 Police in Malaysia have arrested eight men they said were believed to have been involved in the firebombing of a Christian church earlier this month. There have been at least 12 attempted attacks on religious institutions since a court verdict on New Year's Eve allowed non-Muslims to use the word "Allah" when referring to God. The ensuing protests and violence have heightened religious tensions in the Muslim-majority nation. Bakri Zinin, Malaysia's federal criminal investigation chief said police were investigating whether the eight arrested were also linked to the attacks on 10 other churches, which had been pelted with Molotov cocktails, stones and paint. "Eight people have been arrested and they are believed to be involved in the arson attack on the [Metro Tabernacle] church. They have been remanded for seven days to facilitate investigations," he told reporters on Wednesday. "We will investigate whether they are also linked to other cases [but] we believe we have solved this case. So please I advise the public, don't do something that will threaten racial and religious harmony." The three-storey Metro Tabernacle church in Kuala Lumpur was set ablaze on January 8 in a firebombing that left its ground floor destroyed. Church leaders said witnesses saw four people ride up to the building on motorbikes, smash the church's windows and throw objects into the building. Bakri said the first of the eight to be arrested was detained on Tuesday after seeking hospital treatment for burns on his hands and chest. The group were all aged between 21 and 26, and included three relatives - two siblings and their uncle. The remainder were friends of the family group. Last month, the High Court ruled in favour of the Catholic Herald newspaper which has used "Allah" as a translation for "God" in its Malay-language section. Malaysia's government has said the word should be used only by Muslims. The court's final ruling on the issue was suspended pending an appeal, after the government argued the decision could cause racial conflict. Malaysia's population is 60 per cent Muslim ethnic Malay, but also includes indigenous tribes as well as the large ethnic Chinese and Indian communities that practice Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, among other faiths. More than half of Malaysia's Catholics are from indigenous groups, most of whom live in the Borneo island states and who mainly speak Malay. Al Jazeera 
 Richard Lloyd Parry The church attacks reflect deep and long-running tensions in Malaysia. It seemed to come out of nowhere, it ran its course within a fortnight, and the damage inflicted was mild compared with religious conflicts in other parts of the world.
But this month’s attacks on churches in Malaysia, which petered out last week leaving one gutted by fire and nine others vandalised, is a sinister development, a portent of great changes afoot in what used to be one of South East Asia’s most stable and peaceful democracies. On the face of it, the attacks were provoked by a simmering and – to many outsiders – absurd controversy about the use of the word Allah. But below that, they suggest deep and long-running tensions in a country which has successfully bottled them up for 40 years. The row – over whether Christians should have the right to use the word Allah to refer to their own God in Malaysian-language Bibles and liturgy – is just the latest in a series of manifestations of a rising current of conservative Islam. In other incidents last year, a 32-year old mother was convicted for drinking a can of beer, and Muslim demonstrators outraged Hindu opinion by marching with the head of a dead cow, an animal sacred to Hinduism, to oppose the construction of a proposed temple. Malaysia’s success since its independence from Britain in 1963 has been to neutralise the rivalry and mutual dislike between its small majority of Malays (who by law are Muslim) and its Chinese and Indian minorities (who are Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Sikh). Relations between Malays and Chinese, in particular, have been marked over the years by outbreaks of mutual antipathy rooted in racial dislike which in Malaysia’s neighbour Indonesia have intermittently erupted into deadly violence. In the Chinese racist stereotype, Malays are lazy, stupid, uneducated, unhygienic and feckless. The equivalent Malay view sees Chinese as clannish, patronising, greedy, dishonest and opportunistic. In May 1969, these resentments boiled over in race riots which killed scores, and perhaps hundreds, of people in Malaysia. The Government’s response was to establish the New Economic Policy, based upon a system of positive discrimination for Malays, who were given favourable access to education, and to business and property subsidies. For years, the resentment among the minorities of such official discrimination was offset by an understanding that it was also a guarantee of long-term racial harmony. The racial character of Malaysian politics was engraved in the name of its rulers. The Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, which has held power since independence, is a coalition of parties based upon ethnic identity – one Indian, one Chinese, and, dominating all of them, the United Malay National Organisation (Umno). But in the past ten years, the racial texture of Malaysian life and society has altered, and politics is struggling to keep up. Better educated, better off, and increasingly cosmopolitan, young Malaysians of all backgrounds are less prone to identify themselves purely in racial terms. Opposition parties have been successful campaigning on an inclusive, non-racial platform. After making huge gains in the last general election in 2008, they are now in a position to drive the Barisan Nasional out of power at the next. The result has been confusion among Umno and its partners. Since the retirement of Mahathir Mohamad, the towering figure in Malaysian politics since the 1970s, the party has lacked a convincing leader. Umno is not essentially a party of fundamentalist Islam, but as its racial base erodes it has – inconsistently and without much strategic planning – attempted to curry favour with ultra-conservative Muslims in the hope that religion may fill the ideological gap left by Malay nationalism. A shrewder leader, such as Dr Mahathir, would not have let the Allah row – a ridiculous dispute over a word used without comment by Christians in countries such as Indonesia and Syria – assume the dimensions which it has. But his successor as Prime Minister, Najib Razak, has stoked it. When a court ruled on December 31 that the ban on the use of Allah by Christians was unconstitutional, he had an opportunity to drop the whole thing. Instead, his Government appealed against the decision, and the attacks followed. The police have made no arrests. The physical damage which the attacks have caused may have been minimal. But the damage to the cause of racial harmony in Malaysia is impossible to calculate. Times Online
 Troops are patrolling the northern Nigerian city of Jos after clashes between Christians and Muslims left at least 26 people dead and injured around 100 more, officials said. Violence erupted on Sunday over the rebuilding of homes destroyed in 2008 clashes between the two religious groups, residents said, although reports as to why the latest round of fighting broke out varied. According to the Associated Press, Muslim youths set fire to a church filled with worshippers, starting a riot that saw mosques and homes burnt. But the AFP news agency said the unrest was sparked by youths protesting the building of a mosque in a predominantly Christian area. Police said on Monday that the situation was under control and an evening curfew was in place. "Security personnel have succeeded in quelling the unrest and restoring calm in the affected area of the city," Mohammed Lerema, Plateau State police spokesman, told AFP. "We have cordoned the Nassarawa Gwom district as a strategy to prevent the violence from spilling over to other parts of the city," he said. Jos, capital of Plateau state and home to 500,000 people, along with other central and northern areas in Nigeria have been plagued by religious violence in recent years. In November 2008, hundreds of people were killed in Jos in two days of fighting triggered by a rumour that the mainly Muslim All Nigerian Peoples Party had lost a local election to the Christian dominated Peoples Democratic Party. State officials put the death toll at about 200 but other sources gave a toll twice that figure. Last month, at least 40 people were killed in clashes between security forces and members of an Islamist sect in the northern Bauchi State. Nigeria has roughly the same number of Christians and Muslims, although traditional animist beliefs underpin many people's faiths. Al Jazeera
 Churches are being firebombed in Malaysia, and for AP that is "similar" to a rum bottle being thrown at a mosque. "Rum bottle thrown at Malaysia mosque amid tension," from The Associated Press, January 16 (thanks to Pamela): KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Vandals threw a rum bottle at a mosque in the first attack on a Muslim house of worship after almost a dozen similar assaults on churches in Malaysia the past week, police said Saturday. Police have dismissed the attacks as vandalism, but they have caused disquiet in multiracial Malaysia and raised fears of more widespread religious tensions. One Sikh temple and 11 churches have been hit - most of them with molotov cocktails - since Jan. 8.... Maybe the molotov cocktails were made from rum. With thanks to JihadWatch
 Malaysia's Home Ministry held a briefing for foreign diplomats on Monday to try to ease their concerns about the recent spate of attacks on Christian churches. But rather than offering a rational explanation of what exactly the Government is trying to achieve with its attempts to limit the use of the word Allah, the diplomats heard this: Our landscape is different from other countries. Malays here are different from other countries. So said Home Ministry secretary, Gen. Mahmood Adam. And he may well be right about that, but he was still avoiding the issue. Because the one fact that the Government still refuses to acknowledge is that the essence of this controversy lies not in the nature of Malaysia's culture, but in the direct actions of its Government. It was the Government, not the people, that introduced legislation establishing the principle that the word Allah is exclusive to Islam. (A claim that has been convincingly debunked by numerous experts. Here's one succinct explanation.) What's especially comical is that even Malaysia's own Islamic leaders don't agree with the Government. based on Islamic principles, the use of the word Allah by the people of the Abrahamic faiths such as Christianity and Judaism, is acceptable, Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim (a Muslim) concurs: With respect to the use of the word Allah, it cannot be disputed that Arabic speaking Muslims, Christians and Jews have collectively prayed to God as Allah throughout the last fourteen centuries. While sensitivities over its usage have arisen in Malaysia, the way to resolve these conflicts is not by burning churches and staging incendiary protests but by reasoned engagement and interreligious dialogue. Bizarrely, the consistent calls for dialogue over issues of religious sensitivities continue to go unheeded. (The Jakarta Post expresses similar concerns about the situation in Indonesia here.) And all the while that Malaysia's Home Ministry continues to maintain the fiction that somehow its position is the Malaysian people's position, it is truly missing the wood for the trees. Because once this particular issue fades away, what will inevitably be left behind in the minds of foreign diplomats - and investors - will be another paragraph in the catalogue of niggling entries that mark Malaysia as a "risk", a country increasingly unable to reconcile its religious and racial communities, thanks in large part to tone-deaf government. Al Jazeera
 KUALA LUMPUR: Another two churches were firebombed yesterday, taking to six the total of attacks in three days of unrest following a court decision allowing Christians and other non-Muslims to use "Allah" to refer to God. Hundreds of worshippers whose parish church was partly gutted in a firebomb attack last week gathered at a makeshift prayer hall for their Sunday service and called for national unity and an end to violence. A Molotov cocktail was hurled at the All Saints Church in Taiping town in central Perak state early yesterday before it had opened, said state police chief Zulkifli Abdullah. He said the building was not damaged. Also yesterday, a bottle of kerosene was thrown into St Louis Catholic Church, which wasn't damaged. Four churches were hit by petrol bombs on Friday and Saturday. All except the Metro Tabernacle, whose parishioners moved their services, suffered little damage, and no one was hurt. The other three held normal services yesterday. The dispute is over a December 31 High Court decision that overturned a government order banning non-Muslims from using the word Allah in their prayers and literature.
The court was ruling on a petition by Malaysia's Catholic Church, whose main publication, the Herald, uses Allah in its Malay-language edition. The government has appealed against the verdict. The government contends that making Allah synonymous with God may confuse Muslims and ultimately mislead them into converting to Christianity. Prime Minister Najib Razak visited the Metro Tabernacle church late on Saturday and announced a grant of 500,000 ringgit ($160,323) for rebuilding it at a new location. The Australian
 KUALA LUMPUR - Arsonists in Malaysia struck a fourth church on Saturday as the government tried to soothe tensions arising from a row over the use of the word "Allah" to refer to the Christian God. The unprecedented attacks risk dividing the mainly Muslim nation of 28 million people, which has significant religious minorities, and complicating Prime Minister Najib Razak's plan to win back support from the non-Muslims before the next elections by 2013. The row, over a court ruling that allowed a Catholic newspaper to use Allah in its Malay-language editions, prompted Muslims to protest at mosques on Friday and sparked arson attacks on three churches that saw one Pentecostalist church gutted. While Najib visited the badly damaged Pentecostalist church and offered a government grant of half a million ringgit ($148,100) to maintain "a harmonious society," church leaders said they wanted more concrete assurances of safety. "We ask the government to make a strong statement to these wrongdoers so we can worship in peace on Sunday," Reverend Hermen Shastri, secretary-general to the Council of Churches Malaysia, told Reuters. Malaysia is mainly Muslim and Malay but there are substantial ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities who mainly practice Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. These minorities handed the government its biggest losses in 2008 state and national elections in part due to feelings of religious marginalization and growing disillusionment with corruption. In the latest attack on early Saturday, unidentified attackers flung a home-made petrol bomb at the Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in a suburb in Selangor state. The two-storey bungalow sustained minor damage, church officials said. Police said they have stepped up security at all places of worship but faced a manpower shortage. Inspector General of Police Musa Hasan told churches across the country to hire more security guards. Christians account for nine percent of the 28 million population, with a sizable number of non-English speaking Christians in Malaysia's Borneo island states of Sabah and Sarawak who have used the word "Allah" for decades. Najib's handling of the issue will determine whether he can keep the support of the Malays and win back ethnic Chinese and Indian voters to solidify his grip on power after taking control of the government last year. "Till today we are protecting the interests of other races besides championing those of the Malays," Najib was earlier quoted as saying by state news agency Bernama. "Don't point fingers and say UMNO is racist...when churches are burned," he said referring to his party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) that is the linchpin of the National Front that has ruled the country for 52 years. But Malay-Muslims, including those in UMNO, fear the word could be used by Christians to proselytize to Muslims, which is already illegal in the Southeast Asian country. More than 169,000 Malaysians have joined a group page on social networking site Facebook called "Protesting the use of the name Allah by non-Muslims," a fourfold increase from the start of this week that signals growing Islamic anger. Reuters
 KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — A church was set on fire in Malaysia early Friday by unidentified attackers amid a growing conflict in the country over the use of the word "Allah" by non-Muslims, officials said. Only the first floor office of the Metro Tabernacle Church was destroyed in the blaze that started a little after midnight Thursday, said church spokesman Kevin Ang.
The worship areas on the upper two floors were undamaged, and there were no injuries. The church is located in a three-story building on a shopping street in Desa Melawati, a suburb of Kuala Lumpur, the main city of this Muslim-majority country. The attack on the Protestant church comes days after the Kuala Lumpur High Court struck down a 3-year-old ban on non-Muslims using the word "Allah" in their literature. The government has appealed against the court verdict, which allowed a Catholic publication to use the common word for God in the Malay language, and the High Court has suspended its decision from being enforced until the appeal is heard. Muslims argue that "Allah" is exclusive to Islam, and its use by Christians would confuse Muslims and tempt them to convert to Christianity. The court decision has resulted in a rash of angry comments and threats by Muslims on the Internet. Dozens of Muslim groups are planning a protest against the court decision on Friday after weekly prayers. Friday's fire was the first time the controversy turned destructive. District police chief Zakaria Pagan told the AP "we are still investigating" the fire and said he will issue a statement later. Another church official quoted a witness as saying she saw three or four men on a motorcycle breaking the main glass front of the church and throw something inside, possibly a gasoline bomb. The account could not be independently confirmed. About 60 percent of Malaysia's 28 million people are Malay Muslims, while the rest are ethnic Chinese and Indians, who follow Christianity, Hinduism and other religions. The High Court ruling was on a petition by the Herald, the main publication of Malaysia's Roman Catholic Church. It uses the word Allah in its Malay-language edition, which is read by indigenous tribes in the remote states of Sabah and Sarawak. The tribespeople are Malay-speaking, so Catholic officials say "Allah" is the only word they know for God. FoxNews
 An update on this story. "At Least 7 Killed After Coptic Christmas Mass In Egypt," from the Associated Press, January 6 Three men in a car sprayed automatic gunfire into a crowd of churchgoers in southern Egyptian as they left a midnight Mass for Coptic Christmas, killing at least seven people in a drive-by shooting, the church bishop and security officials said. Egypt's Interior Ministry said the attack Wednesday just before midnight was suspected as retaliation for the November rape of a Muslim girl by a Christian man in the same town. The statement said witnesses have identified the lead attacker. Prior reporting described the accusation of rape as a rumor. Nonetheless, riots ensued. The attack took place in the town of Nag Hamadi in Qena province, about 40 miles from the famous ancient ruins of Luxor. A local security official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, confirmed that seven were dead and three seriously wounded. Bishop Kirollos of the Nag Hamadi Diocese told The Associated Press six male churchgoers and one security guard were killed. He said he had left St. John's church just minutes before the attack. "A driving car swerved near me, so I took the back door. By the time I shook hands with someone at the gate, I heard the mayhem, lots of machine gun shots," he said in a telephone interview. He said he saw five bodies lying on the ground when he first looked at the site of the shooting, about 600 yards where he was. The bishop said he was concerned about violence on the eve of Coptic Christmas, which falls on Thursday, because of previous threats following the rape of the 12-year-old girl in November. He got a message on his mobile phone saying: "It is your turn." "I did nothing with it. My faithful were also receiving threats in the streets, some shouting at them: 'We will not let you have festivities,"' he said. Because of the threats, he said he ended his Christmas Mass one hour early. He said Muslim residents of Nag Hamadi and neighboring villages rioted for five days in November and torched and damaged Christian properties in the area after the rape. "For days, I had expected something to happen on Christmas day," he said. The bishop said police have now asked him to stay at home for fear of further violence. [...] Clashes between Muslims and Christians are not uncommon in southern Egypt and in recent years have begun seeping into the capital. An Amnesty International report said sectarian attacks on the Coptic Christian community, comprising between 6 million and 8 million people in Egypt, increased in the year 2008. Sporadic clashes between Coptic Christians and Muslims left eight people dead. Vendetta killing is also common among southern Egyptians, and is usually over land or family disputes. The bishop said he had an idea of who the attackers were, calling them "Muslim radicals." "It is all religious now. This is a religious war about how they can finish off the Christians in Egypt," he said.
 Not to mention the churches that have been attacked outright. Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Hundreds to worship outside churches amid tight security," by Yuli Tri Suwarni and Suherdjoko for the Jakarta Post, December 24: Fifteen police officers backed up by soldiers and local residents will guard every church across West Java during Christmas celebrations to prevent possible attacks, police said. Dozens of churches in the province have closed since 2004 after being stormed or attacked by hard-line Muslim mobs. In 2000, militants bombed churches across the archipelago on Christmas Eve. This week in Bandung, West Java, many Christians won't be able to celebrate Christmas in a church because they were denied permits to build their places of worship. West Java Church Federation (BKSG) leader John Simon Timorason said Wednesday the biggest obstacle was applying for a building permit to build a church, so local Christians eventually opted to hold Christmas prayers in shopping malls, hotels, restaurants, shops and homes. He said more than 60 percent of the 1,920 churches in West Java were built without permits because of difficulties in obtaining permits. Only 15 percent of churches have permanent buildings and have permits. "We face difficulties obtaining permits. Those equipped with permits, such as the churches in Purwakarta, Bekasi and Depok, had their permits revoked due to pressure from intolerant groups," Simon told The Jakarta Post. Last year, 77 families from the Pasundan Christian Church in Dayeuhkolot, Bandung, who were holding prayers at their preacher's house were evicted by a mob. Church caretaker Ranto Gunawan Simamora said, fearing violence, they had to hold mass in a chapel at the Immanuel Hospital on Jl. Kopo, Bandung. West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Timur Pradopo said more than 10,000 personnel would provide security for Christmas mass in churches and other locations throughout the province. Timur said the police would also secure public places, such as shopping malls, hotels and tourist sites as part of Operation Lilin-Lodaya that starts Dec. 24 and runs for 10 days....
 ISTANBUL: In response to a Swiss vote banning the construction of new mosque minarets, a group of Muslims this month went into a church building in eastern Turkey and threatened to kill a priest unless he tore down its bell tower, according to an advocacy group.
Three Muslims on Dec. 4 entered the Meryem Ana Church, a Syriac Orthodox church in Diyarbakir, and confronted the Rev. Yusuf Akbulut. They told him that unless the bell tower was destroyed in one week, they would kill him.
“If Switzerland is demolishing our minarets, we will demolish your bell towers too,” one of the men told Akbulut.
The threats came in reaction to a Nov. 29 referendum in Switzerland in which 57 percent voted in favor of banning the construction of new minarets in the country. Swiss lawmakers must now change the national constitution to reflect the referendum, a process that should take more than a year.
The Swiss ban, widely viewed around the world as a breach of religious freedom, is likely to face legal challenges in Switzerland and in the European Court of Human Rights.
There are roughly 150 mosques in Switzerland, four with minarets. Two more minarets are planned. The call to prayer traditional in Muslim-majority countries is not conducted from any of the minarets.
Fikri Aygur, vice president of the European Syriac Union, said that Akbulut has contacted police but has otherwise remained defiant in the face of the threats.
“He has contacted the police, and they gave him guards,” he said. “I talked with him two days ago, and he said, ‘It is my job to protect the church, so I will stand here and leave it in God’s hands.’”
Meryem Ana is more than 250 years old and is one of a handful of churches that serve the Syriac community in Turkey. Also known as Syrian Orthodox, the Syriacs are an ethnic and religious minority in Turkey and were one of the first groups of people to accept Christianity. They speak Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, a language spoken by Christ. Diyarbakir is located in eastern Turkey, about 60 miles from the Syrian border.
At press time the tower was standing and the priest was safe, said Jerry Mattix, youth pastor at the Diyarbakir Evangelical Church, which is located across a street from Meryem Ana Church.
Mattix said that threats against Christians in Diyarbakir are nothing out of the ordinary. Mattix commonly receives threats, both in the mail and posted on the church’s Internet site, he said.
“We’re kind of used to that,” Mattix said. He added that he has received no threats over the minaret situation but added, “I wouldn’t be surprised if we do.”
Mattix said the people making threats in the area are Muslim radicals with ties to Hezbollah “who like to flex their muscles.”
“We are a major target out here, and we are aware of that,” Mattix said. “But the local police are taking great strides to protect us.”
Mattix said he also has “divine confidence” in God’s protection.
The European Syriac Union’s Aygur said that Christians in Turkey often serve as scapegoats for inflamed local Muslims who want to lash out at Europeans.
“When they [Europeans] take actions against the Muslims, the Syriacs get persecuted by the fanatical Muslims there,” he said.
The threats against the church were part of a public outcry in Turkey that included newspaper editorials characterizing the Swiss decision as “Islamophobia.” One Turkish government official called upon Muslims to divest their money from Swiss bank accounts. He invited them to place their money in the Turkish banking system.
In part, the threats also may reflect a larger and well-established pattern of anti-Christian attitudes in Turkey. A recent study conducted by two professors at Sabanci University found that 59 percent of those surveyed said non-Muslims either “should not” or “absolutely should not” be allowed to hold open meetings where they can discuss their ideas.
The survey also found that almost 40 percent of the population of Turkey said they had “very negative” or “negative” views of Christians. In Turkey, Christians are often seen as agents of outside forces bent on dividing the country.
This is not the first time Akbulut has faced persecution. Along with a constant string of threats and harassment, he was tried and acquitted in 2000 for saying to the press that Syriacs were “massacred” along with Armenians in 1915 killings.
In Midyat, also in eastern Turkey, someone recently dug a tunnel under the outlying buildings of a Syriac church in hopes of undermining the support of the structure.
At the Mor Gabriel Monastery, also near Midyat, there is a legal battle over the lands surrounding the monastery. Founded in 397 A.D., Mor Gabriel is arguably the oldest monastery in use today. It is believed local Muslim leaders took the monastery to court in an attempt to seize lands from the church. The monastery has prevailed in all but one case, which is still underway.
“These and similar problems that are threatening the very existence of the remaining Syriacs in Turkey have reached a very serious and worrying level,” Aygur stated in a press release. “Especially, whenever there is a problem about Islam in the European countries, the Syriacs’ existence in Turkey is threatened with such pressures and aggressions.”
 The mainstream media continue to decry the Swiss referendum on minarets. To date, The New York Times has published one editorial and five additional articles on the subject, including one today. Perhaps The Paper of Record views the 30% of the electorate who actually voted in Switzerland as traitors to their own multicultural, anti-racist, politically correct belief system. The problem is that the Islamic world today does not share this hallowed belief system. Actually, it never did. Rather, it has destroyed or built over synagogues, churches, and temples, and denied that such infidel places of worship ever existed. Note the fevered Palestinian attempts to claim the Temple Mount, where once the ancient Jewish Temple stood, as really “Islamic.” The Islamic world does not allow new synagogues or churches to be built.
Further: Muslim fundamentalists currently persecute, torture, and murder those Christians who dare remain in the Middle East, and they kidnap, forcibly convert, and “marry” their very young daughters. It is time to demand—or at least to expect–reciprocity. Otherwise, we are really being racist in having one (higher) standard for Westerners and another (much lower) standard for the barbarians. Granted: The West is not as barbaric and intolerant as the Islamic world; we do not willingly wish to become intolerant. Yet, tolerating the intolerant is unwise, or as the Jewish sages tell us: Being kind to the cruel results in cruelty to the kind. Thus, if there can be no churches or synagogues built in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc.—then why should the Swiss or the Europeans allow new, blockbuster size mosques, and sound-splitting loudspeakers emanating from minarets? According to Imam Kurdi, writing in the Arab News, “And let’s not be hypocrites. If you held a referendum in a Muslim country asking whether the construction of new church steeples should be permitted, you are also likely to get an overwhelming no. So let us not brand this a Swiss phenomenon and let us also remember that it is not the majority of the Swiss population that supported the ban but the majority of those who voted, which if you do the maths comes to 30 percent of the population.” (Thanks to Esther for bringing this to my attention.) Let me be clear. I am one of those westerners who has “dreamed East.” And, as a Jew, I have an undeniably dangerous but familial kinship with Arabs and Muslims. I find the Muslim call to prayer beautiful—but only if I refuse to understand that, as an infidel, an American citizen and patriot, a Jew, a woman, and a Zionist, that my place inside that mosque is that of a sub-human, fair-game target for hatred or worse. Jews in exile from Arab and Muslim countries have launched a beautiful, haunted literature, one in which they manifest nostalgia for the places which endangered them and forced them to flee. Often, the danger is minimized, the customs romanticized. I am thinking of Andre Aciman, Roya Hakakian, and Lucette Lagnado. I am in favor of interfaith gatherings. Peaceful voices are sweet to my ears and yet: telling the truth is far sweeter than lying. The truth is: Mosque and minaret building in Europe probably represent a refusal to integrate; a refusal to separate mosque and state. Perhaps it also signifies an intention to one day vote in Shari’a law as the law of the European land. According to my colleague, Henrik R. Clausen, at Europe News: “Minarets are built to ’stamp a site with Islamic character’, not for their religious signifiance. Actually, no building should in principle have any religious significance, for only Allah is to be worshipped, not stones, buildings and holy water. The reality, of course, is somewhat different. The core purpose of a minaret remains to mark the ownership, that this land is Islamic.” Clausen points out that many Islamic minarets started out as church watchtowers. Thus, the minaret (and what it symbolizes) is cause for concern. Phyllis Chesler
 The New York Times Thinks So The daily propaganda which masquerades as news and as learned opinion has just gotten my goat. Yesterday, the New York Times published an editorial condemning Switzerland as “intolerant” for having voted to ban minarets—minarets, not mosques. God, I cannot recall an editorial in their pages condemning Arab and Muslim countries for not allowing any Christian churches, Jewish synagogues, or Hindu and Bahai temples to be built.
Nor has the Paper of Record really focused on the real refugee story in the Middle East: that of Arab Jews who were forced to flee the Islamic world and came as refugees to Israel between 1948-1956 and constituted a “silent” exodus, one which is still ongoing.
My friend Pierre Rehov directed and distributed the most haunting and powerful film with this exact title. Further, in today’s New York Times, a typically biased piece titled “Jewish Nationalists Clash with Palestinians” also appeared.
Note: The headline does not say “Israeli citizens,” nor does it describe the Palestinians as “nationalists” as well. But the main omission is this:
The Times’ Isabel Kershner fails to note that the confrontation turned ugly when Americans and Europeans (Swedes) physically assaulted Jewish “nationalists” with clubs and stones. What are they doing here? Where are they when Sderot is being shelled? And, by the way, the fact that the Israeli High Court, which has rendered many pro-Palestinian decisions, ruled that these particular Palestinian nationalist settlers were there illegally is not given the proper weight in this article. The fact that Jordan is already a “Palestinian” state never seems to register in this newspaper. True, the Jordanians did not want the mainly Palestinian terrorists and massacred and expelled them in 1970; Israel alone is expected to live with them. But the most troubling article today is one that the distinguished Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, Tony Hurwitz, wrote. Horwitz compares John Brown the “abolitionist” and “terrorist” to—you guessed it—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the 9/11 hijackers. The title of his piece is “The 9/11 of 1859.” What are they drinking or smoking over there? More at Chesler Chronicles
 A masked gunman entered a Moscow church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday. The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country’s growing Muslim minority of about 20 million. The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General’s office said. Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations. “I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims),” Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. “As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims.” “Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it,” he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (here in Russian). “Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God’s kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments,” he added. Reuters
I got a really interesting comment to my post at Classical Values: A Libertine Speaks. Even though I spent many years active in the Church, preaching and having a music ministry, once I got old enough to realize I didn't have all the answers, I didn't want any church elders having influence in law. Law should only be about not directly harming others, and nothing else.
The problem with imposing values is that when someone says "God told me this is the right thing to do" you can't argue with it. They've invoked the ultimate authority and don't think they have to even listen to opposing viewpoints. Calvin, who is STILL considered an authority, had people murdered for disagreeing with him. Almost every Christian church old enough has blood on its hands.
I've been active in quite enough churches to see first hand the jealousy and conflicting values. My music was more modern, and some Christians said "I feel the Spirit" and others said "I feel Satan in this why did you do this". They weren't both right, but both think they know God enough to use the Law to force people to live according to their own set of values.
Paul even told the early church in Corinthians to stop arguing over less important matters.
Jesus spent his whole time WITH the "sinners", not lecturing them or judging them.
We've already seen what the world looks like when the Church runs it, no one wants to go back to that.
plutosdad · October 29, 2009 03:05 PM I have nothing to add. Well actually I do have something to add. Eric at Classical Values documents some people who do want to go back to a time when the church ran the world as it still does in some places.
 Danish politician Nader Khader says that "If anybody in the world should apologize to the rest of the world, it's Saudi Arabia.
They should apologize for oppressing their women.
They should apologize that women can only inherit half the portion of a brother.
They should apologize that women can't get a driver's license.
They should apologize that you can't build churches in synagogues in the country."
Khader adds that Saudi Arabia should also apologize for women having to wear a burka.
The Telegraph recently made headlines with a survey that suggested that a fifth of the European Union will be Muslim by 2050. This is if anything an understatement of the situation, since once you subtract Eastern European states and focus in on Western European countries such as England, France and Italy... or Sweden, Islam will comprise a sizable enough minority to be considered a state within a state. And even the most pessimistic statistics will grow gloomier if 75 million Turks inside the presently Islamist Turkey will become part of the European Union.
 Meanwhile always eager to get ahead, Russia estimates that Islam will become its predominant religion by 2050.
The Russians, both under the USSR and in the Putin era, have done everything they can to try and raise the birth rate, but remains at half that of Uzbekistan, or even war torn Chechnya.
With the Russian population set to fall by almost 50 million, to 100 million in 2050, the Muslim birth rate will have made up the surplus.
Having tried all the usual financial family incentives and even made an effort at luring back its former Jewish emigrants, Russia is now counting on its state run network of mosques, which can only preach Jihad at America, England and any non-Russian infidels, to maintain control. It is an absurd strategy, but no more so than Europe's own.
While Europe may not boast a population that is by turns dying of alcohol poisoning or trying to escape abroad-- Europe is dying the slow death of socialism instead.
High taxes, late marriages and the accompanying low birth rates have hit Europe hard. And attempts to compensate for gaps in the workforce during economic upswings with immigration, has imported the barbarians through the gate, past customs and into every major European city.
The old European is likely to live comfortably, to go abroad on vacations and have plenty of time for hobbies and entertainments. And to be child free, or perhaps one or two indifferently pampered children, if they can find the time.
The new European is likely to be named Mohammed, to have twice as many children, if not twice as many wives, and to spend less time entertaining himself at operas and on vacations, and more time building a future for his family.
The old European is likely to have a limited interest in church or synagogue. His children may even hold an open hostility toward organized religion. The churches and synagogues will pursue his grandchildren with all sorts of gimmicks in the hopes of getting them to show up, but even if they do, there will be very little there to hold them.
The new European will have a steady mosque. Outside the mosque he will listen to Islamic lectures on his media player or cell phone. Family ties will create strong religious bonds through the next generation, and there will always be a brother with a shiny knife for any daughter who stays off the path.
The end result is not very hard to project at all. Europe's left of center parties have embraced Muslims as a voting public, speeding their legalization, and what can only be euphemistically described as integration. But it is not so much Muslims being integrated into Europe, as Europe becoming integrated into the Islamic Ummah.
A massive brawl that occurred between Croat and Muslim students in the Bosnian city of Mostar is blamed on Wahabis, suggests the report by the NGO Croatia Libertas.
“It is about groups that have a radical interpretation of Islam and influence the youth. The attacks have spread on all high schools in Mostar,” says Leo Plockinic, representative from Croati Libertas.
Plockinic says that the organized Wahabis are armed with light weapons.
Police spokeswoman Lejla Trivun said that 5 teens have been arrested over the weekend.
She said that on Sunday evening students gathered on both sides of the Boulevard, a street that demarcates Croatian and Islamic part of Mostar. Youngsters were gathering rocks with an intent to start the violence.
Wahabis have been involved in a string of attacks across Bosnia. Croatians have been targeted in particular. Last week, two Wahabis sought to enter a Catholic church at wee hours seeking to “silence” the church bells. Source: Serbianna
 Worship is not allowed in St Paul’s Church, TarsusBy Christopher Landau The Turkish government says it is "out of the question" for it to hand over a revered medieval church where Catholics want to hold Christian services. The church, currently run as a museum, stands in the south-eastern town of Tarsus, where St Paul was born. The Turkish constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but Christian groups in the country believe that in practice they face discrimination. Next week the Vatican will hold a Catholic-Muslim forum to improve ties. It was the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne in Germany who first challenged the Turkish government to hand over the church in Tarsus. Read more ...Source: BBC
 By Etgar Lefkovits The ever-dwindling Christian communities living in Palestinian-run territories in the West Bank and Gaza are likely to dissipate completely within the next 15 years as a result of increasing Muslim persecution and maltreatment, an Israeli scholar said Monday. "The systematic persecution of Christian Arabs living in Palestinian areas is being met with nearly total silence by the international community, human rights activists, the media and NGOs," said Justus Reid Weiner, an international human rights lawyer in an address at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, where he serves as a scholar in residence. He cited Muslim harassment and persecution as the main cause of the "acute human rights crisis" facing Christian Arabs, and predicted that unless governments or institutions step in to remedy the situation - such as with job opportunities - there will be no more Christian communities living in the Palestinians territories within 15 years, with only a few Western Christians and top clergymen left in the area. "Christian leaders are being forced to abandon their followers to the forces of radical Islam," Weiner said. Facing a pernicious mixture of persecution and economic hardships as a result of years of Palestinian violence and Israeli counter-terrorism measures, tens of thousands of Christian Arabs have left the Palestinian territories for a better life in the West, in a continuing exodus which has led some Christian leaders to warn that the faith could be virtually extinct in its birthplace in a matter of decades. The Palestinian Christian population has dipped to 1.5 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, down from at least 15% a half century ago, according to some estimates. No one city in the Holy Land is more indicative of the great exodus of Christians than Bethlehem, which fell under full Palestinian control last decade as part of the Oslo Accords. The town of 30,000 is now less than 20% Christian, after decades when Christians were the majority. Elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, only about 3,000 Christians, mostly Greek Orthodox, live in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, out of a strongly conservative Muslim population of 1.4 million. "In a society where Arab Christians have no voice and no protection it is no surprise that they are leaving," he said. In his address, Weiner pointedly downplayed the effects that Israeli security measures, such as the security barrier being built between Israel and the West Bank, have had on the Christian Arabs living in the West Bank. The barrier, which is especially conspicuous at the entrance to Bethlehem where it is a concrete wall, is an issue which many Palestinian Christian clerics have pointed to, along with the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as a central cause of Christian emigration. Weiner argued there was a "180 degree difference" between the public statements coming out of the mainstream Christian leadership in the Holy Land - who "sing the PA's tune" and blame Israel for all the Christian Arabs' ills - and people's experience on the ground. "The truth is beginning to come out," he said. "The question is what is being done with the truth." His comments come just months after a prominent Christian activist, Rami Khader Ayyad, 32, was killed in Gaza. "For too long the plight of Christian Arabs has been put on the back-burner or ignored altogether," said Rev. Malcolm Hedding, executive director of the International Christian Embassy, a Jerusalem-based evangelical organization. The Evangelical leader, who has drawn the wrath of Catholic leaders in the Holy Land for his strong support for Israel, said that "power politics" has prevented the major Christian leaders in the Holy Land from speaking out on this issue. "There is a one-sided debate in which Israel is responsible for everything," he said. "The Christian world needs to stand up and speak out about this." Top right: AP Photo - Flames are seen at the entrance of an Anglican church hit by a firebomb in Nablus. Source: Jerusalem PostH/T: TFO
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
Police in Malaysia have arrested eight men they said were believed to have been involved in the firebombing of a Christian church earlier this month. 
Posts
