"It Was Like a War against the Church"
Muslim Persecution of Christians, December 2017

by Raymond Ibrahim • July 22, 2018 at 5:00 am

According to the well-known Conditions of Omar, which are believed to have been promulgated by the second caliph of the same name, churches may not have bells or visible crosses.
"The attack on Christians was simply because of the pariah status they have in Pakistan.... A consequence of years of hate ideology having been inculcated in the minds of young people in Pakistan, through the use of media and a national curriculum that demonizes minorities." — A human rights activist, Pakistan.
"They sent me warnings through friends, telling me to stop talking about Jesus or risk getting killed. They said they knew it was easy to kill Christians because [Christians] don't have any weapons. They can simply be slaughtered." — A man in Mali, World Watch Monitor Mali, December 11, 2017.

The Johanneum Gymnasium in Lüneburg, a 600-year-old high school, "ditched Christmas celebrations during class time after a Muslim pupil said that carols were incompatible with Islam," according to a report. (Image source: Stonecello/Wikimedia Commons)

Christian Carnage and Attacked Churches in Egypt

As a reflection of the enmity that Christmas provokes in the Islamic world, "Egypt's interior ministry... said it would be allocating 230,000 security personnel to secure the country's Christmas celebrations," the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahram reported, "to protect 2,626 churches nationwide during the celebrations." Security measures were further "updated to ensure the safety of CCTV and metal detectors systems at all churches across the country."

Despite these precautions, Muslim assailants managed to slaughter Christians and terrorize churches:

On December 9 in Cairo, two Islamic terror attacks claimed a total of eight Christian lives and wounded several others.

In the first attack, Muslim militants raided a Christian-owned appliance store and killed two Christian brothers.

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Donald Trump and the Carl Schmitt Spectrum

by Amir Taheri • July 22, 2018 at 4:00 am

In its boldest form, the "foe" is the force that wishes not only to defeat you in a contest or even a war but strives to destroy you.
In democratic societies, the choice may be between "friend" and "enemy". Here, the enemy does not want to wipe you out or even to force you to submit to all his wishes. He wants to deny you a bigger share of power which he wants to keep for himself.
The task of diplomacy and political leadership is to go through the Schmittian spectrum, turning foe into enemy, enemy into adversary, adversary into rival, rival into ally and ally into friend. May be, just may be, in his unorthodox way Trump is trying to do just that. So, let's give him a chance. What do you say?

US President Donald Trump and UK Prime Minister Theresa May, on July 13, 2018 in Aylesbury, England. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Has Donald Trump been reading Carl Schmitt in secret? The thought came to mind the other day when the US president was concluding his two-day "working visit" to the United Kingdom with a series of impromptu statements before flying to Scotland to play golf. It was by using the term "foe" to describe Russia, China and even the European Union that Trump reminded me of Schmitt.

"We have many foes," Trump asserted while implicitly casting himself as the embodiment of a total state that represents the people, the ordinary folk, the Joe down the block, as opposed to the sneering and self-serving elite.

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