Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on August 31, 2016
The Obama administration has surpassed its goal of receiving 10,000 Syrian refugees by Oct. 1, but very few of the new arrivals are Christian.
The official count for the fiscal year reached 10,126 resettled Syrians when 224 refugees arrived Monday. They are among 12,000 Syrian refugees interviewed earlier this year in Jordan by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Although 1 million Christians have fled Syria, Christians comprise only 0.51 percent of the refugee total. More than 98 percent of those allowed into the United States this fiscal year are Sunni Muslims, the largest Islamic sect in Syria comprising 74 percent of that population.
Some Christians believe the Syrian Christian immigration numbers should be much higher; the percentage of those allowed into the United States should reflect their percentage of the population in Syria.
Last September, President Obama pledged to increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to enter the United States. He set a goal of 10,000, six times the number of those allowed to enter the U.S. in FY 2015 when a total of 1682 were admitted – that compared to only 105 Syrian refugees admitted in FY 2014.
Although Christians are 10 percent of the Syrian population, only 100 Syrian Christian refugees have been allowed to enter the United States since the start of the civil war more than five years ago.
Why so few Christians?
Earlier this year some of the Republican presidential candidates–Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump said greater immigration priority should be given to Syrian Christians over Muslims.
President Obama has argued there should be no religious litmus test for admitting Syrian refugees. He said such a policy would be un-American.
“When individuals say we should have a religious test and that only Christians, proven Christians, should be admitted, that’s offensive and contrary to American values,” the president said.
Last March, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announced that atrocities committed by the Islamic State against Yazidis, Christians and other minorities in Iraq and Syria constituted genocide.
But so far, the genocide declaration has not changed the number of affected minorities allowed into the United States. In addition to receiving only 52 Christians this fiscal year, the government has only admitted 14 Yazidis and 20 Shi’a Muslims into the country (official figures released before the Monday arrivals).
The Obama administration has yet to announce its goal for next year, but immigration observers expect the number to be set at 20,000. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton says she’d like to see the number increased to 65,000.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says that would amount to a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees admitted into the country. He has called it a “bigger version of the legendary Trojan Horse.”
He and other Republicans say the government lacks a thorough vetting program for the refugees and the current process exposes the people of the U.S. to the possibility of more Islamic terror attacks like those that occurred in San Bernardino and Orlando.
How Mullah Obola Al-Baraki approved agency chooses nearly all Sunni Muslims
The year was 2007, and the late Father Keith Roderick of Christian Solidarity and I had formed a fact-finding mission to Lebanon and Iraq to investigate the condition of Christians who were fleeing Iraq after the United States had overthrown Saddam Hussein and the nation had deteriorated into a state of chaos. As part of the delegation, we recruited Gov. David Beasley, R-S.C., and investigative journalist Ken Timmerman. What we found was shocking.
The acting American ambassador to Jordan at the time, David Hale, had zero interest in the plight of Christians, as his main personal agenda was “gay rights.” He actually wanted those of us on the fact-finding team to have a picture taken with him in the Embassy in front of his wall tapestry, which was in reality a rainbow flag – not the American flag.
It was disturbing to hear him and his staff talk about the Christians. When we asked if anyone on staff had contacted any churches about the plight of the Iraqi Christians, we were told, “It isn’t our job to go to church.” For some reason, gays in the State Department are attracted to Muslim nations. Hale is currently the American ambassador to Pakistan, having been appointed by President Obama.
Jordanian guards had been hired by Hale, presumably with the permission of the State Department, to form a primary perimeter around the U.S. Embassy. Any Iraqi citizen who approached was told verbally to go to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) office in Amman. There were no exceptions, not even for those who had relatives in the United States who would sponsor them, nor for those who had worked with the United States military in Iraq and were thus endangered.
Because the vast majority of Jordanians are Sunni Muslims, the entire staff of the UNHCR dealing with refugees was and still is Sunni Muslim. The female staffers of the UNHCR work in hijabs, and of course everyone on the UNHCR staff can recognize the Christian surnames of some applicants. The Christian applicants have been treated accordingly. Many Christian refugees were forced to flee to Jordan with their families because they had worked for the United States military in Iraq.
As the occupation force downsized and contractors also departed, Christians who had worked for them found themselves not only out of work but targets of Sunni terrorists as well.
As I write about the mission nine years later, I recall some of the testimonies that were given me by Iraqi Christians about how the middle-class lives they once had in Iraq crumbled as law and order vanished. One that still rattles my brain is the weeping of a mother whose daughter was kidnapped when the family refused to give her in marriage to a Muslim who had moved into the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad. The girl was kidnapped and $100,000 demanded.
The family sold most of what they had and paid the money only to find the 16-year-old dumped at their doorstep with a cut throat the next morning. The kidnappers called the family to taunt them by saying they killed her to break the hearts of Christians. The Dora neighborhood had 30,000 Christians before the 2003 invasion and by 2008 had virtually no Christians left. Of the 1.3 million pre-war Christians in Iraq, perhaps 400,000 remain. Virtually none made it to America.
Today the Obama administration still relies on the UNHCR to “vet” refugees.
On Aug. 29, President Barack Obama reached his goal of 10,000 Syrian “refugees” almost all of whom are Sunni Muslims chosen by the United Nations. Patrick Goodenough of CNS News, who has dogged this story, reported that with the arrival of 224 new Syrian refugee this week brings “… the total this fiscal year to 10,126, of whom 52 or 0.51 percent are Christians; and 9,945 or 98.2 percent, are Sunni Muslims.”
Just one-half of 1 percent of the 10,000 Syrians were Christians despite the fact that over 10 percent of the Syrian population is Christian. The Sunni population at about 60 percent should not represent 98.2 percent of refugees. However, almost all of those working for the United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees in Jordan, where the “refugees” were chosen, are Sunni Muslims.
At the same time Christians victims are ignored by President Obama and the media. The “mainstream” media fail to report true horror surrounding the persecution of Christians. Christians have faced the that the Islamic State has to offer – crucifixions, beheadings, gang rapes, sex slavery, beatings and robbery – but it is rare that the mainstream media report this fact to the public.
When news articles do appear they are watered down. On Aug. 10, this year, an Associated Press article appeared by Balint Szanko titled “Christians say defeating Islamic State won’t make Iraq safe for them.” Although the reporter refers to the eviction of the Christians from Qaraqosh on the Nineveh Plain and their lives now in Ankawa in the Kurdish area, the full terror they endured is not reported.
Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq by the United States, there were 1.4 million Christians in Iraq. The vice president of Iraq was a Christian, as was the head of Saddam Hussein’s air force at the time of the First Gulf War, Georges Sada. He was retired before the Second Gulf War, but sided with the opposition to Saddam and as a result became the national security adviser in the new government the United States established. Sada is alive today and living in the United States, and I have had the opportunity to speak with him often about Iraq and the two wars.
Because of the size of the Christian population and the fact that Iraq had a secular government, Christians fared better than in most majority-Muslim nations. That does not mean they were treated equally. For example, all given names on birth certificates had to be names that appeared in the Quran, so no Christian first names were allowed.
The thrust of Szanko’s article was that 90 percent of the Christians in one of the camps would leave “if organized migration was possible.” What the article does not mention is that most Christians forced from their homes are not in U.N. camps. They are “urban refugees” often living in slum basements for fear of persecution in the U.N.-run camps. As a result they are not considered refugees and are not registered with the United Nations. Since the Obama administration only accepts refugees referred by the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees, there is no possible way for most Christians to immigrate to the USA.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on July 26, 2015
Sodomites are using a flag that desecrates and mocks the beautiful image of the rainbow that signifies the covenant that God made with man never to flood the world again.
Secret Service Agents watch through their binoculars as a rainbow appears in the sky before President Barack Obama’s arrival at Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 7, 2015
Says nothing about Kenya university attacks against Christians
President Obama used an Easter breakfast at the White House Tuesday to call out what he viewed as unbecoming comments by fellow members of the Christian community. “On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I’m supposed to love, and I have to say that sometimes when I listen to less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned,” the president said to a gathering of…
My note: All this mockery of Christians, just days after the gruesome massacre of Christians in Kenya – and, in the middle of the precious Holy Week for Orthodox Christians! Woow! How ignorant and insensitive of him! What’s wrong with the President?!
Some selected reactions:
“Leftists: Loud on Indiana, Silent on Kenya.”
“Pres. Obama’s theology is not very good. When Muslims say and act in ways he does not like, he states that they are not Muslims. When Christians say and act in ways he does not like he talks about the concern he feels hearing “less-than-loving expressions by Christians”.
“Obama’s list of things to do on Easter:
Be concerned about about less than loving Christian expressions.
Ignore the slaughter and beheading of thousands of more-than-loving Christians by his exceedingly hateful Muslim extremist.
Play golf.”
“Christianity isn’t just “love.” It is full of pain and suffering, persecution, oppression, and antagonism from our enemies. The President has no clue what Christianity is about, his version of Christianity is about is as real as the Easter Bunny is.
He said what he said to try and shame us from sticking up for our Christian principles. Christians, don’t back down, the world is trying to take everything from us. The world may even succeed in that regard, but even after we have lost everything, it will not suffer us to remain. The progressives want Christians to lock ourselves “in the closet” and die there.
Find something worth fighting for, or we will be fighting for the rest of our lives. Take a stand.”
Christian minister spreads the message of an impending tsunami and earthquake in the US which will cause 35 to 40 million deaths. Other witnesses confirm tsunami and earthquake. No date is known but government positions missiles on Puerto Rico to destroy asteroid. Asteroid will hit off of Mona Island (near Puerto Rico) at 0200 with a force that will stop the earth from spinning. The date of impact is unknown. Minister said this is not an end of the world event.
IMPORTANT!!!! SUMMARY OF EFRAIN RODRIGUEZ’S MESSAGE GIVEN IN TEXAS, PRIMARILY ADDRESSED TO THE U.S. AND PRESIDENT OBAMA, BUT CONCERNING THE WHOLE WORLD.
TRANSCRIPT:
Intro
May The Lord keep you. Prophet Efrain Rodriguez has given a message in Texas, primarily addressed to The United States and President Obama, but also concerning the rest of the world. The following is a summary of some of the most important points covered at that presentation. This summary is divided into topics covered and only highlights certain information. For more detailed information, click on the link to the entire message, posted below the video on the Description box.
I. Jehovah
-Jehovah will have absolute control over the earth that night. This is what the 12 point earthquake means-The Presence of Jehovah on earth. The Lord comes with His book to claim many souls before Jehovah, The Father, for His kingdom that night.
-This event is not part of the Great Tribulation. It is the preamble of a chastisement that will give rise to the new church of Christ, which will go to Heaven in The Rapture. It is not part of the events of Judgment seen by John, prophesied in The Book of Revelation, which will, for the most part, occur after the church has left this earth. The Lord led Efrain, on the plane ride back to Puerto Rico, to read The Book of Revelation. He guided him to chapter 3, verses 7-13, where Jesus is telling John about the Philadelphia Church. In this chapter, He tells John about an event that will happen-a test coming to all the inhabitants of Earth. Jesus tells him that He would look after His own people and then come for them.
-Millions of Jehovah’s angels are already on earth right now. They will be around those who serve The Lord. The Heavenly Host is here. Intercede for your loved ones, so that they are also protected. Pray for a Hedge of Protection over them.
The hedge will be around us. No matter what comes towards us-the shock wave, the sea, the earthquake, pestilence-it will not touch us. As long as we are bound to The Lord.
As He did with Elisha, Jehovah will place this Hedge of Protection around His people.The Armies of Heaven will fight for them and protect those who serve The Lord.He will remember you and your family, as He remembered Lot, because Abraham had been faithful. If we are serving Him and are faithful to Him in our hearts, He will honor what we declare.
-The game of playing to be a Christian is over. No more messing around with The Lord.
-Everywhere you go, give testimony, as a Christian, and as a Watchman.
Take advantage of the time that has been given to you. Jehova’s judgment approaches this nation. We are all to blame for this. Run to the feet of The Lord Jesus Christ in order for you to find mercy in the midst of this trial. There is still hope. The Lord promised Abraham that the righteous would not die together with the unrighteous. The same promise applies to us if we bind our souls and lives to Jesus, in our hearts and in our conduct.
II. Worldwide preparations/NASA
-Martial law is ready to be instituted in the United States and in the whole world, to be able to deal with this catastrophe.
-NASA keeps giving dates and trying to justify themselves. The prophetic letters written by Efrain indicate that The Lord would keep NASA in a state of confusion, bewilderment and agitation, since they chose to not consult with The Lord, and chose to not warn the people when they first received Jehova’s warning through Efrain. They even labeled the message as false, in a press conference in Florida. The actual date will be dictated by The Lord of Heaven, when He chooses. All Glory will go to Him, not to predictions of men or NASA.
-The sea will retreat back in all coasts, including California.
III. Puerto Rico
-Another earthquake is coming to PR. Puerto Rico had a 6.4 earthquake in January of this year. No great damage was done, considering the earthquake in Haiti was not much stronger than the earthquake in Puerto Rico.
Another earthquake is coming to Puerto Rico. No major damage will occur, either. God is letting the people know, so that people start looking up to The Heavens, looking and acknowledging The Lord.
-The total death toll in the Caribbean, the United States and South America will be 40 million.
-Obama, the President of the United States sent approximately 40 missiles to PR, to try to break the asteroid in the sky, so that it would fall on land (in Puerto Rico), and not in the sea. On a previous message, Efrain warned Obama to not press those buttons. He told the Army not to do it. He said: “Do not interfere with Jehovah’s plans.”
-They made a mistake at Mona Island, the tiny island to the west of Puerto Rico, next to the place where the asteroid will impact the sea. There is a dangerous and unstable seismic fault there. They were trying to seal the seismic plaque with nuclear devices, supposedly to avoid an earthquake. They planted the device, but lost it down the trench. Now they cannot find it. Nobody can stand in the way of Jehovah’s plans.
-Thousands of foreign troops are stationed in Puerto Rico. There are troops from Russia, China, Germany, France. They have been transported in sealed trucks, during late night hours, to the mountains, supposedy for disaster relief. These foreign troops are meant to protect someone. There are over 15,000 foreign soldiers stationed in Alaska, the United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. What for, i ask, unless they are expecting a major disaster? They have stocked up an enormous amount of ammunitions. Many bunkers have been built there.
But The Lord has control over the mountains, and His Judgement will reach everywhere, even inside the bunkers.
-Provisions for PR are ready in Venezuela. The Lord has chosen them as the nation that will first come to Puerto Rico’s aid. They have been stocking provisions for a long time, even though they are experiencing scarcity themselves. The U.S. will be in great need. Aid will not come from them. Venezuela will feed PR just like the poor widow fed Elijah, even though she had almost nothing. The Lord made a miracle and provided food for Elijah, the widow and her son.
-To all those pastors who have been preaching and fooling your flock with The Gospel of Abundance and Prosperity: you will see scarcity like never before.
IV. Israel
-End Time Prophecy is unfolding before our eyes. Israel is ready to build their temple. However, they have to wait. They cannot do anything at the Temple Mount while the muslim mosque -the Dome of the Rock-stands there. They will have to wait for the 12 point earthquake to destroy the mosque.
-Obama wants Israel to give up land. Israel will not yield any land. What Israel conquered belongs to them.
Even if U.S. troops-or anyone else’s-surround Israel, that land is untouchable. These are God’s chosen people, with whom He has an everlasting covenant.
Leave them alone Mr Obama, or you will encounter the same end that Hugo Chavez encountered, after publicly cursing Israel. He died an agonizing death, due to a cancer that ate the depth of his loins, from where he actually declared he cursed Israel.
V. United States
-The U.S. authorities are concealing a lot of information. But others, like the Russians, are warning the people of the U.S. to move away from the coasts.
-When the asteroid hits, we will feel the shock wave as a very strong wind. Ask The Holy Spirit where to move. Requisite: be bound to The Lord. Stay away from sin, so you can hear Him.
-If the U.S. remains silent, over 35 million deaths are expected in the U.S.
-Six events will occur that night:
1-asteroid
2-earthquake
3-shock wave
4-tsunami
5-three days of darkness
6- pestilence
-Besides the obvious coastal flooding, all rivers will overflow due to the sea level rising and the rivers having no outlet into the ocean. Many will die from this.
-Civil War will break out because of scarcity of food and resources. All the preparations concerning troops, ammunition, vehicles and concentration camps will be used to keep control of the population during the tremendous civil unrest that will follow. Martial Law will be implemented as a necessity to keep the people and the resources under control.
-A great epidemic will break out. It will be the worst of the 6 events of Judgment. It will come as a result of the decomposing bodies floating in the waters and left on land unburied. No matter how much medications they have stored, Jehovah will make the Nation come back to His feet, through this chastisement.
-This nation will be raised again, after the chastisement. Worldwide grief will lead many to bend their knees before a Holy God, and they will recognize His Supremacy. They will make a change in their lives because they will know that the return of The Lord is near. New leaders will emerge, together with a new church and a new nation, that will honor the God of Heaven. They will change back the laws for a time, up until The Rapture of God’s people, which will come before The Great Tribulation.
VI. President of the U.S.-Obama
-The President of the U.S. asked Congress for ALL Power. He plans to have absolute control during this Emergency. This means NO elections. He has taken advantage of the imminency of this coming disaster. This totalitarian power is a terrible danger. This message should be sent to all Congressmen: you still have time to revoke this power. Politicians, revoke the power you have given Obama. You have no idea what you will face.
-Obama does not love this nation, or Christ. In his second term, he has shown his true intentions against everything that is Christian. All the laws that he has signed indicate that he plans to persecute the church.
Woe to him who tries to hurt The Lord’s church!
-He has violated all statutes of God. He has made this nation go astray.
-He thinks he will be safe and cozy inside his bunker, while millions of people die above ground.
-The President of the U.S. is the most to blame for this judgment over this nation.
-He excluded The Law of God.
-He signed laws never before signed. He has no respect for The Church of Christ.
-However, The Church of Christ will not be touched. Together with Israel, they are the apple of God’s eye.
He does not chastise or penalize the homosexuals, or the muslims, no matter what they do, yet he takes every action to penalize and extinguish the church of Christ. He takes away freedoms from Christians, while at the same time giving freedoms to those who blaspheme God. Even Putin, the Russian President, rebuked him for this. Woe to you, poor, poor man!
-The judgment over the U.S. will come because the pastors and evangelists remained silent.
Many, if not all, of The great Evangelists and pastors have said nothing. They have gone along with Obama’s changes. Many of them, together with politicians, artists, performers, Hollywood personalities, etc. are in confabulation with Obama, even knowing that he is going against God’s mandates. Even knowing that all these laws are a slap in God’s face. A direct and shameless challenge to The Lord of Heaven. Great amounts of money are being paid to these people.
In New York City, a law is being drafted that would force people who do not accept homosexuals, to be forced out of the city.
Two cities were destroyed in the past because they went against the parameters of conduct established by God. The U.S. is following their example.
-Judges are forced to pass laws allowing things that The Word of God forbids.
Christians cannot talk about Christ in their government work places. Prayer has been taken out of the classrooms. Laws allowing the murder of innocent unborn babies are passed. There is a video that shows how unwanted newborn babies are beheaded after being born.
But rest assured, Jehovah will pass judgement over them. Over this nation. Obama has an appointment with Jehovah. He has offended God in every way. He told God that men can marry men and women can marry women, which goes against God’s commandment in the book of Genesis. Species went into the Ark as male and female. Otherwise, there would be no animals today.
All places in the nation where these aberrations are practiced will be affected.
-This spiritually corrupt President has blasphemed God’s mandates.
He has trampled underfoot all The Postulates of God. The majority of evangelists and pastors have gone along with it, keeping silent. The very few who stand firm in The Lord will be forced to give up their posts because they will be forced to marry men with men, and women with women.
Almost Nobody has complained. The rest have allowed it. They will have their sentence too. Politicians have fooled the nation because there is no longer Presence of The Holy Spirit in the majority of the churches.
-God delivered Israel from Egypt but, before He did, he made justice. He smote and struck Israel’s tormentors with 10 plagues.
The wrath of God is great. Nothing will stop it.
-Obama thinks he will be safe inside his bunker. He thinks no hand can touch him. But Jehovah’s hand will be upon him and his descendants.
The serpent-Satan Himself-will crawl down, all the way to the bunker, and Jehovah will execute judgment upon him.
-The people will kneel before God Jehovah during the pestilence. Current leaders will be replaced. The pestilence will do away with leaders who sold out God’s Supreme Law. A new nation will arise.
-This nation was founded upon postulates that cost Abraham Lincoln his life. He believed that all men are created equal. President Obama believes differently. He believes that Christians are to be disposed of.
This nation has belonged to Jehovah from its foundation. Christ IS this nation’s religion. No matter what laws they pass.
-Here I quote Prophet Efrain Rodriguez’s words: “Listen to what I say, Obama:
Jehovah called me. There is a hedge of protection around the people of Christ, in this land and everywhere. This nation will see with its own eyes what I declare. You have blasphemed the Lord of Heaven, Jehovah, and the Church of the Living God, The church of Christ. And this has consequences.
A 12-Year-old Boy’s Video Question’s Obama’s Patriotism
A 12-year-old middle-school student from Georgia is raising eyebrows as he’s scorching Barack Obama in an epic YouTube speech, accusing the president of having a “downright hatred for this nation.”
C.J. Pearson posted the video Saturday, seeking to “applaud Mayor Rudy Giuliani for his comments about President Barack Obama.”
“Here’s the truth of the matter: I don’t want to be politically correct. I don’t care about being politically correct at this point.
“President Obama, You don’t love America. If you really did love America, you would call ISIS what it really is: an assault on Christianity, an assault on America and downright hate for the American values that our country holds – freedom of speech, freedom of religion and every single thing that our country stands for.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 9, 2015
He Says if You Come to Live in Britain You Must Respect Us
Charles denounced the radicalisation of young Britons by Islamic fanatics
He said they should show more respect to ‘the values we hold dear’
Comments were made as he started a six-day tour of the Middle East
He will tell new Saudi king to show clemency to Saudi blogger Raif Badawi
Sentence of 1,000 lashes and ten years in jail caused international outrage
Prince last night arrived in Jordan, where he will meet King Abdullah II
The Prince last night touched down in Jordan, where he will meet Jordanian King Abdullah II, before travelling on to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
Charles also intends to use his Middle East tour to call for an end to attempts to drive Christians out of the region. IS terrorists slaughtered thousands of Yazidis and Christians in Northern Iraq, and Christians are also threatened in other Muslim countries.
If nothing was done, the time could soon come when ‘there are no Christians left in the Middle East… they are intimidated to a degree you can’t believe,’ the Prince said.
He rammed home his point in uncharacteristically plain terms: ‘The tragedy is even greater because Christians have been in the Middle East for 2,000 years, before Islam came in the 8th Century.’
The Prince’s comments on Islam and Christianity are broadcast in an interview with BBC Radio 2’s The Sunday Hour this morning, suggesting he plans to be very active.
My note: Not enough, but, somehow a lot better than what President Obama said at the National Prayer Breakfast last Thursday. But, I believe that Princes Charles’ “let’s start a friendly dialogue.” or “let’s mend some fences” of his “inter-religious” engagement is good for nothing, and a waste of time and energy. Curios is, the Prince travels quite often to the Arab Middle East, but don’t want to make a visit to the Jewish state of Israel. This will be his second visit to Saudi Arabia during the past two weeks. It’s a mystery to me why the British royals still refuse to visit Israel, while they are constantly in the Arab world. Isn’t it bizarre that the Queen has never set foot in Israel?
I don’t know, perhaps, for similar reasons why, neither an American President nor a Vatican Pope had never ever visited one of the oldest nations in the world, Ethiopia.
Mike Huckabee: Obama is Against Christians and Jews Yet Unfailingly Supports Muslims Including Radicals
Everything he does is against what Christians stand for, and he’s against the Jews in Israel,’ Huckabee, who was until recently a Fox News host, said this morning on Fox and Friends.
‘The one group of people that can know they have his undying, unfailing support would be the Muslim community. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the radical Muslim community or the more moderate Muslim community.’
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on August 21, 2014
WHY is the world silent while Christians are being slaughtered in the Middle East and Africa? In Europe and in the United States, we have witnessed demonstrations over the tragic deaths of Palestinians who have been used as human shields by Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls Gaza. The United Nations has held inquiries and focuses its anger on Israel for defending itself against that same terrorist organization. But the barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference.
The Middle East and parts of central Africa are losing entire Christian communities that have lived in peace for centuries. The terrorist group Boko Haram has kidnapped and killed hundreds of Christians this year — ravaging the predominantly Christian town of Gwoza, in Borno State in northeastern Nigeria, two weeks ago. Half a million Christian Arabs have been driven out of Syria during the three-plus years of civil war there. Christians have been persecuted and killed in countries from Lebanon to Sudan.
Historians may look back at this period and wonder if people had lost their bearings. Few reporters have traveled to Iraq to bear witness to the Nazi-like wave of terror that is rolling across that country. The United Nations has been mostly mum. World leaders seem to be consumed with other matters in this strange summer of 2014. There are no flotillas traveling to Syria or Iraq. And the beautiful celebrities and aging rock stars — why doesn’t the slaughter of Christians seem to activate their social antennas?
President Obama should be commended for ordering airstrikes to save tens of thousands of Yazidis, who follow an ancient religion and have been stranded on a mountain in northern Iraq, besieged by Sunni Muslim militants. But sadly, airstrikes alone are not enough to stop this grotesque wave of terrorism.
The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not a loose coalition of jihadist groups, but a real military force that has managed to take over much of Iraq with a successful business model that rivals its coldblooded spearhead of death. It uses money from banks and gold shops it has captured, along with control of oil resources and old-fashioned extortion, to finance its killing machine, making it perhaps the wealthiest Islamist terrorist group in the world. But where it truly excels is in its carnage, rivaling the death orgies of the Middle Ages. It has ruthlessly targeted Shiites, Kurds and Christians.
“They actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick” a Chaldean-American businessman named Mark Arabo told CNN, describing a scene in a Mosul park. “More children are getting beheaded, mothers are getting raped and killed, and fathers are being hung.”
This week, 200,000 Aramaeans fled their ancestral homeland around Nineveh, having already escaped Mosul.
The general indifference to ISIS, with its mass executions of Christians and its deadly preoccupation with Israel, isn’t just wrong; it’s obscene.
In a speech before thousands of Christians in Budapest in June, I made a solemn promise that just as I will not be silent in the face of the growing threat of anti-Semitism in Europe and in the Middle East, I will not be indifferent to Christian suffering. Historically, it has almost always been the other way around: Jews have all too often been the persecuted minority. But Israel has been among the first countries to aid Christians in South Sudan. Christians can openly practice their religion in Israel, unlike in much of the Middle East.
This bond between Jews and Christians makes complete sense. We share much more than most religions. We read the same Bible, and share a moral and ethical core. Now, sadly, we share a kind of suffering: Christians are dying because of their beliefs, because they are defenseless and because the world is indifferent to their suffering.
Good people must join together and stop this revolting wave of violence. It’s not as if we are powerless. I write this as a citizen of the strongest military power on earth. I write this as a Jewish leader who cares about my Christian brothers and sisters.
The Jewish people understand all too well what can happen when the world is silent. This campaign of death must be stopped.
Ronald S. Lauder is the president of the World Jewish Congress.
Rick Wiles of Trunews.com asks retired Colonel Allen West his opinion about Mr. Obama’s pro-Muslim foreign policies.
“The United States and The European Union have sever economic sanctions on Russia, but we don’t have any sanction on Qatar…I don’t see Mr. Putin beheading people, sanctions had to be on Qatar?”
“We should cut off all diplomatic relations with Qatar and Turkey”
Archbishop of Mosul: “Your Liberal and Democratic Principles Are Worth Nothing Here”
“Our sufferings today are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future,” says Amel Nona, 47, Chaldean archbishop of Mosul exiled in Erbil. The message is unequivocal: the only way to end the Christian exodus from the places that witnessed its origins in the pre-Islamic age is to respond to violence with violence, to force with force. Nona is a wounded, pain-stricken man, but not resigned.
“I lost my diocese. The physical setting of my apostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.” He is very glad to meet Western media. “Please, try to understand us,” he exclaims. “Your liberal and democratic principles are worth nothing here. You must consider again our reality in the Middle East, because you are welcoming in your countries an ever growing number of Muslims. Also you are in danger. You must take strong and courageous decisions, even at the cost of contradicting your principles. You think all men are equal,” Archbishop Amel Nona continues, “but that is not true: Islam does not say that all men are equal. Your values are not their values. If you do not understand this soon enough, you will become the victims of the enemy you have welcomed in your home.”
We have before us the present foreign-policy obsessions – Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Iran. Egypt, Pakistan and Afghanistan seem to come and go. We hear mutterings of Yemen and Qatar. Saudi Arabia rarely hits the radar, unless they’re flogging women or hanging gays. We flit about from one to the other trying to negotiate ‘peace’ while selling them missiles, bombs and bullets. Incredibly, we are about to ally ourselves with Shia Iran in order to defeat the greater evil of the Sunni Islamic State. This is profoundly misguided. Our enemies enemy is still our enemy.
The West must heed the stark warning of Archbishop Amel Nona, and do so before it is too late. Mosul has fallen: his warning is that Toulouse, Brussels or Liege might be next. For now, the battleground is fixed in the Middle East. But Jihadi-Salfist theatres of war recognise no state borders, and they have no time at all for democracy, diplomacy, or “moderate” notions of Islam which is not “proper” or “true” Islam. These fanatics find our governments weak and compliant; our liberal and democratic principles quite conducive to their political objectives; our Christianity favourably disposed to a multi-faith ecumenical love-in.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on July 28, 2014
Judge Jeanine Pirro, host of the Fox News Channel’s “Justice with Judge Jeanine,” criticized Pope Francis for defending illegal immigrant children in the United States while failing to take action on behalf of Christians in the Middle East on her Saturday broadcast.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 22, 2014
Obama and the Churches of Saudi Arabia
When President Obama visits Saudi Arabia next week, he will have an opportunity to follow through on his inspiring words at the Feb. 6. National Prayer Breakfast. There, he told thousands of Christian leaders that “the right of every person to practice their faith how they choose” is central to “human dignity,” and so “promoting religious freedom is a key objective of U.S. foreign policy.”
The freedom so central to human dignity is denied by the Kingdom. The State Department has long ranked Saudi Arabia among the world’s most religiously repressive governments, designating it a “Country of Particular Concern” under the International Religious Freedom Act. Yet the Obama administration, like its predecessors, has not pressed Riyadh to respect religious freedom.
Saudi Arabia is the only state in the world to ban all churches and any other non-Muslim houses of worship. While Saudi nationals are all “officially” Muslim, some two to three million foreign Christians live in the kingdom, many for decades. They have no rights to practice their faith. The Saudi government has ignored Vatican appeals for a church to serve this community, despite the fact that in 1973 Pope Paul VI approved a proposal for the Roman city council to donate city lands for a grand mosque in Rome. The mosque, opened in 1995, is among the largest in Europe.
Christian foreign workers in Saudi Arabia can only pray together clandestinely. Religious-police dragnets against scores of Ethiopian house-church Christians, mostly poor women working as maids, demonstrate the perils of worshiping: arrest, monthslong detention and abuse, and eventual deportation. The more fortunate do what I did when I visited three years ago—sneak off to pray in a windowless safe room behind embassy walls.
It’s difficult to hide a worship service in the tightly-controlled kingdom. The Committee to Promote Virtue and Prevent Vice, the religious police, is always looking for women and men mingling together, women who fail to conform to the state-mandated Muslim dress code, and the movements of foreigners. University of Milan Professor Camille Eid, who has worked in Jeddah, reported to the Catholic outlet Zenit in 2011 that he was afraid even to give Christmas or Easter greetings over the phone for fear “someone might be listening.”
Distributing Bibles in Saudi Arabia is illegal. Priests must go undercover, pretending to be cooks or mechanics, to celebrate underground Masses for the estimated 1.5 million Filipino, Indian and other Catholics working or living there. Crosses, rosaries and Christian literature and art must not be publicly displayed. Even the ruins of a fourth-century church in the Persian Gulf city of Jubail are kept off limits to the public and archaeologists.
The fanatical intolerance of everything Christian extends to a crackdown on red roses on Valentine’s Day. Visiting European soccer teams with cross logos must blur the icon on team jerseys. At one holiday party in the American school in Riyadh, a Santa Claus had to jump through a window to escape religious police, according to Mr. Eid’s account.
The official Saudi National Human Rights Commission director Bandar al-Aiban told me that churches are forbidden because the entire country is “a sacred mosque” for Islam’s holiest shrines in Mecca and Medina—two cities completely closed to non-Muslims. He seemed unperturbed that Saudi national borders are a modern invention dating to 1932, not to Prophet Muhammad’s era more than 1,300 years earlier.
No other country on the Arabian Peninsula adopts the Saudi anti-church stance. Qatar, which like Saudi Arabia practices strict Wahhabi Islam, allowed the first public Christian worship service in 1988 and has leased land for foreign workers to build more than a dozen churches since 2008. Last year Bahrain’s monarchy donated land for the peninsula’s first cathedral, a Catholic church called Our Lady of Arabia.
President Obama on his visit could ask King Abdullah to allow churches in the Kingdom. As the president explained in February, the right to worship is an essential human right that “matters to our national security.” Allowing a church would help foreign Christian workers and instill in Saudi society a sense of peaceful coexistence with the religious “other.” That may help us all.
The president could also call for other steps to temper national policies against Christians. Education Ministry textbooks, for example, still teach violent hatred against Christians, as well as Jews and other groups with different beliefs. A 10th-grade text tells students that homosexuals can be murdered by fire, stoning or being thrown from a high place. Saudi Arabia could also replace the state-employed religious leaders, who, the State Department reported in 2013, call for the destruction of all Arabian Peninsula churches and publicly pray for the “humiliation” of “polytheists,” a term Wahhabis apply to Christians, Shiites and Hindus.
The kingdom is now organizing internationally against Iranian and al Qaeda extremism, so this is an especially good time to implore the country to begin ending religious extremism at home. So far President Obama has only preached to the choir. In a few days he will have a chance to make his case before the Saudi king.
Why the Media Doesn’t Cover Jihadist Attacks on Middle East Christians
“To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace”—[Hebrews 6:6]
The United Nations, Western governments, media, universities, and talking heads everywhere insist that Palestinians are suffering tremendous abuses from the state of Israel. Conversely, the greatest human rights tragedy of our time—radical Muslim persecution of Christians, including in Palestinian controlled areas—is devotedly ignored
The facts speak for themselves. Reliable estimates indicate that anywhere from 100-200 million Christians are persecuted every year; one Christian is martyred every five minutes. Approximately 85% of this persecution occurs in Muslim majority nations. In 1900, 20% of the Middle East was Christian. Today, less than 2% is.
In one week in Egypt alone, where my Christian family emigrated, the Muslim Brotherhood launched a kristallnacht—attacking, destroying, and/or torching some 82 Christian churches (some of which were built in the 5th century, when Egypt was still a Christian-majority nation before the Islamic conquests). Al-Qaeda’s black flag has been raised atop churches. Christians—including priests, women and children—have been attacked, beheaded, and killed.
Nor is such persecution of Christians limited to Egypt. From Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east and from Central Asia to the north to sub-Saharan Africa to the south; across thousands of miles of lands inhabited by peoples who do not share the same races, languages, cultures, and/or socio-economic conditions, millions of Christians are being persecuted and in the same exact patterns.
Muslim converts to Christianity and Christian evangelists are attacked, imprisoned, and sometimes beheaded; countless churches across the Islamic world are being banned or bombed; Christian women and children are being abducted, enslaved, raped, and/or forced to renounce their faith.
Far from helping these Christian victims, U.S. policies are actually exacerbating their sufferings. Whether in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, or Syria, and under the guise of the U.S.-supported “Arab Spring,” things have gotten dramatically worse for Christians. Indeed, during a recent U.S. congressional hearing, it was revealed that thousands of traumatized Syrian Christians—who, like Iraqi Christians before them are undergoing a mass exodus from their homeland—were asking “Why is America at war with us?”
The answer is that very few Americans have any clue concerning what is happening to their coreligionists.
Few mainstream media speak about the horrific persecution millions of people are experiencing simply because they wish to worship Christ in peace.
There, is of course, a very important reason why the mainstream media ignores radical Muslim persecution of Christians: if the full magnitude of this phenomenon was ever know, many cornerstones of the mainstream media—most prominent among them, that Israel is oppressive to Palestinians—would immediately crumble.
The media simply cannot portray radical Muslim persecution of Christians—which in essence and form amount to unprovoked pogroms—as a “land dispute” or a product of “grievance” (if anything, it is the ostracized and persecuted Christian minorities who should have grievances). And because the media cannot articulate radical Islamic attacks on Christians through the “grievance” paradigm that works so well in explaining the Arab-Israeli conflict, their main recourse is not to report on them at all.
In short, Christian persecution is the clearest reflection of radical Islamic supremacism. Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized Christians simply wish to worship in peace, and yet still are they hounded and attacked, their churches burned and destroyed, their women and children enslaved and raped. These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens, in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture, and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.
The only problem is that they are Christian and so, Islamists believe according to their scriptural exegesis, must be subjugated.
If mainstream media were to report honestly on Christian persecution at the hands of radical Islamists so many bedrocks of the leftist narrative currently dominating political discourse would crumble, first and foremost, the idea that radical Islamic intolerance is a product of “grievances,” and that Israel is responsible for all Jihadist terrorism against it.
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