The New Year starts with Islamists in Egypt attempting to “cleanse the Middle East of Christians.” Asia News reports:
Alexandria (AsiaNews / Agencies) – A car bomb exploded last night outside a Coptic church in Alexandria, Egypt, just before Mass ended. The death toll from the bloody attack is, for now, 21 dead and 43 wounded. An eyewitness sport to reprters of a real “blood bath”, with dozens of mangled bodies lying on the ground. The explosion was followed by clashes with between Christians and Muslims in the streets adjacent to the church.
A local priest has said the toll could have been much worse if the car had exploded just a few minutes later. After the attack witnesses say that many of the faithful gathered outside the charred remains of the car singing “We offer our lives and our blood through the Cross.” The attack of last night brings to mind the October 31 massacre in Baghdad, in the Syrian Catholic cathedral, and the Al Qaeda threat against Christians in Egypt.
The mayor of Alexandria, gen. Adel Labib, told Egyptian TV that there have been threats of attacks on churches recently. The Egyptian Interior Ministry has imposed strict security measures around all the churches. “The Islamic effort to cleanse the Middle East by Christians has increased,” writes a Coptic website. In a statement published by the Egyptian press, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has appealed to Egyptians, “Copts and Muslims, to maintain their unity in the face of the terrorist forces that undermine the stability of the homeland and its unity.”
I think this observer gets it right. When it comes to fighting Islamists, we are all in this together. An excerpt:
It will be interesting to observe the international response following last night’s slaughter of at least 21 Christians by Islamists outside a Church in Alexandria, Egypt. If it had been the other way around (heaven forfend that it had been carried out by Jews) there would have been mass protests around the world, condemnations from leading politicians and, given that this comes on the heels of other such massacres, could well have ended up with a resolution at the United Nations.
But don’t hold your breath. The politically correct multi-culturalism that holds sway across Europe and increasing sections of the United States (I hardly need mention the UN) dictates that we must always beware of enflaming Muslim sensitivities. The great diversionary spectre of “Islamophobia” silences all that go before it.
But last night’s bomb attack in Egypt is no isolated event. During a Christmas Day mass in the Philippines 11 were injured in a bombing in a Christian chapel. Also in December 38 Christians were slaughtered by Muslim extremists in Nigeria, a country where church burnings are starting to become commonplace. In Iraq last Autumn 68 Christians were massacred in the Our Lady of Salvation church in Baghdad by a group threatening that Christians will be “exterminated”. Across the Middle East, Christians increasingly live in fear of their Muslim neighbours, and the region’s Christian population is diminishing fast. So at what point does a series of “isolated events” start to form a pattern?
The best answer to that question is: at the point when you have opened your eyes sufficiently to see what is really going on. The pattern has been observable for many years now and it is something which proceeds directly from an Islamist ideology whose central precepts enjoy widespread support across the Islamic world.
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