[link removed]

In this mailing:
* Raymond Ibrahim: 'You Are an Infidel': The Persecution of Christians, February 2024
* Daniel Greenfield: State Department Complains That Israel is 'Writing Off Their Reputation Damage'
* Amir Taheri: Moscow Terror Attack: Is Ukraine Responsible?


** 'You Are an Infidel': The Persecution of Christians, February 2024 ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

by Raymond Ibrahim • March 31, 2024 at 5:00 am
* Her family immediately went to police, who told them not to go public, and that they would help return Irene.... In early February, however, the family finally did go public -- and hinted that the authorities were complicit in the abduction and know exactly where she is. — copticsolidarity.org, February 292, 2024 - Egypt.
* Muslim terrorists launched raids on several Christian villages. They murdered 23 people—six were burned alive—wounded 10 and abducted five more, along with setting 28 homes on fire. — persecution.org, February 21, 2024 - Nigeria.
* [A] Nigerian cleric asserted that, because Nigeria's First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, is Christian, she should be put to death. — naijanews.com, February 22, 2024 - Nigeria.
* "[One of the Muslims] shouted that no Christian in the area should be left alive." — morningstarnews.org, February 6, 2024 - Pakistan.
* "...[T]hese pernicious laws... are deeply entrenched in Islamic Sharia law, and the determination to abolish them is lacking in a radicalized nation." — Juliet Chowdhry, Trustee for the British Asian Christian Association, britishasianchristians.org, February 26, 2024 - Pakistan.
* "He replied to me that he was acting in the name of Allah because it was not normal to have statues and that he had come to correct that." — charentelibre.fr, February 2, 2024 - France.

On February 9 — a Friday, when Muslims assemble at mosques and get riled against "infidels" — Islamic State militants torched several churches and Christian homes in Cabo Delgado Province. Pictured: Burned and damaged huts in the village of Aldeia da Paz outside Macomia, Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique on August 24, 2019. On August 1, 2019, the village was attacked by an Islamist group. (Photo by Marco Longari/AFP via Getty Images)

The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of February 2024.

The Abduction, Rape, and Forced Conversion of Christian Girls

Continue Reading Article ([link removed])


** State Department Complains That Israel is 'Writing Off Their Reputation Damage' ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

by Daniel Greenfield • March 31, 2024 at 4:30 am
* The Israelis are too busy trying to win a war to worry about "reputation damage," as everything Israel does, beginning with merely existing, inflicts "reputation damage," since much of the Left and Islam spend much of their time launching every possible smear at Israel.
* Israel was being accused of genocide even before October 7, for not letting Hamas invade Israel to kill Jews. Fighting back against Hamas is definitely genocide. Anything short of Jewish genocide is... genocide.
* Israel is not going to win a "reputation" game. It can, however, rebuild its reputation of being too dangerous to attack. That's worth a whole lot more in the Middle East than trying to win friends and influence enemies with territorial concessions and appeasement.

The Israelis are too busy trying to win a war to worry about "reputation damage," as everything Israel does, beginning with merely existing, inflicts "reputation damage," since much of the Left and Islam spend much of their time launching every possible smear at Israel. There are lessons here for America that the State Department is eager that we never ever learn. Pictured: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet on January 30, 2023 in Jerusalem, Israel. (Photo by Debbie Hill/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

"The Israelis seemed oblivious to the fact that they are facing major, possibly generational damage to their reputation."

When your country has been invaded and over a thousand of your people have been murdered, do you:

A. Smash Those Responsible
B. Focus on Your Reputation

America initially went with A after 9/11. And then decided to spend the next 20 years in B mode.

Israel is now understandably in A mode after spending even longer in B mode after the Oslo Accords. This is understandable to anyone who is a normal human being and therefore unemployable at the State Dept.

Assistant Secretary of State Bill Russo, overseeing global public affairs in the State Department, told Israeli foreign ministry officials in a call on March 13 that both the U.S. and Israel face a "major credibility problem" as a result of the "unpopular" Israeli military offensive in Gaza, according to a memo cited by NPR.

Continue Reading Article ([link removed])


** Moscow Terror Attack: Is Ukraine Responsible? ([link removed])
------------------------------------------------------------

by Amir Taheri • March 31, 2024 at 4:00 am
* All politics, as Karl Schmidt observed, is about the choice between friend and foe.
* Thomas Jefferson, however, used a category above that of a foe, hostis humani generis (enemy of the humankind), to describe terrorists, hostage-takers and all those who don't demand something specific from you but fight to enslave or murder you.
* ISIS and kindred terror groups belong to that HHG category.
* Throughout the Cold War, Russia acted as a foe for the US, but it was Al-Qaeda, the Middle Eastern version of hostis humani generis, that launched the 9/11 attacks. Other HHG groups have attacked France, Germany, Belgium and a dozen African countries, not to mention Iran, Iraq and even portions of Afghanistan under their ideological kith-and-kin the Taliban.
* Putin needs a course in anger management to begin thinking who Russia's real enemies are.

Russian President Vladimir Putin needs a course in anger management to begin thinking who Russia's real enemies are. Pictured: Putin visits the 344th Army Aviation Centre in Torzhok on March 27, 2024. (Photo by Mikhail Metzel/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

It took Russian President Vladimir Putin days before he conceded that the terror attack on a concert hall in Crocus, near Moscow, was the work of ISIS operatives from Central Asia. Yet, he continued to fly his earlier kite about Ukraine being responsible.

The claim, in the sense the Russian leader intends it, is too ridiculous to merit rebuttal. Nevertheless, examined from other angles, it contains more than a grain of truth.

For more than two years, Ukraine has held the Russian state machinery hostage, preventing it from performing key duties of any well-organized state, including ensuring the security of citizens. The men who run the FSB, Russia's security service, have diverted resources to chasing shadows linked to Ukraine in a fantasy world.

Special units have been sent to Kazakhstan, Turkey, Serbia, Cyprus and Slovakia, where an estimated 2.2 million Russians have fled to avoid being drafted into a war they disapprove of.

Continue Reading Article ([link removed])

============================================================
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** RSS ([link removed])
** Donate ([link removed])
Copyright © Gatestone Institute, All rights reserved.

You are subscribed to this list as [email protected]

You can change how you receive these emails:
** Update your subscription preferences ([link removed])
or ** Unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])

** Gatestone Institute ([link removed])

14 East 60 St., Suite 705, New York, NY 10022