The Obama administration’s support for its Islamist allies means lack of U.S. support for their enemies, or, more properly, victims—the Christian and other non-Muslim minorities of the Muslim world. Consider the many recent proofs:
According to Pete Winn of CNS:
The U.S. State Department removed the sections covering religious freedom from the Country Reports on Human Rights that itreleased on May 24, three months past the statutory deadline Congress set for the release of these reports. The new human rights reports—purged of the sections that discuss the status of religious freedom in each of the countries covered—are also the human rights reports that include the period that covered the Arab Spring and its aftermath. Thus, the reports do not provide in-depth coverage of what has happened to Christians and other religious minorities in predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East that saw the rise of revolutionary movements in 2011 in which Islamist forces played an instrumental role. For the first time ever, the State Department simply eliminated the section of religious freedom in its reports covering 2011… (emphasis added).
The CNS report goes on to quote several U.S. officials questioning the motives of the Obama administration. Former U.S. diplomat Thomas Farr said that he has “observed during the three-and-a-half years of the Obama administration that the issue of religious freedom has been distinctly downplayed.” Leonard Leo, former chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, said “to have pulled religious freedom out of it [the report] means that fewer people will obtain information,” so that “you don’t have the whole picture.”
Of course, censoring information is a regular theme under Obama: if the administration is suppressing knowledge concerning the sufferings of religious minorities under Islam, earlier it suppressed knowledge concerning Islam itself (see here for a surreal example of the effects of such censorship).
In “Obama Overlooks Christian Persecution,” James Walsh gives more examples of State Department indifference “regarding the New Years’ murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt and the ravaging of a cathedral,” including how the State Department “refused to list Egypt as ‘a country of particular concern,’ even as Christians and others were being murdered, churches destroyed, and girls kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. ”
And the evidence keeps mounting. Legislation to create a special envoy for religious minorities in the Near East and South Central Asia—legislation that, in the words of the Washington Post, “passed the House by a huge margin,” has been stalled by Sen. James Webb (D-Va):
In a letter sent to Webb Wednesday night, Rep. Frank Wolf [R-Va, who introduced the envoy bill] said he “cannot understand why” the hold had been placed on a bill that might help Coptic Christians and other groups “who face daily persecution, hardship, violence, instability and even death.”
Yet the ultimate source of opposition is the State Department. The Post continues:
Webb spokesman Will Jenkins explained the hold by saying that “after considering the legislation, Senator Webb asked the State Department for its analysis.” In a position paper issued in response, State Department officials said “we oppose the bill as it infringes on the Secretary’s [Hillary Clinton’s] flexibility to make appropriate staffing decisions,” and suggested the duties of Wolf’s proposed envoy would overlap with several existing positions. “The new special envoy position is unnecessary, duplicative, and likely counterproductive,” the State Department said (emphasis added).
But as Wolf explained in his letter: “If I believed that religious minorities, especially in these strategic regions, were getting the attention warranted at the State Department, I would cease in pressing for passage of this legislation. Sadly, that is far from being the case. We must act now…. Time is running out.”
Much of this was discussed during Coptic Solidarity’s third annual conference in Washington D.C. last month, which I participated in, and which featured many politicians and lawmakers—including the U.K.’s Lord Alton, Senator Roy Blunt, Congressman Trent Frank, Congressman Joseph Pitts, and Frank Wolf himself. As Coptic Solidarity’s summary report puts it, “All policy makers voiced strong support to the Copts…. Some policy makers raised concerns about the current U.S. Administration’s overtures towards religious extremists.”
There was little doubt among the speakers that, while Webb is the front man, Hillary Clinton—who was named often—is ultimately behind the opposition to the bill. (Videos of all speakers can be accessed here; for information on the envoy bill and how to contact Webb’s office, click here).
Even those invited to speak about matters outside of Egypt, such as Nigerian lawyer and activist Emmanuel Ogebe, after describing the sheer carnage of thousands of Christians at the hands of Muslim militants, lamented that Obama’s response was to pressure the Nigerian president to make more concessions, including by creating more mosques (the very places that “radicalize” Muslims against “infidel” Christians). This, of course, is consistent with the administration’s position that the ongoing massacres of Christians havenothing to do with religion.
Indeed, while the administration vocally condemned vandal attacks on mosques in the West Bank (where no Muslims died), it had nothing to say when Islamic terrorists bombed Nigerian churches on Easter Sunday, killing some 50 Christians and wounding hundreds. And when the Egyptian military indiscriminately massacred dozens of unarmed Christians for protesting the nonstop attacks on their churches, all the White House could say is, “Now is a time for restraint on all sides”—as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian minority needs to “restrain” itself against the nation’s military, a military that intentionally ran armored-vehicles over them at Maspero.
In light of all this, naturally the Obama administration, in the guise of the State Department, would oppose a bill to create an envoy who will only expose more religious persecution for the administration to suppress or obfuscate.
Such is the current state of affairs. In its attempts to empower its Islamist allies, the current U.S. administration has taken up their cause by waging a war of silence on their despised minorities—the Christians and other non-Muslims of the Islamic world.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Why western christians have sold out the eastern christians:
The eastern christians were the original christians. After the western part of the Roman Empire fell to the Germans (around 450 CE), the eastern (orthodox) christians reigned supreme. But only for 200 years. At that time, the eastern christians fought a war to the death with the zoroastrian Persians. Both sides managed to destroy each other, and the newly created arab muslims moved in to pick up the pieces of both empires. Ever since, the muslims have been squeezing the eastern christians to extinction.
Meantime, the roman catholics were slowly regaining strength in the west. They were insanely jealous of the eastern orthodox christians, and were happy to see the muslims crush them. Around 1500 CE, the Protestants in the germanic north of Europe seceded from the southern latin roman catholics. Their main enemy was the pope, and they had little knowledge of the eastern orthodox christians.
Thus, the destruction of the eastern christians is being purposely ignored by the west. The western liberal christians have sided with the savage, primitive muslims, and refuse to acknowledge that muslims can do anything bad.
America set out to liberate the Middle East from tyranny. But America is terrified that, if they support freedom for the Middle Eastern christians, then the muslims will accuse the Americans of being “crusaders”, and turn on them even worse than now. So, because of America, the muslims are now free to persecute and kill eastern christians with even more impunity, and the American State Department remains silent, while loudly criticizing Jewish Israel.
America’s evangelical christian zionists make an occasional protest in favor of their fellow christians in the east, but since the evangelicals claim to be the “real” christians, they consider both the eastern orthodox and roman catholics to be somewhat heretical.
The eastern christians cannot even fight their own battle. The muslims simply kill any eastern christian who complains about how the muslims treat them, since the muslims know the West will not do anything about it.
And how ’bout us Jews? The muslims are doing to the eastern christians what the european christians did to the Jews (although in slow motion). But it’s hard for a Jew to feel sorry for them. The eastern christians are ferocious Jew-haters. So if muslims kill other muslims, or kill eastern christians, it’s of little concern to the Jews, and even more so if their fellow christians in the West don’t care. Besides, if christianity is the “real” Judaism, then, when the muslims kill them, the eastern christians will all become christian martyrs and will immediately join jesus in paradise.