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."
The military said the incident took place Friday while CENTCOM and "partner forces" defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks. The identities of the fallen and missing service members have not been disclosed.
The United States Central Command said Saturday that two American service members were killed in Jordan this week and one service member is missing in action.
The military said the incident took place Friday while CENTCOM and
"partner forces" defended against Iranian ballistic missile and drone
attacks. The identities of the fallen and missing service members have
not been disclosed.
Four other American service members were medically evacuated to
hospitals in Jordan but have since been discharged. An undisclosed
number of other U.S. personnel were evaluated for minor injuries and
have returned to duty.
"Out of respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional
information, including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24
hours after the next of kin have been notified," CENTCOM said.
Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.
The Defense Department's combat command unit also said the strikes were to further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and "swiftly punish" Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces who launched them.
U.S. Central Command said Saturday evening that the U.S. military –
at the request of President Trump – began launching new airstrikes
against Iran as punishment for overnight attacks against American
service members in Jordan.
CENTCOM said the attacks
began at 6 p.m. ET, at the "Commander in Chief's "direction." The
Defense Department's combat command unit also said the strikes were to
further degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping in the
Strait of Hormuz and "swiftly punish" Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
forces who launched them.
The announcement came hours after CENTCOM announced that two American
service members were killed in Jordan on Friday and one was still
missing in action while they and "partner forces" were defending against
Iranian ballistic missile and drone attacks.
CENTCOM carries out seventh consecutive night of strikes on Iran; two U.S. service members killed in Jordan.
U.S. Air Force Boeing KC-135
Stratotanker aerial refueling aircraft are parked at Ben-Gurion
International Airport near Tel Aviv on Feb. 25, 2026. Photo by Chaim
Goldberg/Flash90.
The U.S. is sending dozens of refueling planes to Israel ahead of a
possible expansion of military operations against the Islamic Republic
of Iran.
In coordination with the Israel Defense Forces, the U.S.
has decided to reinforce the “existing fleet of aerial refueling
aircraft stationed in Israel with additional refueling aircraft,” an IDF
official told JNS on Saturday.
The move is a part of a U.S. adjustment to its “force posture in the region,” the official continued.
The
refueling aircraft will land at Israeli Air Force bases to “minimize
disruptions to civilian air traffic,” as well as due to “operational and
logistical considerations.
“The preparations at the Israeli Air
Force bases were made possible through advance planning conducted
jointly by the IDF and the U.S. The IDF is making every effort to
facilitate the deployment of U.S. forces in Israel while safeguarding
the State of Israel’s international civil aviation needs,” the official
added.
U.S. President Donald Trump is weighing a massive offensive
in Iran, after tit-for-tat strikes that have reemerged in the region in
light of disputes regarding the free and safe transit of commercial
vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, Axios reported.
Among the
targets being considered are Iranian infrastructure facilities such as
power plants and additional strikes on Tehran’s nuclear sites, the
report continued.
The president has not made a final decision yet but could order wider military acts in the coming days, according to Axios.
The
U.S. currently has some 60 refueling aircraft in Israel, about half at
Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv and the other half at
Ramon Airport in southern Israel, the report read. The U.S. wants to
send several dozen more, matching the total number of refueling aircraft
stationed in Israel at the beginning of the war on Feb. 28.
American casualties in Jordan
Meanwhile,
U.S. strikes on Saturday hit a water desalination plant in the city of
Jask in southern Iran, affecting about 10,000 people in the region, The New York Times reported, citing Iranian state media.
The
U.S. Central Command said that it had completed its seventh consecutive
night of strikes against Iran overnight Friday, targeting surveillance
sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage,
and maritime capabilities.
U.S. forces employed fighter aircraft,
aerial drones, and warships in addition to other assets, CENTCOM stated,
adding that some 50,000 American service members are operating across
the Middle East “and remain vigilant, lethal and ready.”
In a separate statement, CENTCOM said that two U.S. service members
were killed in Jordan on Friday and another is missing in action.
Four
American service members were evacuated to Jordanian hospitals and have
since been discharged. “Other personnel who were evaluated for minor
injuries have returned to duty,” the military body added.
“Out of
respect for the families, CENTCOM will withhold additional information,
including the identities of the fallen warriors, until 24 hours after
the next of kin have been notified.”
Iran attacked Jordan and Gulf states on Saturday, hitting a
desalination plant in Kuwait and forcing the country to close its
international airport following barrages of missiles and drones, Reuters reported.
Kuwait
Petroleum Corporation said in a statement that one of its oil
facilities had been hit, causing significant damage and some injuries,
the report read.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said
that it had moreover struck two U.S. military bases in Kuwait,
destroying a radar facility at Ali Al Salem Air Base.
“Since there
is no international institution to prevent the savagery of the U.S.
military, we have no path before us except the Quranic command:
‘Whoever attacks you, attack them in the same manner,’” the IRGC was
quoted as saying in a statement.
Houthis prepare for Red Sea closure
Meanwhile,
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said on Saturday that
the Memorandum of Understanding signed with Washington on June 17 has
been suspended, according to the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency.
Iranian
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei released a statement, also on
Saturday, calling Trump’s signature on the MoU “worthless and invalid,”
the Times cited Iranian state media as reporting.
He
warned that the Islamic Republic and its proxies had “unforgettable
lessons” in store for the “American enemy,” the report continued.
Tehran
has asked its Houthi proxies in Yemen to prepare to close the Bab
el-Mandab strait connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and by
extension the Indian Ocean if the U.S. were to strike Iranian power
infrastructure, three sources told Reuters on Thursday.
The move, if carried through, could put more pressure on maritime routes for commercial transit, straining the global economy.
A
source close to the Houthis was cited as saying that the terrorist
group had completed preparations to attack shipping by deploying
missiles and drones near the strait in Yemen’s highlands overlooking the
port city of Hodeidah and the Gulf of Aden.
In a week when the majority of House Democrats abandoned the Jewish state, the vice president served as a reminder that the GOP’s lockstep pro-Israel stand is not set in stone.Reuters reported.
America’s two major political parties were given an opportunity this
week to show where they stood on the alliance with Israel and gave the
nation a clear answer to the question. In a vote
on a proposal put forward by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) to cut all
military aid to the Jewish state, the partisan split was stark.
Massie,
who was defeated in a GOP primary earlier this year, was the sole
Republican to back the idea of ending support for Israel, with every
other one of the 215 members of the caucus opposing it. A majority of
House Democrats joined him in voting for the proposal. In all, 103
Democrats voted in favor of it, with 98 opposing and 10 others voting
“present.”
A stark partisan divide
The vote made it clear that national polls
revealing the decline in backing for Israel—largely driven by
partisanship—are reflected in Congress. At a time when antisemitic blood
libels about Israel committing “genocide” in Gaza or being an
“apartheid” state have been mainstreamed by liberal publications like The New York Times
and routinely endorsed by many Democrats, the overwhelming majority of
Republicans reject these lies and still support Israel. There are now
votes on record in both the House and the Senate
that show the majority of Democrats support ending the alliance with
the Jewish state, while, other than outliers like Massie, all
Republicans oppose the idea. It means there is no avoiding the
conclusion that the Democrats are on their way to becoming the
anti-Israel party, if that hasn’t happened already.
Due to
retirements and primary results, the number of anti-Israel Democrats
will be far larger in the next Congress. That leaves the GOP, which will
be rid of Massie next January, in a position to claim that anyone who
cares about Israel ought to be looking at them as their only viable
political home.
Yet there is one reason for holding off on
describing the debate about Israel and antisemitism as one in which
partisanship is the key indicator. And his name is Vice President JD
Vance.
While House Republicans were holding the line against the
tide of anti-Israel sentiment sweeping the country, Vance went on the
most-listened-to podcast this week and made it clear that he is not to
be counted among those who share that position.
In a three-hour interview on the “Joe Rogan Experience”
that spent as much time discussing the July Fourth White House UFC
extravaganza and the fact that one of the fighters there called former
first lady Michelle Obama a “man” as it did policy questions, the vice
president nevertheless demonstrated that he was not among those who
value the alliance with Israel. To the contrary, he was eager to blame
Israel, its government and its American friends for the fact that his
excursion into foreign policy with a Memorandum of Understanding with
Iran has become a fiasco.
Vance nods to the ‘groypers’
Given a chance to demonstrate his mettle as a negotiator in what appeared to be a new version
of President Donald Trump’s “The Apprentice” reality show, Vance’s
performance bore comparisons to his predecessors in the Obama and Biden
administrations. He not only stubbornly defended the ludicrous notion
that the Islamist terrorists running Iran could be enticed to rejoin the
civilized world by means of Western bribery and diplomacy, but
scapegoated the Israelis and the pro-Israel community for his failure.
In
a clear pitch to what might be considered the “groyper” antisemitic
wing of the American political right, he said: “I know beyond a shadow
of a doubt that there have been people within the Israeli government who
are trying to, like, actually shift us away from [negotiations] because
they want to continue the military campaign.”
He acknowledged the
downward trend in support for Israel in the United States. But then, as
veteran conservative commentator Rod Dreher noted in The Free Press, Vance’s position “sounds like scapegoating; a contemporary version of the ‘stab in the back legend’ (Dolchstosslegende)
that German generals conceived and spread in 1918 to blame Jews and
socialists for Germany’s World War I defeat and their own leadership
failures.”
Vance rightly rejected the ridiculous charge that it
was Israel’s fault that Trump chose to pursue a longtime U.S.
foreign-policy goal by attacking Iran to prevent it from gaining nuclear
weapons and spreading terror. And yet he still cited stories about
efforts by Israelis and supporters of Israel to influence public opinion
in the United States as evidence that this is undermining the
administration. He considers criticism of his Obama-like appeasement of
Iran to be somehow wrong, while not acknowledging that frenemy nations
like Qatar spend exponentially more to spread support for Islamist ideas
and hate for Israel in America than Israel’s backers.
It was a
dismal performance by the vice president, whose record when it comes to
standing against the post-Oct. 7 surge of antisemitism has been, at
best, equivocal. While he is on record for opposing Jew-hatred, his
public statements have shown him as unwilling to confront or oppose antisemites as Democratic leaders such as former Vice President Kamala Harris.
Neutrality on Tucker’s antisemitism
In
December of last year, when presented with an opportunity to take a
stand on the issue at the Turning Point USA AmericaFest, Vance whiffed.
He declared himself to be neutral with respect to the debate at the gathering over the antisemitism of his friend, former Fox News host and current podcaster Tucker Carlson.
He
seemed to double down on that position in his interview with Rogan when
he declared that Tucker and his cheering squad of Jew-haters were just
as much a part of the coalition that elected Trump in 2024 as supporters
of Israel. And with Rogan’s prompting, he validated elements of the
conspiracy theories that have been floated about sexual predator Jeffrey
Epstein being connected to Israeli intelligence, even if he denied that
Trump or anyone else in the administration could be blackmailed (as the
canards spread about the case claim) over their connections to him.
Much
like his back-and-forth about both support for Israel and his
condemnations of antisemitism, it was a sly piece of work. He managed to
stay loyal to Trump while also allowing those who have swallowed these
tropes of Jew-hatred to think that he was also on their side.
Is this a significant GOP constituency that can help him win the presidency in 2028?
So
far, unlike the situation among Democrats, the anti-Israel wing of the
Republican Party has shown no ability to win elections. But Vance seems
convinced that it’s a potential source of votes, especially among young
people on both the right and the left who have been influenced by toxic
doctrines like critical race theory, intersectionality and
settler-colonialism that dominate the American educational system. If,
as Dreher says, those who have swallowed the anti-Israel and antisemitic
propaganda that has been mainstreamed in American public discourse make
up a significant percentage of young Republicans, then perhaps Vance is
right that this demographic can bolster his hopes in two years.
Still, the situation on the other side of the aisle is far worse when it comes to discourse and election results.
Given
the anti-Israel sentiment that has become mainstream opinion among
liberals and left-wingers since Oct. 7, it might be said to be something
of a surprise that as many as 98 House Democrats were willing to oppose
the measure. Given the fact that so many of them were once thought to
be moderates or otherwise sympathetic to Israel, the uneven split was
still a stunning blow to any notion that support for the Jewish state is
still bipartisan.
That House Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
failed to persuade so many of his members from voting for the measure
was, like the victories of far-left candidates in Democratic primaries
this year, an indication of which way the wind is blowing on the
political left.
Among those joining Massie, who trafficked in
antisemitism during his unsuccessful re-election campaign, were
politicians like former House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and
current House Democratic Whip Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). Members
with large Jewish constituencies, like Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.),
who have in the past sought support from the pro-Israel community, were
among those who joined with the far-left “Squad” in a vote that
symbolically sundered their party’s ties with the Jewish state.
As JNS reported,
members of Congress like Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) let it be known that
they have been targeted for intimidation by the anti-Israel forces on
the left, although he denied that this was why he voted in favor of
Massie’s proposal. As the tally illustrated, those who want to avoid the
fate of a hard-core liberal like Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and lose their seat to a primary challenger who is more hostile to the Jewish state were going to do the same.
Thinking about 2028
Simply
put, it’s hard to imagine anyone not overtly opposed to the alliance
with Israel having a chance to win the Democratic presidential
nomination in 2028.
But if Vance remains the GOP front-runner
for 2028, then Republicans can’t claim that they are immune to the same
trends that have rendered the Democrats soft on antisemitism and ready
to ditch Israel.
It’s possible to argue that Vance’s ambitions to
succeed Trump will be thwarted if he doesn’t publicly do something he
has refused to do for the past two years and cut ties with his pal
Tucker. The fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has shown
foreign-policy competence by crafting a deal with Lebanon that commits
Beirut to ridding itself of Iran’s Hezbollah auxiliaries while Vance has
floundered in his bid to appease Tehran should count heavily against
the vice president. Nevertheless, Rubio, whose views are in sync with
the pro-Israel majority among Republicans, trails Vance in the early
polls by almost 20 percentage points for the 2028 presidential race and
has stated that he won’t challenge the vice president if he chooses to
run.
We already know the fate of the dwindling pro-Israel faction
among the Democrats; they are rapidly being relegated to the margins of
liberal politics or pushed out of the party altogether. But the future
of the Republican Party, despite the 214-1 vote on aid to Israel this
week, is still up for grabs. Should Vance maintain his status as the
crown prince of the GOP, the same trends that have corrupted the
Democrats will eventually impact the Republicans. It remains to be seen
whether Vance will shift course or whether Trump and the GOP electorate
will make him pay for his winks and nods to the groypers.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem News Syndicate, a senior contributor for The Federalist, a columnist for Newsweek
and a contributor to many other publications. He covers the American
political scene, foreign policy, the U.S.-Israel relationship, Middle
East diplomacy, the Jewish world and the arts. He hosts the JNS “Think Twice”
podcast, both the weekly video program and the “Jonathan Tobin Daily”
program, which are available on all major audio platforms and YouTube.
Previously, he was executive editor, then senior online editor and chief
political blogger, for Commentary magazine. Before that, he was editor-in-chief of The Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia and editor of the Connecticut Jewish Ledger.
He has won more than 60 awards for commentary, art criticism and other
writing. He appears regularly on television, commenting on politics and
foreign policy. Born in New York City, he studied history at Columbia
University.
President Trump says the intelligence, collected from 2004 to 2020, shows why American voting systems need to be better secured from potential manipulation.
From 2004 to 2020, the U.S. intelligence community
monitored plans by the Venezuelan leadership to electronically
manipulate their country’s own voting machines, including the use of
substituting false votes, in order to secure victory for the ruling
socialists.
President Donald Trump, who declassified intelligence information on those plans and released them to the public on Thursday, says the Venezuelan capabilities are evidence that American voting systems need to be better secured.
The Venezuelan plots specifically raised alarm bells in the
United States because Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez collaborated
with Smartmatic, a voting machine company that in 2005 acquired the
U.S.-based Sequoia Voting Systems, to develop them.
Susceptibility to Venezuelan government manipulation
In 2006, the intelligence community assessed “that
Smartmatic's susceptibility to Venezuelan government manipulation makes
the acquisition a potential instrument for Venezuelan officials seeking
to undermine confidence in, or manipulate the electoral process in, the
United States,” according to a June 2026 CIA summary of prior
intelligence reporting on Venezuela’s electronic voting manipulation
capabilities.
That finding later led to the U.S. government intervening
to force Smartmatic to divest its ownership in Sequoia in 2007.
Smartmatic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
Though intelligence analysts raised red flags about
potential vulnerabilities, they detected no interference in U.S.
election systems.
The memo was declassified earlier this year and made public
by President Donald Trump on Thursday alongside a primetime speech
about election integrity in which he urged lawmakers to pass legislation
to better secure American elections.
In that speech, President Trump said the intelligence about
Venezuelan vote manipulation plans and capabilities—spanning from 2004
to 2020—highlights the potential vulnerabilities in American voting
machine systems, requiring urgent action to prevent such consequences in
the U.S.
“Today, we are releasing documents that show the CIA
obtained reporting of a specific plot to do a big number in favor of the
corrupt Maduro regime in Venezuela, and that's exactly what happened.
Conspiring to digitally rig their own country's elections in 2020, and
that's what they did,” Trump said at the White House on Thursday.
“This reporting included precise details about methods the
regime developed to digitally alter vote totals in ways that could not
be detected, even with an audit, no matter how deep they went,” he
added. “This intelligence underscores why we must take urgent action to
ensure that our own system can never ever be hacked or compromised […]”
Maduro's plans to make false votes appear legitimate
President Trump was referring to intelligence reporting on
Venezuelan plans to swing the country’s 2020 election by manipulating
electronic voting machines in a way that would make false votes appear
legitimate, and leave no trace of the changes.
The technique, developed for the 2020 parliamentary
elections while Nicolás Maduro still ruled Venezuela, was allegedly
designed to "Replicate digital hash files sent to the central vote
counting database,” “Mimic real voting machines that favored the ruling
party,” “Overwrite hash files of voting machines that favored the
opposition,” and “Make altered votes appear to originate from legitimate
voting machines.”
Hash files are a “digital fingerprint” used to validate software and ensure the integrity of data files, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
The CIA warned that such a technique “would, in theory, allow the
Venezuelan government to monitor and adjust results in real-time during
and after the election.” The agency also concluded that such technology
would be employed to evade detection by standard audit procedures.
Ultimately, CIA analysts concluded in 2006 that “neither
Smartmatic nor the Venezuelan government had the capability—that is the
level of control or access required—to manipulate the outcome of an
election outside of Venezuela in a predictable fashion.”
Likewise, in 2020, they concluded the regime “did not need
to resort to gross fraud to win the December 2020 National Assembly
elections” because many opposition parties boycotted the election.
The materials, posted on the White House website following a prime-time address, include assessments indicating that intelligence officials were aware of risks such as outdated software and potential compromises by adversaries like China.
President Donald Trump on Thursday released a trove of
declassified intelligence documents that his administration says expose
long-suspected vulnerabilities in U.S. election infrastructure, in
addition to alarming intelligence pointing to prior administrations' and
officials' knowledge of such issues that were kept from the president,
Congress and the American people.
"The intelligence community withheld information from his president's
daily brief. That's a big deal. That's where the intelligence community
gives him the absolute most classified data, what he needs to know for
that day, and frankly, during his first term, they withheld it. That is a
black mark on the intelligence community," Rep. Keith Self, R-Tex.,
told Just The News.
Self continued, "They should be charged because they hold positions
of great responsibility, and they have violated our trust. They have
violated the actual agreements that they sign when they get that level
of classified data, so this is very, very easily charged and indicted."
The materials, posted on the White House website following a prime-time address,
include assessments indicating that intelligence officials were aware
of risks such as outdated software and potential compromises by
adversaries like China — which the documents claim acquired data on
millions of American voters — but did not fully disclose them to the
president, Congress or the public.
At the conclusion of Trump's address, he directed Americans to the
White House website, where the documents were both readable and
downloadable. Minutes later, the site crashed due to high traffic volume.
Self is not alone in his conviction that these intelligence officials should be held accountable.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rick Crawford, R-Ark., called
on CIA Director John Ratcliffe to "take decisive action to hold all
those involved ...accountable for these egregious betrayals of the
American people’s trust.
"We all can agree that bureaucrats who manipulate or conceal
intelligence from the people’s elected leaders to push their preferred
policies or end states cannot keep their jobs in the American people’s
Intelligence Community," he wrote on X. "Those involved, and any who
knew and remained silent, must be immediately removed from their
positions of trust.
Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project and a former Senate lawyer, told Just The News he believes prosecutions are warranted.
Intelligence analysts "obstructed and they conspired to provide
doctored evidence to the President of the United States about a foreign
invasion of our elections, and they must be held accountable. They must
be arrested. They must be charged. They must be held accountable," he
said.
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.
Next "they took him into the
house and cut off his hands while reciting Islamic scripture." Finally,
they dumped him near a crossroads. A stranger found him and raised the
alarm. His father, Lubega Issa, reportedly justified the attack: "That
is what sharia [Islamic law] instructs us to do to those who deny the
religion of Allah." — Morning Star News, April 17, 2026, Uganda.
The Muslim assailants had "targeted Christians" after they
"rejected the generous offer made to them by Islamic State, based on the
just rulings of Islam." The "offer" was understood as a demand to
convert to Islam or submit to dhimmi status and pay jizya
(a subjugation and protection tax for non-Muslims).... Thousands were
displaced. Less than a year earlier, [Islamic State Central Africa
Province] had declared: "Let the Christians of Africa and their Crusader
armies know that there is no security for you except by Islam or
jizya." — Barnabas Aid, April 13, 2026, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Police claimed he had hanged himself with a scarf from a ceiling
fan but Riyasat rejects the suicide narrative: "There were marks on
several parts of his body." No complainant ever appeared for the alleged
kidnapping, and none has come forward more than a week later, leading
the family to conclude the charge was fabricated purely for extortion.
The family has been denied a full post-mortem report. — Morning Star
News, April 7, 2026, Pakistan.
"Christians have no rights in Pakistan," said one. "We had no
security. No police. No help." Despite a police station being only 10
minutes away, officers took an hour to respond, leaving the wounded
Christians "helpless and abandoned under the open sky, lying severely
wounded and soaked in their own blood." — x.com, April 5, 2026, Pakistan.
According to an April 8 report, more than 3,809 crimes and
offenses were recorded on church properties across the United Kingdom in
2025. This means that, on average, more than ten crimes were committed
every day in churches and Christian places of worship last year. —
Countryside Alliance.org, April 5, 2026, United Kingdom.
On April 2, in a direct Easter threat, ISIS called on Muslims to
set fire to churches and synagogues across the US and Europe. The
Islamist terror group issued the propaganda in its weekly al-Naba
newsletter. "It is incumbent upon Muslims everywhere... to rise up and
set fire to the Jewish synagogues scattered across America, Europe,
Russia, India, and elsewhere." — New York Post, April 2, 2026.
On April 6, a 45-year-old Moroccan attacked three neighbors with
an axe in MontefrÃo, Granada, because, according to him, he had "felt
the call of Allah" and that "all Christians must die." — Gateway
Hispanic.com, April 6, 2026, Spain.
In a video published on Easter Monday, a Sydney preacher, Wissam
Haddad, delivered a sermon mocking Christianity and preaching hate
against Christians and Jews. He cited Hadiths to declare that Jews...
and Christians... are destined for damnation.... "Their God's being
killed and dies and they're celebrating. It's a Good Friday. Makes no
sense." — Sky News Australia, April 8, 2026, Australia.
On April 6, a 45-year-old Moroccan attacked three neighbors
with an axe in MontefrÃo, Spain, because, according to him, he had "felt
the call of Allah" and that "all Christians must die." Pictured:
MontefrÃo, which is located near Granada, Spain. (Image source:
iStock/Getty Images)
The following are among the murders and abuses Muslims inflicted on Christians throughout the month of April 2026.
The Muslim Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls in Pakistan
On April 11, two Muslims raped
a 25-year-old Christian woman, leaving her in critical condition. The
survivor, a daily-wage laborer, was picking lemons in a citrus orchard
for local contractor Faizan Mehboob Rehmani (also known as Kaka) when
the assault occurred. "Kaka may have thought I was an easy target
because I am a Christian," she said from her hospital bed. "They have destroyed my life. I want the police and courts to ensure they are punished." According to her:
"I went to drink water from a tap outside a room in the
orchard when Kaka and another man came and pushed me inside at gunpoint.
They forced some drink into my mouth, tied my hands and feet with my
scarf, and stuffed cloth into my mouth so I could not scream. I tried to
resist, but Kaka pointed a pistol at my head and threatened to kill me.
He then removed my shalwar [trouser] and raped me while the other man
held me down. After that, his accomplice also raped me, but by then I
had lost consciousness. I don't know how many times they assaulted me."
She was later found unconscious in a street near her home, her clothes soaked in blood. Her uncle, Tariq Masih, said:
"We were shocked when we received information that she
had been found lying unconscious. We immediately called rescue services,
and she was taken to a government hospital... The assault was so brutal
that she received 22 stitches in her genital area."
She required transfer to Lahore for specialized treatment due to
excessive bleeding and severe infection. Now the family is facing
threats. Tariq reports that
"The accused and his relatives have started pressuring us
to reach a settlement. They are threatening us with violence and
telling us that we are weak and helpless who cannot afford to pursue
this case."
On March 24, a 16-year-old Christian girl was abducted,
forcibly converted to Islam, and possibly married to a Muslim prayer
leader. Neha Bibi had been attending sewing classes for six months at a
center run by the wives of the 45-year-old prayer leader, Sajid Ibrahim.
She went to the center that day but never returned home. When the
family inquired, Ibrahim's wives claimed she had already left. "We
continued to search for her, but when we couldn't trace her, we went to
the police," her father said.
"They did not pay attention to our pleas for help." Police delayed
registering a First Information Report, allowing critical time to pass.
The family later discovered that Ibrahim and his wives had also fled. A
report was finally filed on April 2 naming them as suspects, but
authorities made little effort to locate them. The investigating officer
later informed the family that Neha had appeared in a Lahore court
claiming she converted to Islam of her own free will. "We were
devastated to hear this," her father said. "It is obvious that she may have been converted for the purpose of marriage."
According to an April 17 report,
a Muslim man, Ali Murtaza, and two accomplices, abducted 15-year-old
Christian girl Sidra Bibi at gunpoint from her home. The men had scaled
the wall of her house around 3 a.m.. Her father, Afzal Javed Masih, who
was away collecting scrap, returned and immediately registered a First
Information Report. Police registered the case but recorded her age as
17 instead of 15 years as in her birth certificate. "I am illiterate and
only learned of this discrepancy later," Masih said.
Police initially detained relatives of the suspect but released them
after documents surfaced claiming Sidra was an adult, had converted to
Islam of her own free will, and married Ali. "This claim is absurd," was
her father's response. Murtaza had previously harassed the family:
"Last
year, he fired shots at our house after I objected to him loitering
outside. Despite my complaint, police took no meaningful action. Had
they acted then, this incident might have been prevented."
The investigation has stalled. Police have declined to recover the
girl or vigorously prosecute, despite irregularities in the purported
marriage certificate (missing Sidra's national ID number). The family is
the only Christian household in the village, heightening their
vulnerability as a religious minority.
On April 2, a Muslim man threatened
to kill a 20-year-old Christian woman unless she converted to Islam and
married him. Laiba Javed received a handwritten note from former
schoolmate Rehman Irfan demanding she convert and marry him by April 15
or face death. Her uncle, Imran Masih, said
Irfan came to their house with two armed accomplices while she was
alone. "He handed her a letter at gunpoint stating that he loved her and
would go to any extent to marry her after converting her."
On April 12, Muslims who had gang raped
a 14-year-old Christian girl, attacked her relatives in an attempt to
force them to withdraw the rape case. Zaman Shafique, along with five to
six accomplices, assaulted Arshad Masih and two other relatives. Later
that night, the assailants returned and set fire to a thatched section
of the family's home. Rev. Khalil Maqsood, parish priest of St. Mary's
Catholic Church, confirmed the attack:
"There are about 30 Christian families in this village,
and the accused had publicly threatened that Christian homes would be
burned if the victim's family did not agree to a settlement."
The attack is directly linked to a case registered last year over the
gang-rape of the 14-year-old cousin of the assaulted young men. The
suspects had repeatedly pressured the family to settle out of court.
According to an April 24 report,
a Christian family continues fighting for justice after the abduction
and forced marriage of their 19-year-old daughter, Adan Sabir. On July
3, 2025, Usman Ali kidnapped Sabir at gunpoint after she rejected his
marriage proposal. He presented a forged marriage certificate claiming
she had converted to Islam and married him willingly. During an initial
court hearing, Sabir remained silent due to threats against her family.
The Lahore High Court later ordered her return to her family in November
2025 after evidence of coercion emerged, and a divorce was accepted.
However, after Sabir became engaged to a Christian man, Ali allegedly
fired gunshots at the family home on April 20 and continues threatening
them. The family is now in hiding, moving frequently. According to Sabir's mother,
"Adan stays silent all day, and at night she wakes up
trembling and asks us to pray. Usman keeps threatening us, saying that
if he took her once, he can take her again, and this time he won't let
her escape."
The Muslim Slaughter of Christians
Uganda: On April 9, Muslims posing as moto-taxi drivers murdered
evangelist Alfred Kitenga shortly after he preached at a gospel event.
Alfred and his wife, Anna Grace, were returning home when four men
approached them. The men claimed to be fellow Christians who had
attended the event and offered free transport. "We believed them because
they said they were fellow believers who had listened to the message," said
Anna. During the journey, the drivers suggested an alternative route.
Anna grew uneasy when one repeatedly spoke on the phone in a language
she did not understand. Eventually, three additional men appeared. "What
followed was sudden and violent," she recounted. The attackers beat the couple severely and stabbed Alfred to death with knives. They later released Anna near her home.
Separately, on April 17, Muslim relatives cut off the hands of a convert to Christianity. According to the victim, Kalegeya Faruku, 40,
"I gave my life to Jesus in early March 2026, and my
family members were not happy. They became very angry and started
sending me threatening messages about taking my life."
On April 17, relatives ambushed him at his family home:
"I found my brothers waiting for me... My elder brother
approached me and pretended to ask about my whereabouts. Suddenly, he
grabbed me, and others surrounded me."
Next "they took him into the house and cut off his hands while
reciting Islamic scripture." Finally, they dumped him near a crossroads.
A stranger found him and raised the alarm. His father, Lubega Issa,
reportedly justified
the attack: "That is what sharia [Islamic law] instructs us to do to
those who deny the religion of Allah." Last reported, Faruku was
recovering in a secure medical facility.
Democratic Republic of Congo: During Holy Week (April 1 and 2), Islamic terrorists of the Allied Democratic Forces attacked Bafwakao village, killing 43 Christians.
The jihadist group struck while residents slept, killing victims by
gunfire and beheading several with machetes. Some were burned alive
inside their homes. "The attackers surprised the population in their
sleep... The images are unbearable," a local source said.
A later report
offers more details including that the death toll had reached 60
Christians, and that the Muslim assailants had "targeted Christians"
after they "rejected the generous offer made to them by Islamic State,
based on the just rulings of Islam." The "offer" was understood as a
demand to convert to Islam or submit to dhimmi status and pay jizya
(a subjugation and protection tax for non-Muslims). When the Christians
refused, IS Central Africa Province (ISCAP) fighters attacked, killing
the victims with machetes, burning dozens of homes (at least 44
reported), and abducting two people. Thousands were displaced. Less than
a year earlier, the ISCAP had declared: "Let the Christians of Africa and their Crusader armies know that there is no security for you except by Islam or jizya."
Pakistan: On April 5, a Muslim driver rammed
a speeding cargo truck into a Christian Easter sunrise procession in
the Wazirabad district of Punjab, killing at least one and injuring more
than 60 others. Around 3:30 a.m. approximately 200 members of St.
Francis of Assisi Catholic Church were singing hymns and carrying
candles in a pre-dawn service when the light commercial truck plowed
into the crowd at high speed. Eyewitnesses described
it as "a premeditated and well-planned terrorist attack." A chaotic
scene followed, in which worshippers had to overturn the vehicle
themselves to rescue those trapped underneath. The driver, Muhammad
Bilal, fled the scene. Church leaders said they had notified authorities
in advance and received promises of security -- that never
materialized. "Christians have no rights in Pakistan," said one.
"We had no security. No police. No help." Despite a police station
being only 10 minutes away, officers took an hour to respond, leaving
the wounded Christians "helpless and abandoned under the open sky, lying
severely wounded and soaked in their own blood." (Some images of the
wounded here).
Separately, on March 26, police in Lahore tortured a Christian father of four to death
after fabricating kidnapping charges to extort his family. Following
the arrest of Iftikhar Masih, 42, his wife received a call from his
phone by a man claiming to be an officer, alleging Iftikhar had tried to
kidnap a girl at gunpoint. His brother, Riyasat Masih, rushed to the
station where officer Mohsin Shah repeated the allegations. Riyasat said
Shah demanded a bribe of 200,000 Pakistani rupees ($720) for his
brother's release.
"I pleaded
that my brother was innocent and of good character, but he insisted on
the payment. I left to arrange the money, and when I returned a few
hours later, I was told that Iftikhar had committed suicide."
Police claimed he had hanged himself with a scarf from a ceiling fan but Riyasat rejects
the suicide narrative: "There were marks on several parts of his body."
No complainant ever appeared for the alleged kidnapping, and none has
come forward more than a week later, leading the family to conclude the
charge was fabricated purely for extortion. The family has been denied a
full post-mortem report.
Nigeria: The following are among just some of the Muslim murders of Christians in April 2026:
On April 5, Islamic terrorists carried out coordinated attacks
on two Christian churches in Kaduna State during Easter Sunday
celebrations. The assailants targeted congregants at the First ECWA
Church and St. Augustine Catholic Church as they celebrated the
resurrection of Jesus Christ in the early morning hours. They arrived in
large numbers, surrounded the area, and "began shooting sporadically at worshippers." At least 12 Christians were killed, and several others abducted into the bush.
That same Easter Sunday, in Benue state, Fulani terrorists killed another 17 Christians as they celebrated Easter.
On April 26, fighters from the Islamic State West Africa Province
(ISWAP) attacked the Christian community of Guyaku in Adamawa State, killing at least 29 people and burning churches, homes, and motorcycles.
On April 26, terrorists slaughtered a pastor, his wife, son, and an infant child. According to the report,
"the attack occurred at about 10:46 p.m. The assailants
reportedly entered the village under the cover of darkness and targeted
the pastor's residence. The victims were reportedly killed inside the
family home..."
Muslim Attacks on Christian Churches
Mozambique: On April 30, ISIS-affiliated jihadists raided
and destroyed the Church of St. Louis de Montfort in Meza, built in
1946. Monsignor Antonio Juliasse Ferreira Sandramo, Archbishop of Pemba,
said
"The parish was attacked, vandalized, and completely
burned. A terrifying scene, homes and infrastructure destroyed, a
historic parish reduced to rubble."
Christian civilians were also "captured and forced by the jihadists to listen to their hateful proclamations."
Archbishop Juliasse appealed for international solidarity:
"For almost nine years, chapels and churches in the diocese have been attacked, destroyed, and set on fire."
He told
of more than 300 Christians killed (many with throats slit) and at
least 117 churches and chapels destroyed (23 in 2025 alone). The
attackers belong to Ansar al-Sunna, part of ISIS's Central Africa
Province (ISCAP).
Algeria: According to an April 27 report, nearly all Protestant churches have been forced to close,
pushing thousands of Christians underground. Since 2006, authorities
have shut down at least 58 Protestant churches, including nearly all
affiliated with the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA). By January 2025,
the last evangelical churches had effectively ceased public operations.
Azerbaijan: Authorities demolished
the Holy Mother of God Cathedral and the Church of St. Jacob in
Khankendi (Stepanakert), Nagorno-Karabakh. Satellite imagery from April
26 confirms both major Armenian Christian sites have been erased. The
cathedral, consecrated in 2019, served as the city's main place of
worship and a bomb shelter during conflicts. The Church of St. Jacob was
completed in 2007. Cross stones surrounding the latter were also
destroyed. Armenia's Orthodox church authorities accused
Azerbaijan of "deliberately targeting Armenian Christian holy sites,
seeking to erase the Armenian presence." The demolitions come after over
100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the region following Azerbaijan's 2023
recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh.
United Kingdom: According to an April 8 report,
more than 3,809 crimes and offenses were recorded on church properties
across the United Kingdom in 2025. This means that, on average, more
than ten crimes were committed every day in churches and Christian
places of worship last year. The actual figure is likely higher, as some
regions did not provide data or categorize crimes consistently. The
most affected areas were London, West Yorkshire, and Greater
Manchester—all of which have large Muslim populations.
Nigeria: On April 4 (night before Easter Sunday), terrorists launched a late-night raid
on a Christian village in Borno State, setting a church and several
homes ablaze. Locals said the "attackers operated for hours without
resistance."
ISIS: On April 2, in a direct Easter threat, ISIS called
on Muslims to set fire to churches and synagogues across the US and
Europe. The Islamist terror group issued the propaganda in its weekly
al-Naba newsletter. In response to Israel's temporary closure of the
al-Aqsa mosque, ISIS declared: "It is incumbent upon Muslims
everywhere... to rise up and set fire to the Jewish synagogues scattered
across America, Europe, Russia, India, and elsewhere." It explicitly
called for similar attacks on churches and "Jewish gatherings," urging
supporters to emulate prior terror acts.
Indonesia: On April 4 (Good Friday), authorities forced the closure
of the Thessalonika Christian Ecumenical Fellowship Church after its
Easter weekend celebrations, in response to local Muslim anger. After
Friday prayers, several Islamic clerics and Muslim students demanded
sealing the church over the claimed lack of a Building Permit.
Authorities promptly carried out the closure, preventing the
congregation from using the building on Easter Sunday. "This location is
far from the mosque, and we have used soundproofing," said
the chairman of the Thessalonika POUK Foundation. "We have also
coordinated with the sub-district office and Satpol-PP." He noted that
their permit application had been stalled for three years.
Generic Muslim Attacks on Christians
Spain: On April 6, a 45-year-old Moroccan attacked three neighbors with an axe in MontefrÃo, Granada, because, according
to him, he had "felt the call of Allah" and that "all Christians must
die." The victims — two women (one around 70) and a 69-year-old man —
were walking when the attacker struck without warning. He first hit the
elderly man, who defended himself with his walking cane. He then
attacked the two women: one suffered head trauma, while the other
sustained severe hand injuries, including the amputation of a finger.
Emergency services, including a medical helicopter, were required to
treat the victims.
Separately, on April 19, a Muslim man of North African origin assaulted a woman for her Christian faith. According to one report,
"the incident occurred in the early hours of 11 April
2026 in ... Barcelona. A 19-year-old man of Maghrebi origin allegedly
approached a woman who was walking alone and initiated a brief
conversation. He asked her about her religion. After the victim
confirmed she was Christian, the suspect allegedly reacted violently,
shouting the insult 'Christian whore!' before assaulting her. The victim
sustained minor injuries and was assisted at the scene by emergency
medical services."
Libya: According to an April 7 report,
life for foreign Christians remains highly restricted under strict
Islamic influence. Native Libyan Christians are extremely rare—some
sources estimate only about 150 exist—and these must remain hidden for
survival. Foreign Christians (mostly migrant workers) face verbal abuse,
threats, and surveillance. One expatriate worker, "Nathaniel," in
Benghazi, said
that Christians "pray secretly in their homes behind closed doors so
that no one sees them." He received threats simply for discussing online
the desire to attend church. "Every religion or belief other than Islam
is met with harsh condemnation here," Nathaniel added. Bibles are
nearly impossible to obtain.
Australia: In a video published
on Easter Monday, a Sydney preacher, Wissam Haddad, delivered a sermon
mocking Christianity and preaching hate against Christians and Jews. He
cited Hadiths to declare that Jews (split into 71 sects, 70 in hell) and
Christians (72 sects, all in hell) are destined for damnation. Mocking
Easter and the crucifixion, Haddad said:
"They celebrate the supposed crucifixion of — and I don't see how it's a
celebration. Their God's being killed and dies and they're celebrating.
It's a Good Friday. Makes no sense."
Africa: According to an April 10 report,
jihadist groups are actively imposing jizya (protection tribute
stipulated by Koran 9:29) on Christians in several regions as part of
asserting Islamist dominance.
In Mali, al-Qaeda affiliate JNIM controls rural areas and has
demanded 25,000 CFA francs (~$40–41) monthly from Christians over 18 as a
condition for practicing their faith. Non-payers face church closures
or expulsion. Christians described it as a new reality in a supposedly
secular state.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo, ISIS's Central Africa
Province (ISCAP/ADF) presents Christians with three choices: convert to
Islam, pay jizya while living "humiliated and subdued," [Koran 9:29] or
face death and displacement. An August 2025 Al-Naba editorial stated:
"If the Christians of Africa want to feel safe... our
true Islam provides them the freedom to choose between three options,
Islam, jizya paid humiliated and subdued, or death and displacement."
The group has claimed hundreds of Christian deaths.
Even in Pakistan's tribal border areas, groups like TTP have
forced Christians, Hindus, and Sikhs to pay jizya protection where state
authority is weak, says the report.
Egypt: According to an April 29 report,
a Coptic Christian YouTuber, Augustinos Samaan, was sentenced to five
years in prison over faith-based online videos. The conviction relates
to content perceived as proselytizing, or "undermining" Islam.
Separately, Said Mansour Rezk Abdelrazek, a Muslim convert to Christianity, has become one of Egypt's most prominent religious freedom cases.
After embracing Christianity in 2016, he endured years of harassment,
detention, and abuse before fleeing to Russia, where he was granted
asylum. Despite a Russian court order barring his deportation, he was
forcibly returned to Egypt in 2024. Arrested again in July 2025 after
publicly professing his Christian faith and seeking to change the
religion listed on his national ID, he was charged with
terrorism-related offenses, contempt for Islam, and promoting ideas
harmful to national unity. On April 13, prosecutors referred him to a
terrorism court, while his lawyers were denied access to the case file.
He remains imprisoned, with advocates reporting torture, physical abuse,
denial of adequate medical care, and repeated postponements of his
trial.
Finally, on April 12, police arrested
a South Sudanese Christian child for "proselytizing." The minor was
arrested while distributing Christian literature. Authorities have
increasingly targeted Christians, including foreigners and converts,
under laws restricting evangelism and "undermining" Islam. Such
detentions often involve lengthy interrogations and pressure to stop
religious activities.
"One of the students, Purity Babangida, was killed while
attempting to escape during the attack. Witnesses said at least 15 other
students managed to flee by jumping from the vehicle and later reached
nearby communities, including Awon village, after trekking for several
hours through the bush... [T]his incident is part of a pattern of
ambushes along the Akwando–Kachia road... [A]ttacks involving students
and schools have been reported in other parts of Southern Kaduna in
recent years. In 2021, more than 100 students were abducted from a
secondary school in Chikun Local Government Area."
Syria: Anti-Christian riots erupted
in Suqaylabiyah in the last few days of March, after a Muslim man and a
Christian man got into a dispute. Muslim crowds attacked Christian
properties, churches, and individuals in the town.
Separately, according to an April 2 report,
Christian churches reduced activities during Holy Week due to security
threats. The restrictions reflect ongoing dangers for Christians amid
instability and Islamist influence. Many communities limited public
celebrations to avoid attacks, highlighting the precarious position of
the Christian minority in the country.
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.
When the state forces Catholic nuns to choose between their faith and caring for the dying, ideology has become a civil religion.
Sane people assume politics
has no place in the provision of hospice care. The Left believes
otherwise, convinced everything is political and, therefore, fair game
for the coercive imposition of its civil religion.
The Left’s civil religion traces its intellectual lineage to the
French philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose assault on the
Enlightenment helped lay the foundations of modern totalitarianism. In a
nutshell, Rousseau’s civil religion was a belief system born of the
“general will,” as pronounced by the omniscient “Legislator.” It bound a
people to the state and demanded universal assent and practice. Those
who refused were “forced to be free,” either through exile from society
or even execution.
A civil profession of faith ought to
tolerate all and only those religions that tolerate others, he
suggested, at least insofar as the respective religious groups do not
uphold beliefs that run contrary to citizens’ duties. More extremely,
Rousseau averred that penalties may rightly be applied against those who
do not observe the civil religion. Although government cannot obligate a
person to believe its dogmas, one who fails to adopt them can rightly
be banished from the state on grounds of unsociability. Additionally, a
citizen who publicly acknowledges civil dogmas may be punished with
death if, subsequently, that citizen behaves as if he does not believe
them.
Gee, to my less-than-nuanced ear, this sounds like a coercive,
intolerant state demanding absolute adherence to its dogmas—or else. If
this sounds familiar, it should. Political correctness and cancel
culture are, in fact, milder forms of the same societal coercion, each
representing another step toward the imposition of the civil religion.
The Left’s logic is simple: dissent divides the masses; therefore, all
dissent must be terminated.
Revealed religion is an inevitable target for Rousseau and his
leftist acolytes. By perverting the term “tolerance,” the Left projects
and accuses traditional religion of being a font of “intolerance” and
further deems it to be a rival to the state and its civil religion for
the allegiance of its citizens.
Of course, if the revealed religion alters its beliefs to align with
the civil religion, thereby ceasing to be a potential threat to the
state and its own, purportedly “unifying” civil religion, it may be
allowed to exist. If the revealed religion dissents and does not submit
to the dictates of the civil religion, the state will use every means at
its disposal to compel compliance and total obedience to it.
To wit: the State of New York’s attack on the Dominican Sisters.
As reported by Zeale’s
Elise Winland, during this year’s typically contentious New York
gubernatorial election, the GOP challenger Bruce Blakeman has accused
incumbent Democrat Gov. Kathy Hochul, a fellow Catholic, of
anti-Catholic bigotry.
The cause?
The Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who
operate Rosary Hill Home, a 42-bed residential hospice and nursing
facility in Hawthorne, New York, that provides free care to poor
patients with incurable cancer . . . have received three letters from
the New York State Department of Health informing them of their
obligation to comply with the law, as Zeale News previously reported.
The complaint says violations could expose Rosary Hill Home and its
staff to fines, the loss of the facility’s license, and, under some
provisions of the state public health law, possible criminal penalties.
The state statute in question is New York’s LGBTQ Long-Term Care
Facility Residents’ Bill of Rights. (It was signed into law by Gov.
Hochul in November 2023 and took effect in 2024.) “The law requires
long-term care facilities to use patients’ preferred pronouns and
assign rooms and allow restroom access based on residents’ ‘gender
identities.’”
Yet throughout its long history, Rosary Hill Home has placed male
patients together in rooms, placed male and female patients on different
floors, and maintained separate-sex restrooms. Thus, knowing that
complying with this relatively new law would compel them to violate their religious beliefs and “sacred obligations” to mercifully and dutifully tend the sick and dying, the Dominican Sisters have filed a federal suit seeking an exemption from the law.
One might ask why the State of New York, especially the governor
running for reelection, wouldn’t simply avoid this public battle with
the Dominican nuns and grant an exemption. Simply put, even if the
governor wanted to, she couldn’t. The law allows no exception.
“The Residents’ Bill of Rights does not allow facility-based
exemptions for religious or any other reason[s],” stated New York
Assistant Attorney General Julia Busetti in a July 2 U.S. District Court
filing cited by Carl Campanile in The New York Post.
Refusing to allow a religious exemption is typical of the Left’s
relentless and increasingly aggressive attacks against revealed
religion, perversely projecting its own intolerance onto those who
dissent from its perpetually evolving and metastasizing civil religion.
Though by no means a settled or unifying issue, according to the
Democrat governor and the leftist-dominated legislature, their radical
agenda is apparently now beyond questioning by any New York citizen,
association, or religious order.
As the GOP gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman told the Post:
What Kathy Hochul is doing to the
Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne is an absolute disgrace. For over 120
years, these incredible women have done God’s work, providing
unconditional love, comfort, and dignity to people in their final days.
They are saints walking among us, and
they represent the absolute best of New York. Yet, Kathy Hochul is
actually willing to shut them down, strip away their license, and throw
terminal cancer patients out on the street—all to enforce her woke
garbage.
[Gov. Hochul] would rather leave dying people without care than allow Catholic nuns to practice their faith.
Naturally, the governor’s surrogates responded with their own ad
hominem attacks and offered some familiar examples of hypocritical projection:
Bruce Blakeman wants to follow Trump’s
lead to deny elderly LGBTQ+ New Yorkers the care they need when at their
most vulnerable,” said Manhattan Assemblyman Tony Simone. “Weaponizing
seniors’ health to score political points is gross, and joining with
homophobes who want to eliminate same-sex marriage in America is
despicable. New Yorkers want leaders who unite us, not the extremism of
Blakeman.
The former state senator who sponsored the transgender law in
question and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal also entered
the political scrum:
Bruce Blakeman and the homophobes he
campaigns with are opposed to marriage equality and even flying Pride
flags. Now, they want to play politics with the lives of older LGBTQ New
Yorkers. It won’t fly in New York.
New Yorkers can see through Blakeman’s
blatant and cynical attempt to demonize LGBTQ New Yorkers for short term
political gain. Our LGBTQ community refuses to be used as pawns in
Bruce Blakeman’s latest culture war.
Here we see Herbert Marcuse’s repressive “liberating tolerance”
in practice: the Left determines what is “unifying” and
“tolerant”—namely, whatever it believes, however risible or radical.
Those who dissent are silenced and punished.
The aim of the Left is to raze traditional society and radically
transform it. Its steadily encroaching civil religion is both a feature
of its strategy and an end unto itself. In seeking to raze America’s
traditional culture and Western civilization more broadly, the Left
necessarily commenced the culture war. To cover its tracks, it projects
blame for that cultural warfare onto those compelled to defend
themselves against its inane and insane attacks.
This is why the governor’s surrogates claim that the nuns will be
denying care, when in reality it was the Left that passed the law
preventing them from providing treatment unless they forsook their
faith.
This is why the governor’s surrogates claim that the GOP candidate
and his supporters are igniting a culture war, when in reality it was
the Left that passed the law that started it.
This is why the governor’s surrogates claim that the nuns and the GOP
have “weaponized” senior citizens’ health care for partisan gain, when
in reality the Left passed the law precisely to create this conflict.
This is why the governor’s surrogates claim that their view—that men
can become women and women can become men—is “unifying” and must be
believed by everyone, when in reality a minority view is being
coercively imposed upon the majority by a Left-dominated state.
And this is why Gov. Hochul can claim, with a straight face, that
“hate will never have a place in New York,” when, in reality, that
promise or claim applies only to those who toe the line of the Left’s
civil religion.
Just ask the Dominican Sisters.
* * *
An American Greatness contributor, the Hon. Thaddeus G. McCotter
(M.C., Ret.) served Michigan’s 11th Congressional district from 2003 to
2012. He served as Chair of the Republican House Policy Committee and as
a member of the Financial Services, Joint Economic, Budget, Small
Business, and International Relations Committees. Not a lobbyist, he is
also a contributor to Chronicles, a frequent public speaker and
moderator for public policy seminars, and a cohost of The John Batchelor Show, among sundry media appearances.
