“THERE MAY NOT BE AN AMERICAN LETTER”
By: Shlomo Cezana and Matti Tuchfeld, Correspondents, “Yisrael HaYom”
(Last week, Israel Resource Review reported David Bedein’s stories from Washington that the US government would not confirm reported US assurances in exchange for Israeli willingness to freeze any building in Judea and Samaria.) Those stories were: U.S. Officials: What Freeze Commitments? David Bedein Reports on Trip to the US The US State Department Will Not Confirm That Any Promises Were Offered to Israel in Exchange for a New Freeze on Jewish Housing in Judea and Samaria The…
Read Complete ArticleBy: Amit Cohen
Ma’ariv (p. 6) by — If Israel invades Lebanon or Gaza, we will not sit by quietly,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned yesterday during a state visit to Lebanon, maintaining the policy of verbal escalation against Jerusalem. Erdogan, sitting next to Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, accused Israel of using tanks and phosphorous bombs against hospitals and schools. “After all that they expect us to sit by quietly?” he asked. Speaking at a meeting…
One Egyptian Christian was killed and hundreds more were arrested this week while protesting a government ban on their completing the construction of a new church near the famed pyramids. Naturally, government officials in Cairo blamed Israel for the entire affair.
The trouble started on Wednesday, when Egyptian police violently confronted about 200 Coptic Christian demonstrators outside an unfinished church building in Giza. The police shot and killed one protestors and wounded dozens of others. Another two dozen protestors were arrested.
During the clash, the Christians hurled stones at police, wounding 12 officers.
A day later, the demonstration intensified, and police arrested 156 Christians. The Christians were charged with trying to murder the local police chief, apparently by throwing stones in the earlier protest. They were denied legal representation during their questioning, according to local media reports.
The building at the center of the confrontation is already partially completed. But after discovering that the Christians intended to use it as a church, Egyptian police banned further construction work at the site. Christians in Egypt have long complained that while it is very easy for Muslims to obtain the needed permits to build a mosque, Christians must secure special presidential approval to build a church.
But Mustafa El-Feki, head of Egypt’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, said the church is just an excuse, and that Israel is behind all the recent Muslim-Christian tension in Egypt.
“It is almost certain that the Mossad is involved in these events. The State is dealing with dangerous events that could not have succeeded without external intervention with Israel at its head,” claimed El-Feki at a university conference on Thursday.
In September, a prominent Egyptian cleric declared on the pan-Arab satellite network Al Jazeera that Egyptian Christians were working with Israel to undermine the country’s Muslim majority. Western officials fear these accusations are tied to upcoming parliamentary elections as a means of diverting focus from the government’s failures.
Despite the dangerous situation for Egypt’s 10 million Christians, these events have garnered very little coverage from an international media still far too obsessed with reporting on the construction of a few Jewish apartments that upset the Palestinian Arabs.
