U.S. and West Victimize Christians Fleeing ISIS

by Raymond Ibrahim • September 6, 2015 at 5:00 am

Western nations are not merely ignoring Muslim persecution of Christians in the Middle East, they are actively supporting it by sponsoring "moderate" rebels who in reality are as "radical" and anti-Western as the Islamic State.
"Why the federal government has failed to take steps to expedite such reunification in cases where family and religious leaders are willing to vouch for and help those seeking asylum here... remains an unfathomable mystery." — East County Magazine, San Diego.
Such "unfathomable mysteries" are reminiscent of the U.S. State Department's habit of inviting Muslim representatives but denying visas to Christian representatives. Since the start of 2015, 4,205 Muslims have been admitted into the U.S. from Iraq, but only 727 Christians. For every Christian granted asylum, the U.S. grants asylum to five or six Muslims -- even though Christians, as persecuted "infidel" minorities, are in much greater need of sanctuary.
"Most European governments, especially those that are Christian explicitly or implicitly, are failing in their duty to look after their fellow Christians in their hour of need." — Lord Weidenfeld.
When persecuted Christian minorities manage to flee the Islamic State and come to the West for asylum, they are imprisoned again. All the while, Muslims -- in the Mideast and in the West -- are being empowered and welcomed in the West with open arms.

Asylum seekers in the Swedish city of Kalmar, where Christian refugees were forced to move out of public housing after being harassed and threatened by Muslims.

Not only does the West facilitate the persecution of Christians in the Middle East, but in the West as well.

According to a recent NPR report, the U.S. supported "moderate" coalition fighting both Bashar Assad and the Islamic State in Syria "has extremists in its own ranks who have mistreated Christians and forced them out of their homes" -- just as the Islamic State (IS) has done.

Christian minorities forced out of their homes who manage to reach Western nations -- including the United States -- sometimes encounter more trouble.

Despite having family members to sponsor them, a group of 20 Christians who fled the Islamic State in Iraq have been imprisoned indefinitely, some since February, at the Otay Detention Facility in San Diego, even though they have local family members and Christian leaders who vouch for them (a primary way that the majority of detained foreign nationals are released is to the supervision of American citizens who vouch for them).

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Sorry, Egypt No Longer a Province of the Ottoman Empire

by Burak Bekdil • September 6, 2015 at 4:00 am

Egypt is increasingly unnerved by overt Turkish activity to support the Muslim Brotherhood politically, and covert Turkish activity to support alleged subversion.
Erdogan's obsessive shadow-fighting with the Egyptian regime in the hope of rebuilding a Muslim Brotherhood regime in the former Ottoman "Khedivate" is bad news: it undermines any Western effort to stabilize -- relatively -- the turbulent Middle East.

In this image, widely circulated in social media, Turkey's then-Prime Minister [now President] Recep Tayyip Erdogan flashes the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's four-fingered "Rabia" sign.

In August, possibly the first cheerful news containing the words "Turkey" and "Egypt" hit the headlines in the Turkish press since July 2013, when Egypt's army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi spearheaded a coalition to remove Egypt's President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Turkish chargé d'affaires in Cairo (Turkey and Egypt withdrew their ambassadors after a row) married an Egyptian actress and former beauty queen on August 2. Their wedding was by attended by Turkish, Egyptian and foreign diplomats at a Turkish embassy residence in Giza.

At the wedding ceremony, the Turkish groom, Alper Bosuter, said that Turkey's relations with Egypt have been tense but would eventually return to their normal course. The Egyptian bride, Inci Abdullah, said she wished their marriage to have a positive effect on the two countries' relations.

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