Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Rice says Mideast military aid will counter Qaeda:
| U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the Middle East on Tuesday with huge military aid for allies like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, saying it would help counter al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. |
Maybe so.
For myself, I can’t shake the (paranoid?) notion that this weaponry will eventually be used against Israel. And perhaps the US or her interests.
On July 19 I reported on this.
Now Compass Direct News provides us with this sad update:
| Egyptian police in Alexandria who last week arrested a Christian convert woman today handed her over to her fanatical Islamist family, who beat her before driving her away.
Eyewitnesses said family members of Shaymaa (Eman) Muhammad al-Sayed, 26, today dragged her screaming from the police station where she had been closeted. According to the eyewitnesses outside Alexandria’s Bab-Sharky police station, Al-Sayed’s relatives severely beat her in the Shatby Cemetery behind the police station at 4 p.m. She was then forced into a family microbus and driven off toward the district of Abeis, east of Alexandria, where her father’s knitting factory is located. One week ago, on July 16, these same family members openly threatened to kill Al-Sayed for leaving Islam to become a Christian, after spotting her walking through a fair in Alexandria. Local police promptly took her into “protective custody,†allegedly to prevent her physical harm at the hands of her irate Muslim relatives. But instead of protecting her, local police and State Security Investigation (SSI) officials have subjected the threatened woman to days of severe physical and emotional torture. Her maltreatment included electrical shocks, beatings and being photographed naked. |
A day of mourning may open doors for outreach:
| Tisha B’Av is the ninth day of the month of Av on the Jewish calendar. It’s observed as a day of mourning, and this year it falls on July 24.
[…] During this three week period, celebrations are not permitted, and people refrain from cutting their hair. From the first to the ninth of Av, it is customary to refrain from eating meat or drinking wine and from wearing new clothing. E3 Partners’ Tom Doyle says there’s good reason for it. Over the course of history, Israel has suffered tragedy and catastrophe on Tisha b’Av. “The first Temple was leveled on the ninth of Av. The second Temple was leveled on the ninth of Av. The Spanish Inquisition started on the ninth of Av. The ‘Final Solution’ was presented to Hitler on the ninth of Av. So, as we’re heading toward that, there seems to be, every year, this collective sigh of [resignation] ‘ok, what’s gonna happen this year?'” Add to that the tinderbox situation Israel is in the middle of, and the tension mounts. Doyle says their partners are concerned. “With all of the pressure–Israel in a vice grip right now and Syria openly saying they’re going to attack–Israelis are just bracing themselves for another tragedy, something coming their way. But on the other hand, that gives believers a chance to openly share their faith and talk about the hope in Yeshua as Savior.” |
Did we hear similar tales regarding Hussein and Iraq?
| A new survey reveals that 92 percent of the subjects of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s totalitarian government do not believe their nation’s role is positive, and two-thirds would support a “Velvet Revolution” to remove him from power.
The survey, by the Center For the Promotion of Democracy and Human Rights, found that almost six out of 10 Iranians would support a foreign military action for the purpose of taking Ahmadinejad out of the role as dictator. |
Here’s a bit of an interesting report from Mission Network News:
| Open Doors’ Brother Andrew says now, more than ever, the belief systems of Islam and Christianity are clashing head-on. “The conflict that we face today is a new one. We’ve never, in the history of the world, faced a situation like this where they (Muslims) have unlimited resources, strong belief and eschatology, their right to be heard, not only by the power of persuasion, but by the power of the sword.”
The resulting tensions have fueled a great deal of persecution against the indigenous church, especially those who’ve converted from Islam. Their plight is behind Brother Andrew’s most recent book Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ. In it, he and coauthor Al Janssen tell the stories of Muslims who encounter Christ and determine to become Christians, despite ostracism and death threats. It also shares the reality faced by Christians struggling to become mature in their faith in the midst of a hostile and increasingly violent Muslim society. That is born out in the mass exodus of Christians out of the war-torn Middle East. In many of these areas, the conflict has forged a stronger, more determined remnant church, while in others, the fighting has created a “diaspora” effect, resulting in great change. |
Take this as a call to prayer for these secret believers.
The US government will criticize the Iraqi government:
| It concludes among other things that the Iraqis have failed to pass long-promised laws that the administration has called key to national cohesion and economic recovery, such as legislation that would fairly divide Iraq’s oil resources. |
Somebody needs to list “long-promised laws” that the Americans “have failed to pass.”
Will the US government demand that the Iraqis be more iron-fisted and less democratic than the Americans?
If the US President promises a law, is it his task alone to make it happen? Not in our system of government.
If someone in the US Congress promises a law, is it his task alone to make it happen? Not in our system of government.
But the US government expects something different from the Iraqis, eh?
shrug
Politicians.
😉
| A hugely important appeal is presently being considered by Egypt’s Supreme Administrative Court. The judgment is due to be handed down on Sunday 1 July.
This apostasy case has had virtually no coverage in English language media. The appeal, which bears striking similarity to Lina Joy’s appeal in Malaysia, has been filed by 45 Copts (Egypt’s indigenous, traditionally Christian people) who had either converted to Islam for various reasons or been deemed Muslim on account of their parents’ conversion to Islam. These 45 Copts want to officially return to their Christian faith and be legally recognised as Christians on their national identity cards. For Copts, this process of re-conversion to Christianity requires a court ruling. In more tolerant times the courts have been lenient towards the Copts and ruled to permit the re-conversion. But on 24 April 2007 these 45 Copts discovered that the times have definitely changed, because for them permission was denied. They decided to appeal. During the 18 June appeal, the Copts’ attorney, Coptic lawyer Naguib Gabriel, decried the fact that through the ruling of the lower court, “the government is forcing people to embrace beliefs against their free will. It is forcing them according to their official papers to belong to a religion they don’t believe in.” Meanwhile the attorney for the government argued that the initial verdict issued on 24 April by Judge Muhammad Husseini was “completely consistent with the principles of Islamic sharia law”. Egypt’s Islamic scholars have been divided, with moderates advocating that apostasy should only be prohibited for those born Muslim; and fundamentalists maintaining that Islam decrees that any apostate should be executed. Egypt’s Interior Minister Habib el-Adly takes the fundamentalist view and has publicly supported the initial ruling. Compass Direct reports, “The interior minister insisted that Islam, as the state religion of Egypt, demands that any Muslim man who abandons his faith should be killed. But a Muslim woman ‘apostate’ should only be imprisoned and beaten every three days until she returns to Islam.” Compass Direct notes: “Although there is no legal means for Egyptian Muslims who have converted to Christianity to register a change in religious status, this prohibition has yet to be tested in the courts.” |
