skin-deep diversity of noxious racialism tarted-up with fake
Enlightenment discourse. This concept of “diversity, equity, inclusion”
quickly metastasized until it was everywhere, and this was no accident.
It was a bureaucratic initiative designed to anchor a new raft of social
justice programs as an inescapable presence on the campus.
It was no accident that it was violence and the threat of violence
that opened the door for this effervescence of DEI. It sounded absurd. I knew it was absurd; I knew it was a con. Most
people likely knew it was a con but then most people on the campuses
also knew to keep their mouths shut in a time of hair-trigger tempers
and performative chaos unleashed by well-funded activist groups. No
college administration wanted the summer violence of 2020 overflowing
onto the campuses. And so they opened the university to barbarian ideas
rather than the barbarians themselves.
This was the madness of crowds brought en masse onto the
campuses, and it was wildly successful. It achieved this success with a
superb combination of psychological factors—relentless hustling, a
primitive ideology suffused with mysticism and “indigenous knowledges,”
and the barely concealed violent urges of quasi-communist and
terroristic revolutionaries. All of this shielded from criticism and
even the mildest of questioning.
You knew something was terribly wrong with it.
Anyone on a college campus subjected to the mediocrity of a DEI hustler knew there was something wrong with it.
It was not noble. It was not idealistic. It was not the many
wonderful things its proponents said. It was one thing to the public,
and it was another altogether when enacted on the campuses. It was weird
and alien and hateful at its core, but the public is rarely exposed to
any of this. It was the classic Potemkin village offering, with a façade
masking a brute, racialist substance.
In other words, it was a con. In fact, it was the biggest Con Story
of the 21st century, with America’s universities the biggest suckers
imaginable. And the crowning achievement of Western civilization—the
modern university—tottered under the assault of mediocrity, racialism,
and pseudoscience.
I suppose that folks duped by the big cons will eventually retreat in
their embarrassment at having been fooled by one of the shadiest Con
Stories ever deployed. Even now, DEI is in retreat. As it plays out in
its final act, I assure you that it will dissipate in a flurry of new
acronyms and new labels designed to hide its failure.
Its proponents will roll out new slogans to replace the vapid
“Diversity is our strength.” Already, “inclusive excellence” is
supplanting DEI as this trusty acronym becomes freighted with failure.
The Con Story will morph and adapt. Reluctantly. Buzzwords will change,
new slogans will be coined, but the underlying ideology will remain the
same as it always has. It must serve yeoman’s duty for the Big Con.
Elaborate and elegant Con Stories have played major political roles
for centuries, baiting and hooking marks with promises of utopia. The
most convincing Con Story of them all is that of Karl Marx, whose
fabulous pseudoscience has duped millions of the credulous to support
murderous regimes in the name of “social justice.” It still does.
Con Stories are essential to convincing gullible people to act in
ways that simply make no sense to a normal person who is tethered to
reality. We saw an example of the Con Story’s power in December of 2024.
In the early morning hours, a Con Story duped a privileged
26-year-old by the name of Luigi Mangione to stalk and back-shoot a man
he’d never met—a man with wife and two children who guaranteed the
health care of hundreds of thousands of Americans through his company.
Mangione murdered on the streets of New York for the same reason that
extremist ideologues and world-changers always kill. His ideology told
him the target was a villain, and he acted.
Let’s be clear. People who think this way are dangerous. They are not
temperate, they do not compromise (except for the moment’s expediency),
and they are certainly not swayed by the better “argument.” These are
the kinds of people who hide inside a crowd, usually masked. Many of
them are disturbed mentally.
It’s easy to identify the people who are moving in the Mangione direction, inspired by corrupt ideas and urged to do something rather than sit idle. This is a social pathology, and examples of it are too numerous for any polity to be comfortable.
This is the core of successful social movements and social hustles—to
contrive a winning narrative out of confusing facts and isolated
incidents to portray a fictional pattern, a nationwide epidemic of,
well, something that can be used to make a buck. When the social
movement is also a social hustle, the combination is too powerful to
resist for con-artists and their suckers.
If you believe that there is no link between the kind of social
fantasy that motivates a Luigi Mangione to backshoot a man he doesn’t
know on a New York street and the kind of DEI fantasy that dictates a
racialist split on the college campus that slots persons into good and
evil, then try this test yourself. I give you a guarantee that persons
who cheer the killer Luigi Mangione for his assassination of Brian
Thompson also fully support DEI’s personnel, programs, policies,
and enforcement mechanisms on the college campuses. Go ahead, ask a
person who cheers the assassin if he also supports DEI.
You already know the answer, don’t you?
It’s because this type of person is animated by a vision of the world
crafted by some dead scribbler and is a prisoner of ideology,
forfeiting the reliable information provided by his own senses and
experience.
It’s what happens when a sucker falls hard for a Con Story.
***
Dr. Stanley K. Ridley, author of DEI Exposed: How the Biggest Con of the Century Almost Toppled Higher Education,
is Clinical Full Professor of Strategic Management at Drexel
University. He holds a Doctorate and Master’s in International Relations
and Security from Duke University and an International MBA from Temple
University. He is a Russian language linguist and former Military
Intelligence Officer.
According to the framework put forward by Trump's Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, half of the remaining hostages in Gaza, both living and deceased, would be freed on the first day.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets in Israel
with Steve Witkoff, U.S. special Middle East envoy, Jan. 29, 2025. Photo
by Maayan Toaf/GPO.
Following a high-level security meeting on
Saturday night, Jerusalem has adopted the temporary ceasefire framework
proposed by U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff for the Ramadan and
Passover period.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chaired
the discussion, which included Defense Minister Israel Katz, senior
security officials and the negotiating team, according to an Israeli
government statement.
Under the U.S. proposal, half of the
remaining hostages (living and deceased) are to be freed on the first
day; the rest will be released if a “permanent” ceasefire is agreed
upon.
The ceasefire may be extended to facilitate negotiations, as gaps between the parties remain wide.
If talks prove ineffective, Israel retains
the right to resume military operations after 42 days, a condition
backed in a side letter by the previous Biden administration and
supported by the current Trump administration.
The statement stressed that while
Jerusalem has accepted the U.S.-proposed framework, Hamas has rejected
it. However, it continues, Israel is prepared to engage in detailed
negotiations if Hamas reverses its position.
Hamas
has refused to extend the first phase of the hostage agreement with
Israel and is demanding an immediate transition to negotiations on Phase
2.
A senior Hamas official, Mahmoud Mardawi,
on Sunday criticized Israel’s adoption of the Witkoff ceasefire plan,
accusing it of bypassing previously signed agreements. He stressed the
importance of moving forward with the second phase of the deal to secure
the release of prisoners and bring stability to the region.
The Israeli government announced on Sunday morning that it has suspended all humanitarian aid to Gaza after the Hamas rejection.
Netanyahu announced that no goods or
supplies would enter Gaza until further notice, reaffirming that
Jerusalem will not agree to a ceasefire without the release of its
hostages.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said
on Sunday that Jerusalem had agreed to the American proposal to extend a
framework for 50 days during Ramadan and Passover, in exchange for the
release of hostages.
“Unfortunately, Hamas rejected the
proposal. As the first phase of the framework has ended—we have halted
the entry of trucks into Gaza,” Sa’ar explained during a joint press
briefing following a meeting with his Croatian counterpart, Gordan
Grlić-Radman, in Jerusalem.
“We wouldn’t do it for free. There is a
side letter from the previous U.S. administration that explicitly states
that there is no automatic transition between phases,” Sa’ar continued.
“We are prepared to continue negotiations, including for the second
phase—based on our principles, in exchange for the release of hostages.
It is important to emphasize that we have fulfilled our commitments up
to the very last day.”
In a statement on Saturday, Hamas
declared: “With the completion of the first phase of the ceasefire and
prisoner exchange agreement, we reaffirm our full commitment to
implementing all terms of the agreement across all its stages and
details.”
The statement continued: “We call on the
international community to pressure Israel to fully commit to the
agreement and immediately enter Phase 2.”
The Washington Free Beacon reported on Friday that Jerusalem is preparing to resume the
war in Gaza in four to six weeks. This “decisive” campaign, aimed to
wipe out Hamas, could be paused if the terrorist group’s leadership
agrees to free hostages, or agrees to disarm and go into exile, the
report added.
Israel’s government on Sunday morning
approved an extension of a 2023 law authorizing the call-up of up to
400,000 military reservists.
Ramadan started on Friday night and runs until March 29, while Passover begins on April 12 and ends on April 19.
Israeli assessments indicate that
Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza are holding 59 hostages. Of these,
24 are believed to be alive—all men—while 35, including three women, are
believed to be deceased. Two of the living hostages and three of the
deceased are foreign nationals.
Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover aims to end woke culture in the arts, sparking leftist outrage while promising a return to traditional American values.
President Trump’s recent announcement that he was seizing control of
the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts by installing himself
as head of the Center’s board of directors and long-time confidant Ric
Grenell as interim executive director was met with predictable howls of
outrage from the cultural left.
Kerry Kennedy, niece of JFK and president of the ultra-woke Robert F.
Kennedy Human Rights organization, wasted little time in weighing in
about the fascist threat to democracy that Trump’s move portended,
telling the leftist British tabloid The Guardian that the board
takeover “is very dangerous for democracy and has grave implications
for what will happen not just at the Kennedy Center but for government
funding of the arts across the country.” An anonymous long-standing
board member of the Center elaborated that “this coup is antithetical to
the founding of the institution. Thrusting the Center into a political
space like this is unconscionable. This is not what we signed up for.”
Indeed, what they “signed up for” was using the prominent platform of
the Kennedy Center to advocate for the latest fashionable leftist
cultural trends and as a bully pulpit to denigrate all the traditional
American values that President Trump and his populist movement
represent. A sampling of the Kennedy Center performances from the past
few years includes “Dragtastic Dress-up,” a flamboyantly obscene drag
show marketed to LGBTQ youth, and “Finn,” a musical described on the
Kennedy Center’s website as the story of the coming of age of a “young
shark who just wants to be his true self” who “loves sparkles and bright
colors despite being a shark.” High culture indeed.
Trump had evidently had enough of the embarrassing woke circus.“I
have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the
Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision
for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” he tweeted out on Truth Social.
“NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA, ONLY THE BEST
…Ric shares my Vision for a GOLDEN AGE of American Arts and Culture, and
will be overseeing the daily operations of the Center.”
Scores of advisors and “stars” have subsequently disassociated
themselves from the Center or canceled their shows in protest, in what
precisely no one considers to be an irrevocable loss to American
culture. Ironically, in the same story characterizing Trump as a threat
to democracy and artistic integrity for calling a halt to
instrumentalizing the Kennedy Center to promote an aggressive cultural
leftism that offends the vast majority of taxpayers, the Guardian includes
an attempted swipe at the president’s antiquated cultural tastes. With a
“cultural palate frozen in the 20th Century,” they jeer, “Trump is
known to admire singers such as Elvis Presley and films such as Citizen
Kane, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, and The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly.” Amazingly, citing Trump’s admiration for some of the greatest
achievements of popular culture in the 20th Century in preference to the
widely despised woke agitprop favored by our ruling elite is supposed
to be some kind of insult. Evidently, Trump shares the assessment of the
great Bob Dylan about the state of American cinema, who recently wrote,
“People keep talking about making America great again. Maybe they
should start with the movies.”
When asked about his boss’s thinking regarding the takeover, interim
executive director Grenell said it was simple: “If you’re an arts
institution and you’re asking for public dollars, then you’ve got to
give the public what they want,” not something that deliberately offends
the sensibilities of the vast majority of voters and citizens.
The late Andrew Breitbart once observed, in an oft-quoted phrase,
that “politics is downstream from culture.” This is true, of course, in
the important sense that the institutions influencing cultural attitudes
and beliefs (including our universities and our entertainment industry)
are vitally important in shaping narratives, and hence political
outcomes.
In another sense, however, politics can, and does, shape culture. The
popular culture of the Camelot era of the JFK presidency was heavily
influenced by Jack and Jackie Kennedy’s White House and its somewhat
self-conscious emphasis on sophistication, high culture, and the arts.
Ronald Reagan’s “Morning in America” politics of patriotic optimism and
American renewal characterized much of 1980s popular culture in America,
from movies such as Indiana Jones, Rambo, Rocky, Star Wars, Back to the
Future, and Ferris Bueller to musicals like Big River and television
shows such as The Dukes of Hazard and The Cosby Show. Undoubtedly, the
popular culture in many ways reflected the political tenor of the time.
Despite the sneers and jeers of our cultural elite, the prospects
that President Trump’s takeover of our premier cultural platform will
lead to an American cultural renaissance are actually relatively high.
If not a full-fledged return to the “golden age” of American dominance
of the popular arts, it at least augurs the end of an aggressive
wokeism, whose very measure of success is the degree to which it offends
popular taste and the commonly held values of Western civilization.
***
Rob Wasinger is co-founder of The Ragnar Group. He was director
of Senate relations for the Trump transition team in 2016 and the first
White House liaison at the State Department during the Trump
administration.
Israeli security has reported that 82% of terrorists released in the past have returned to terrorism.
The following is the tragic history
of how Israel has released terrorist murderer Aladdin Al-Bazian in
three different hostage exchange deals:
1981 – Arrested
Aladdin Al-Bazian "was imprisoned for terrorist acts." [Ma'ariv, May 6, 1986]
1985 – Released
Al-Bazian "released in the prisoner exchange deal with Ahmed Jibril's organization." [Ma'ariv, May 6, 1986]
1986 – Arrested
Al-Bazian was apprehended "for the murder of Zehava Ben-Ovadia as well as for sniper attacks" [Ma'ariv May 6, 1986] and "sentenced to life in prison." [Ma'ariv, November 5, 1986]
2011 – Released
Al-Bazian was released as part of the Gilad Shalit exchange deal. [Jerusalem Post, October 19, 2011]
2014 – Arrested
Al-Bazian was arrested and re-sentenced to life in prison. [Ynet, July 16, 2014]
2025 – Released
Al-Bazian
was released a third time in the latest hostage extortion deal. To
prevent him from returning to terrorism this time, Israel expelled him
to Egypt.
Note: Israel has released many other murderers in the
recent Hamas extortion deal. Most of them returned to their homes in
Judea and Samaria or Gaza. Israeli security has reported that 82% of terrorists released in the past have returned to terrorism. Israel plans to enforce tighter security measures to prevent further tragedies.
The invitation comes after the U.S. president watched Sharabi's statements to Israeli television regarding his 491 days in captivity.
Hamas terrorists parade Israeli hostages Eli Sharabi (right), Or Levy
and Ohad Ben Ami (left) on a stage before handing them over to the
International Red Cross, Feb 8, 2025. Photo by Abed Rahim
Khatib/Flash90.
U.S. President Donald Trump has invited
Eli Sharabi and other Israeli freed hostages to a meeting at the White
House after viewing portions of Sharabi’s testimony regarding his time
in captivity. The meeting is scheduled for Tuesday.
Sharabi, 52, who was released by Hamas on Feb. 8 after 491 days in captivity in Gaza, has become a leading voice among the freed hostages. His emotional account of his time in captivity has gained international attention.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News,
Sharabi described in detail the harsh conditions of his captivity, the
isolation, the lack of food and medicine and the violence he endured.
He spoke about the difficult days
underground, shackled in iron chains. “Do you know what it is to open a
refrigerator? To take a piece of fruit or vegetable or a slice of bread?
It’s an entire world,” he said.
Eli lost his wife and daughters in Be’eri
during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack. His brother Yossi was taken captive
during the massacre and murdered in captivity.
“If there’s one thing I’ve been saying to
everyone from the very beginning—to my family, the medical team, my
friends—it’s that no one has to walk on eggshells around me,” he said
during the interview. “We talk about everything. About the loss, about
the captivity—about anything people want.”
Yisrael Beytenu head Avigdor Liberman shares his vision for Egypt's role in Trump's proposal to safely evacuate Gazans and secure a lasting peace.
Avigdor Liberman over a backdrop of the Gaza Strip.(photo credit: Canva, YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)
There are 2.2. million people in the Gaza Strip,
residing in an area of 360 sq.km., in extremely crowded conditions,
without ample employment opportunities, industry, or a port. Sinai,
which is adjacent to Gaza, has an area of 60,000 sq.km. (close to 170
times larger than Gaza) with a population of 600,000. Gaza’s population
density is 600 times larger than Sinai’s.
Ethnically
and culturally, the people in Gaza and Sinai are alike. They speak the
same language, share the same religion, and many even share family ties.
This is particularly apparent in Rafah, which straddles the border, splitting many families on either side of the city.
Sinai
largely serves as an arena for drug and weapons smugglers and human
trafficking. Its vast territory is rendered idle, with little to no
agriculture or solar energy, despite its great potential for both. Even
the El-Arish port is largely empty with limited capacity. Turning
El-Arish into Gaza’s main port would be a boon for everyone: The people
of Egypt and of Gaza would benefit greatly.
Thus,
Sinai presents an efficient and practical solution for the Palestinians
in Gaza, which would not entail the migration of millions of people
across large distances. In accordance with US President Donald Trump’s
initiative, one million people from Gaza could relocate to Sinai and be
set on a path towards gainful employment, economic growth, and
prosperity.
PALESTINIANS WALK past the ruins of houses destroyed during the
Israel-Hamas War, in Gaza City, last month. (credit: REUTERS/DAWOUD ABU
ALKAS)
It must be emphasized that the sole
requirement for such a solution is to insist on the principle of freedom
of movement. Claims that voluntary emigration of people from Gaza is in
any way objectionable – morally or politically – are disingenuous and
hypocritical, given the open arms with which refugees have been accepted
internationally from other combat arenas, such as Syria or Ukraine.
All
that is needed is for Egypt to open the border at Rafah and desist from
its refusal to let Gazans out. The moment it does so, the large
majority of Gaza’s inhabitants, probably as many as 80%, will leave of
their own volition.
In
recent years, Egypt has grown increasingly dependent on the US and
Israel. Without generous American financial and security assistance, it
is doubtful whether the current Egyptian regime could function or even
survive.
When
ISIS gained a foothold in Sinai several years ago, it was Israel,
specifically its air force and special forces, that got the job done and
helped Egypt overcome the severe problem. Today, when Egypt faces
criticism in Congress and calls to curtail US assistance due to its
human rights record, it is to Israel that it turns for assistance.
No more one-sided relationship with Egypt
Thus,
the relationship cannot continue to be one-sided. If we want to solve
the problem in Gaza, we need to get Egypt to play its part. It is not
clear whether Egypt wants to solve the problem in Gaza or perpetuate it.
Judging by Egypt’s conduct, one gains the impression that Egypt’s
strategy is to preserve the problem to keep Israel occupied with it.
In this way, Egypt maintains its status as a mediator between Israel and Hamas,
while at the same time profiting from smuggled goods passing from Sinai
to Gaza as well as from goods passing “officially” through the Rafah
crossing.
In practice, Egypt collaborates completely with Hamas. All of the
positions they convey in the context of mediation efforts are
coordinated with Hamas. Moreover, Egypt’s deployment in Sinai is well in
excess of that permitted by the security annex of the Camp David
Accords. In some cases, they have done so with Israel’s permission; in
other cases, they have unilaterally exceeded the manpower and weaponry
permitted by the agreement.
While
Israel is preoccupied with Hamas, Egypt has been engaged in a
dizzyingly rapid force buildup, purchasing new weapons in large
quantities. Moreover, in all of Egypt’s war exercises, it is Israel that
serves as the target adversary, not Libya, Saudi Arabia, or any other
country.
The
entire framework of relations between the US and Egypt and between
Israel and Egypt needs to be reviewed. Unfortunately, in this domain, as
in others that have cost Israel dearly, the political and security
establishment is beholden to an outdated approach, unwilling to consider
new ideas, and, in particular, unwilling to contemplate posing demands
to the Egyptian side.
The
overall responsibility for the Gaza Strip should rest with Egypt, as it
did prior to 1967, under the auspices of an Arab League mandate. These
are 22 Arab countries that can back the initiative both financially and
from a military and organizational standpoint. Egypt would be
responsible for the provision of electricity, water, fuel, and
commercial goods into Gaza to the roughly one million Palestinians who
would remain there.
Trump’s
initiative pertaining to the relocation of Palestinians offers, for the
first time, a genuine opportunity to change things for the better by
providing a real and practical solution to the core problems that have
cumulated in Gaza. It opens the path to curtailment of terror, alongside
a pragmatic and responsible management of the area to foster
employment, economic growth, and prosperity.
We
must make an effort – the US and Israel – to convince the Egyptians to
play an active role in implementing Trump’s bold vision and to
confidently rebut arguments raised against it, which at their core are
little more than a reflection of conventional, unimaginative thinking.
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location.
"Typically, kidnapped girls
in Pakistan, some as young as 10, are abducted, forced to convert to
Islam and raped under cover of Islamic 'marriages' and are then
pressured to record false statements in favor of the kidnappers, rights
advocates say. Judges routinely ignore documentary evidence related to
the children's ages, handing them back to kidnappers as their 'legal
wives.' — Morning Star News, February 7, 2025, Pakistan.
In just the three weeks between Christmas 2024 and these attacks
of Jan. 15, at least 128 Christians have been slaughtered in the North
Kivu region alone. — Congo.
"Paki establishment has created a nation where the rights of
minorities are trampled upon with alarming regularity. By empowering
hardline groups and allowing them free rein, the Army has nurtured a
culture of extremism that targets Christians, Hindus, Ahmadis, and other
minorities with brutal precision.... Police rarely act to protect
victims, while legal loopholes and vague religious laws, such as the
infamous blasphemy law, are weaponized against them. These tools of
oppression serve not only to silence dissent but also to provide cover
for the perpetrators of violence. In the case of minority girls, the
judicial system often works to retain victims against their will,
legitimizing forced conversions and marriages under the pretext of
religious freedom. This legal framework is no accident—it is the product
of an establishment that has long relied on radical Islamists as a tool
of power. These alliances have turned Pakistan into a hotbed of
extremism, destabilizing not just its internal fabric but the entire
region. The unchecked violence against minorities is not an aberration
but the inevitable outcome of decades of Army-sponsored radicalization."
— News Intervention, January 7, 2025, Pakistan.
"There is also a new emphasis on targeting Coptic women who
suffer physical or mental health problems, which make them doubly
vulnerable. This enables the abductors to create confusion regarding the
circumstances of a disappeared Coptic girl, creating a narrative of a
love story utilizing existing relationships and communications, despite
orchestrating the entire situation..." — Coptic Solidarity, January 29,
2025, Egypt.
Court documents make clear that these sentencings revolve around religion. — Iran.
According to multiple sources, non-Muslim students, many of whom
are Christian, are being "subjected to a variety of tactics designed to
induce conversion." — Malaysia.
"Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state religion
and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according to the
U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with sharia
(Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for
non-Muslims. The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law
according to mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic
extremist group in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and
adheres to the teaching." — Morning Star News, February 7, 2025.
"Christians in Indonesia say they are routinely pressured to make
extra payments known as 'grease' to local officials or residents in
order to obtain construction permits in the 83.3-percent Muslim country.
When Muslim residents opposed to the St. Anthony church construction
demonstrated in the street, one Catholic commented on social media,
'Those who demonstrate do it because there was no grease available.'" — Morning Star News, February 8, 2025.
According to an Indonesian attorney speaking on condition of
anonymity, this "grease" is "a kind of bribery paid to protestors to
keep them from blocking church construction, though not legally
acknowledged even when it is paid in full view of police."
During the church funeral of Lucien Haddad, a Christian man
who was "murdered by roving gangs of jihadists plaguing minorities" in
Latakia, Syria, other Muslims connected with the ruling regime forced
the congregation to recite the Koran's Fatiha chapter — which
refers to Christians as "those who are astray" — before mourners could
proceed with the Lord's Prayer. Pictured: Jihadist gunmen deploy outside
the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St George in Latakia on December 25,
2024. (Photo by Aaref Watad/AFP via Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of January 2025.
The Muslim Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls
Pakistan: On Jan 5, Muhammad Ali, a 35-year-old married Muslim man, abducted
Saba Masih, the 12-year-old daughter of his Christian neighbor. He
forcibly converted her to Islam, and "married" her through a fake Muslim
certificate stating that the girl is 18-year-old, even though "Saba's
physical appearance also doesn't match the age stated in the alleged
marriage and Islamic conversion certificates," said
her father, Shafique Masih: "Whoever facilitated this sham conversion
and marriage should be equally punished along with Ali." When he first
reported the kidnapping to police, "the police deliberately misstated
Saba's age," writing down that she was 16, even though the father kept
insisting she was 12. As of last reporting, authorities were intentionally delaying:
"The police told me that they needed official permission
to go to Sindh Province to recover Saba, but three weeks have passed and
there's no progress in the matter. I'm visiting the police station on a
daily basis to plead with them to act, but it seems now that they are
not serious in finding my minor daughter."
A Christian lawmaker in Punjab Assembly, Ejaz Augustine, expressed concern over the increasing cases of abduction:
"Forced conversions and marriages of minor girls have
become a serious crisis for the Christian community. A bill
criminalizing child marriages is pending in the Punjab Assembly since
April 2024, but it is very unfortunate that despite our repeated demands
for its passage, there's been no movement in this regard."
Separately, on Jan 20, three Muslim men broke into a Christian household and kidnapped
Ariha, a 12-year-old girl, at gunpoint. According to Sumera, the girl's
mother, the ringleader of the abductors is their 40-year-old neighbor,
Sajjad Baloch. When the mother went to the Baloch family and pled for
them to intervene and help retrieve Ariha, "The
next day I received a phone call from Sajjad in which he threatened to
rape Ariha and to sell her to sex traffickers if we pursued the matter."
Although the abductor's family continued to assure the Christian
family that they would help, on Jan. 24, they simply relocated and
disappeared. According
to the girl's father, Gulzar, "We visit the police station every day
with the hope that we will get some information about our child, but so
far there's no breakthrough." Gulzar further "expressed concern that
Ariha could become a victim of sexual exploitation through forced
conversion to Islam and involuntary marriage to a man triple her age."
In yet another similar but separate story, on Jan. 9, five Muslims, most of them women, kidnapped a 14-year-old Christian girl. Her father, Sharif Masih, believes that her abductors will forcibly convert and marry her off:
"Saneha was lured out of the house by a Muslim girl whose
family had recently moved to our neighborhood. A neighbor, Rehan
Razaque, saw her being bundled into a van by the accused, which included
two women, one of whom was the mother of the girl who had brought
Saneha out of her home."
One of the suspects, the father said, was Muhammad Dildar, who had
been making unwelcome advances toward his daughter, which she
unequivocally rebuffed. Although police eventually arrested two
suspects, and "despite repeated pleas to the police, they are not making
any effort to recover Saneha or arrest the other accused," the father said:
"We even gave them some cell phone numbers to trace the
whereabouts of Dildar, but nothing has been done to find him... The
investigating officer of the case, Assistant Sub-Inspector Ihsan Ullah,
is making no effort to track the accused. It's been nearly two weeks
Saneha has been missing, and we fear that the accused will force her to
convert to Islam and marry Dildar to give a legal cover to their crime."
Since the abduction, his wife has fallen ill and been hospitalized twice over worry for her kidnapped daughter.
Discussing the plight of these Christian girls in Muslim Pakistan, one report states that,
"Typically, kidnapped girls in Pakistan, some as young as
10, are abducted, forced to convert to Islam and raped under cover of
Islamic 'marriages' and are then pressured to record false statements in
favor of the kidnappers, rights advocates say. Judges routinely ignore
documentary evidence related to the children's ages, handing them back
to kidnappers as their 'legal wives.'
"Recorded cases of abduction and forced conversion numbered 136 in
2023, the highest annual total ever, according to the Center for Social
Justice... Unofficial sources suggest that forced religious conversions
linked to forced marriages affect as many as 1,000 girls belonging to
religious minorities annually."
Egypt: On Jan. 29, Coptic Solidarity published a 53-page report on "The Epidemic of Abductions and Forced Disappearance of Coptic Women and Girls," written by Sonja Dahlmans. According to a Coptic Solidarity:
"The report sheds light on the evolving tactics of Muslim
trafficking groups who target Coptic women and minor girls for forced
conversion and marriage.... Many hundreds of Coptic women have been
forcibly disappeared in the last decades in Egypt, but government
officials and legislators in the West have been hesitant to speak out...
A major change in tactics by these Islamic conversion groups (assisted
by implicit or explicit support by certain authorities) is the use of
grooming and/or luring instead of just utilizing abrupt abductions.
There is also a new emphasis on targeting Coptic women who suffer
physical or mental health problems, which make them doubly vulnerable.
This enables the abductors to create confusion regarding the
circumstances of a disappeared Coptic girl, creating a narrative of a
love story utilizing existing relationships and communications, despite
orchestrating the entire situation... Coptic women and their bodies are
sometimes [also] used to shame and/or avenge the entire Coptic
community."
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: Headlines of the "pure genocide" of Christians from the month of January follow:
Congo: On Jan. 15, at least 53 Christians were massacred,
and 16 abducted, over the course of two jihadist raids. The Islamic
State Central Africa Province (ISCAP, also known as the Allied
Democratic Forces) announced the killings in two social media posts.
According to one, "By the grace of Allah Almighty, the soldiers of the
Caliphate attacked the village of Makoko in the Lubero region and killed
41 Christians [who] were stabbed with knives." The other post said 12
Christians were killed in the village of Masakuki. In just the three
weeks between Christmas 2024 and these attacks of Jan. 15, at least 128
Christians have been slaughtered in the North Kivu region alone.
Syria: According to a Jan. 27 post
on X, during the church funeral of Lucien Haddad, a Christian man who
was "murdered by roving gangs of jihadists plaguing minorities" in
Latakia, other Muslims connected with the ruling regime forced the
congregation to recite the Koran's Fatiha chapter—which refers to Christians as "those who are astray" — before mourners could proceed with the Lord's Prayer.
Pakistan: On Jan. 6, "radical Islamists" murdered a Christian
mother and severely injured her daughter in the attack. After giving the
few known details of the attack, which occurred in Gujranwala, the report elaborates on the causes behind such nonstop abuses against Christians and other non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan:
"The rise of such heinous crimes stems directly from a
Pak Army apparatus that has systematically allowed radical Islamists to
wreak havoc on vulnerable communities. Paki establishment has created a
nation where the rights of minorities are trampled upon with alarming
regularity. By empowering hardline groups and allowing them free rein,
the Army has nurtured a culture of extremism that targets Christians,
Hindus, Ahmadis, and other minorities with brutal precision. The
systemic failures of law enforcement and the judiciary further amplify
the plight of minorities. Police rarely act to protect victims, while
legal loopholes and vague religious laws, such as the infamous blasphemy
law, are weaponized against them. These tools of oppression serve not
only to silence dissent but also to provide cover for the perpetrators
of violence. In the case of minority girls, the judicial system often
works to retain victims against their will, legitimizing forced
conversions and marriages under the pretext of religious freedom. This
legal framework is no accident—it is the product of an establishment
that has long relied on radical Islamists as a tool of power. These
alliances have turned Pakistan into a hotbed of extremism, destabilizing
not just its internal fabric but the entire region. The unchecked
violence against minorities is not an aberration but the inevitable
outcome of decades of Army-sponsored radicalization."
Muslim Attacks on Christian Freedom: Apostasy, Blasphemy, and Proselytism Laws
Iran: According to "The Tip of the Iceberg: Documented Rights Violations Against Christians," a report published by Article 18
in January, the persecution of Christians, almost all of whom are
converts, is worsening. For instance, Islamic courts handed out six
times more prison time to Christians in 2024 than in 2023. Also in 2024,
96 Christians were sentenced to a total of 263 years in prison for
practicing their faith; by comparison, only 22 were sentenced to a total
of 43 years in 2023. Court documents make clear that these sentencings
revolve around religion. For example, four converts were sentenced to 10
years each in prison for "engaging in missionary activities." Another
Christian was given a 15-year prison sentence for "undermining national
security and promoting Zionist Christianity." Others were charged with
engaging in "propaganda contrary to the holy religion of Islam."
Egypt: Two Christian men, Abdulbaqi Said Abdo and Nour Gerges,
who "unjustly" spent more than three years in prison "on blasphemy
charges," to quote
the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
(USCIRF), were finally released on Jan. 31. They were originally
arrested in 2021 after participating in a Facebook group dedicated to
helping Muslim converts. Speaking after his release, Abdulbaqi lamented his lost years in prison:
"It isn't right that a government should tear me away
from my family, keep me in these awful conditions, only because of the
faith in which I peacefully choose to believe."
During their more than three years' imprisonment, Nour was
"tortured by prison guards," while Abdulbaqi "was sent to solitary
confinement after a fellow inmate told authorities he had written down
Bible passages." Although the two Christian men have been released,
Egypt has not dropped the charges against them.
Somalia: On Jan. 20, after a Muslim woman found that her husband had a Christian over to study the Bible, she beat him
with a heavy iron object which caused him to lose his speech. A month
earlier, around Christmas time, when 35-year-old Abdulai Ramadan had
become Christian and invited a few other believers over, his wife said
to him, "The religion that you have brought to our family is a big
embarrassment to family, relatives and Islamic community."
He responded, "I refuse to recant my faith in Christ. I am willing
and ready to provide all that you need, but to renounce my faith in
Christ is what I cannot do." A month later, on the day of the attack,
when she returned home from visiting her parents, she learned from one
of her younger children that Abdulai had a friend over, and they studied
the Bible and prayed.
The Muslim wife became irate, saying, "We had agreed that no
Christian activities are to take place in our home, but instead you
continued doing the opposite," at which point she hit him with a heavy
metallic object, as one of their children recalled:
"My father fell down only to regain consciousness the
following day in the morning. My mother left early in the morning
without telling us where she was going. My father removed his phone but
could not ring with it. He used some sign language and showed me the
person to call."
A pastor soon arrived, and according to him, while he was there,
Ramadan's wife and five of her relatives returned. On seeing the
Christian preacher, the wife began to cry, "Bad religion, bad
religion—go away." The pastor recounted:
"On seeing the mood, I tried to cool the situation, but
the wife continued insulting the husband as an infidel. The husband
could not utter a word. The in-laws were also demanding a divorce to
take their daughter back home with the children."
When other Muslim neighbors and passersby began to congregate, according to the pastor:
"I started sensing danger and quickly put Abdulai inside
my car and drove away as the wife was uttering insults. The wife said,
'Disappear immediately and never come back again.' Ramadan had a deep
cut in his forehead, his clothes were soaked in blood, and he was in
great pain."
According to the report:
"Upon arriving at the hospital, a doctor determined that
Ramadan had lost his speech due to the impact of the metal object that
hit him, the pastor said. Ramadan, who has four children ages 11, 8, 6
and 3, is still receiving hospital treatment."
The report adds:
"Somalia's constitution establishes Islam as the state
religion and prohibits the propagation of any other religion, according
to the U.S. State Department. It also requires that laws comply with
sharia (Islamic law) principles, with no exceptions in application for
non-Muslims.
The death penalty for apostasy is part of Islamic law according to
mainstream schools of Islamic jurisprudence. An Islamic extremist group
in Somalia, Al Shabaab, is allied with Al Qaeda and adheres to the
teaching."
Pakistan: On Jan. 26, police arrested
a mentally handicapped Christian man on blasphemy charges, despite
being aware of his condition. Farhan Javed Masih, 28, was arrested after
a local villager, Muhammad Bilal Khan, accused him of speaking against
Islam, according to the Christian man's mother, Parveen:
"We were at home when Bilal and some other Muslims came
and told us that Farhan had committed blasphemy. I pleaded with them to
forgive him keeping in mind his mental state, but they did not listen to
me and called the police, which arrested him."
The mother, who was widowed six years ago, said that her son's mental
condition worsened following his father's death, at which point he also
turned to and became addicted to drugs: he was eventually fired and
began to "loiter around the village all day saying absurd things. The
entire village knows that he is of unsound mind." The man who accused
Farhan of blasphemy says he was watering his crops when the Christian
appeared "and started speaking absurdities." Farhan reportedly said:
"The holy personages of your [Muslim] religion are false,
and I don't want to live among Muslims, because you belong to inferior
status."
If convicted, he faces between 5 and 10 years imprisonment.
Sudan: According to a Jan. 16 report,
"the Muslim family of a young man... has disowned him and compelled his
wife to divorce him because he converted to Christianity."
Problems began last year when a "hardline Muslim" known only as
"Sheikh Amaar" first learned about the conversion. He threatened the
young man (whose name was withheld for security reasons) "to return to
Islam or face serious consequences."
Before long his family also turned against him, telling him "You are
no longer a member of our family, because you have changed your
religion." He eventually left his family home and village and, last
reported, was living in hiding.
Generic Muslim Persecution of Christians
Malaysia: According to a Jan. 16 report,
the Malaysian government, "in collaboration with the Islamic
institution JAKIM, is employing tactics to pressure non-Muslim students
into converting to Islam during university orientation programs."
According to multiple sources, non-Muslim students, many of whom are
Christian, are being "subjected to a variety of tactics designed to
induce conversion." These include:
"Religious indoctrination: Students are exposed to
intense religious teachings and propaganda that promote the virtues of
Islam and the drawbacks of other faiths.
"Social pressure: Students are also made to feel isolated or excluded
if they do not express interest in conversion. They are offered social
or academic benefits in exchange for converting.
"Threats or intimidation: In some cases, students are threatened with
negative consequences, such as academic repercussions or social
ostracism, if they refuse to convert."
The report adds that those students who do convert to Islam are told
to keep the conversion secret from their non-Muslim families.
Sudan: Authorities prevented
internally displaced Christians from celebrating Christmas in the park
where they had taken refuge. They initially gave the Christian refugees
permission, but kept making the requirements more stringent. At first,
they said all the Christians must do is "refrain from using microphones
and other sound system equipment," which they happily agreed to. But
when Christmas Day came, the authorities' demands and strictures grew,
until the planned celebrations were canceled altogether.
Indonesia: On Jan. 17, 24 and 29, hundreds of Muslims took to the streets to protest
the presence of two evangelists at a major gospel event, Peter
Youngren, founder in Canada of World Impact Ministries, and Swiss
evangelist Jacob Wendesten. The event, Friendship Festival, "was
originally planned as an inter-faith event, but the uproar from Islamic
groups reportedly compelled authorities to limit it to Christian
activities."
Muslims objected to Wendesten because he once made reference in a
video to a "small radical Muslim group." Youngren's crime was that he
"published a book on efforts to achieve (spiritual) 'victory' in
(spiritual) 'enemy territory." According to the report, Muslims
protested in part to preserve "harmony":
"Hundreds of Muslims... launched the Jan. 29
demonstration in front of the Aston Hotel, where Youngren and Wendesten
were staying in Palu. They reportedly blocked the Friendship Festival
venue and called for it to be cancelled. The local Indonesia Ulema
Council ... and Muslim figures from other organizations also reportedly
repudiated the event on grounds of security and harmony..."
Separately, Muslims "threatened massive protests against the construction of a Catholic church," according to a Jan. 9 report,
"in the latest standoff over Christian worship in the world's largest
Muslim country." The Muslims also said they were preparing to sue the
partially constructed Sang Hyang Hurip St. Anthony Catholic Church for
obtaining building permits which local Muslims claim were granted through "improper means and without their permission." While discussing this development, one report stated:
"Christians in Indonesia say they are routinely pressured
to make extra payments known as 'grease' to local officials or
residents in order to obtain construction permits in the 83.3-percent
Muslim country. When Muslim residents opposed to the St. Anthony church
construction demonstrated in the street, one Catholic commented on
social media, 'Those who demonstrate do it because there was no grease available.'"
According
to an Indonesian attorney speaking on condition of anonymity, this
"grease" is "a kind of bribery paid to protestors to keep them from
blocking church construction, though not legally acknowledged even when
it is paid in full view of police."
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of
Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such
persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place
irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents
that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.
