First of all, has Yisrael Beiteinu called itself a fascist party, or is that what you are calling them? You have also oversimplified their position on loyalty and citizenship. Every country in the world demands a certain level of loyalty. New immigrants and elected legislators normally take oaths to support the constitution or the state. The fact that Israel allows Arab members of the Knesset to openly call for Israel’s destruction is a sign of how profoundly democratic and tolerant Israel is. Try to imagine a Jewish legislator in an Arab country (does such a creature exist?) saying he hopes Israel will conquer his country! Hard to imagine?
Those are your (somewhat libelous) words, not theirs, which you are presumably using to describe groups like the English Defence League and other poplular movements that have sprung up in Europe . RACIST??? Since when is Islam a race? They have black members, Sikh and Hindu members, a gay and lesbian division, and a Jewish division. It is easy to yell “racist” at anyone you don’t like rather than adressing the real issues of concern to these mainly working-class movements who are concerned with the creep of Sharia law and Islamisation in their countries.
I honestly do not knopw a lot about this subject, but given Israel’s 65 years of tolerance and respect for the Christian religion on its territory (protecting pilgrims at holy sites at Easter and Christmas for example) I would be surprised if Israel is suddenly treating its Christians like Egypt has been treating its Copts. The move to Chile makes me suspect this has something more to do with economic migration and the need for fruit pickers in Chile. But I freely admit I do not know a lot about this alleged persecution.
But why is this even relevant? This thread asks, " Has the Arab Spring in Egypt turned into an Islamist nightmare?". Your attempt to “shift the blame” to Israel is a typical tactic for one who has no good arguiments to give about the persecution of Coptic Christians in Egypt. Even if Israel were to kill every Arab in its borders (which of course it would never do, being a humane and democratic state) that would still not change the subject of this thread, would it?
I understand the difference, I was using the word ‘or’ to contrast the two outcomes that look most likely (successful religious revolution resulting in fundamentalism, or secular oppressive dictatorship) and lamenting the future of Egypt.
All right, since you refuse to believe Morsi said that, let’s leave it aside. What about the video? Does it tell you something that Morsi and what appears to be members of his Muslim Brotherhood are attending the May 1 kickoff of his campaign before a huge crowd and on the same stage as a nutjob cleric who is calling for “millions of martyrs” to attack Israel. Morsi and his buddies as well as the crowd, clearly approve of what this warmongering demagogue is saying.
Incidentally, from the forest of microphones in front of the cleric, it is obvious that this event was widely reported and broadcast. And yet, I do not remember seeing it reported in the English-speaking media. Now, you have said that western networks would surely have had Arabic-speaking reporters who would have reported the May 13 comments at Cairo University if he had made them. So how is it that this May 1 kickoff, complete with a nutjob cleric calling for millions of martyrs, which was clearly attended by Morsi (look at the video) is apparently not reported in English elsewhere than this special English translation supplied by the Memri service? I will admit I am wrong if it was reported elsewhere in English.
While it’s not “sudden”, it’s certainly true that the Israeli occupation has displaced and oppressed many Arab Christians in the occupied territories. An example is the expansion of Israeli settlements between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, which has a significant (but shrinking) Christian population:
Your cheery speculation that the emigration of Christians from Israel may be less about oppression and more about a spontaneous desire to pick fruit in Chile does not appear to be borne out by the facts.
No shame in being wrong. As a matter of fact, contrary to your earlier insinuation that instances of Islamist radicalism aren’t “publicized” internationally in English by Arabs/Muslims themselves because “that’s not the face they want to show to the west”, Hegazi’s endorsement of Morsi at this rally was reported in no less a source than the May 8 AhramOnline, the online English-language version of the respected Cairo daily Al-Ahram. (The article also includes some interesting details about in-house political maneuvering which are seldom discussed in the usually rather simplistic reporting of MENA politics in western media.)
No shame in being wrong. As a matter of fact, contrary to your earlier insinuation that instances of Islamist radicalism aren’t “publicized” internationally in English by Arabs/Muslims themselves because “that’s not the face they want to show to the west”, Hegazi’s endorsement of Morsi at this rally was reported in no less a source than the May 8 AhramOnline, the online English-language version of the respected Cairo daily Al-Ahram.
I suspected it probably had been reported in English elsewhere, which is why I said I was capable of correction. But how reassuring do you find the promise to apply Sharia law as soon as possible? Once again, is this an emerging democracy or an emerging Islamist theocracy?
I suspected it appeared in some English-langauge reports, although I doubt if most westerners are aware that Morsi had his rally kicked off by this extremist nutjob. But how reassuring do you find the promise to apply Sharia law as soon as possible? Once again, is this an emerging democracy or an emerging Islamist theocracy?
Despite the deeply loaded question in the thread title, I think the evidence so far says the military is going to call the shots in Egypt. Islamist or not, the elected government looks like window dressing.
Be that as it may (and I doubt the objectivity of this article) if you want to start a thread to take shots at Israel, I suggest you do so. The subject of this thread is “Has the Arab Spring in Egypt turned into an Islamist nightmare?”
You have a cute way of pronouncing “I admit I was wrong”.
As for the availability of this information to westerners who don’t read English-language versions of Al-Ahram or Haaretz, they could also have found out about it from blog articles such as this one in Commentary. And oh yeah, it also happens to have been reported in the June 12 Yahoo!News.
No shots taken. You posted in this thread some speculations about the situation of Arab Christians in Israel and remarked that it was a subject you didn’t know much about, so I provided some information.
You were the one who decided bring up Israel in the OP by stupidly declaring them “the only democracy in the Middle East” and revealing your ignorance about the region.
Had you not mentioned Israel in your post and made such an ignorant statement about Israel, I wouldn’t have brought up Israel’s treatment of it’s Christian Arab minority.
BTW, I nearly pissed myself laughing at your comment about Chrustian Arabs going to Chile to be grape pickers. No, they’re mostly educated middle class folk that leave because Israel openly discriminates against them and doesn’t like the idea of Arabs, whether Christian or Muslim, being more than menial laborers.
I said “most westerners”. You figure the sources you mentioned would normally be read by the majority of people in western countries, do you?
Besides, whether or not most people in the west are aware of it or not is only a side-issue of a side-issue. If more people than I thought in the western democracies are aware of this man’s friendship with Islamist nut cases like this warmongering cleric. I said “Hooray”.
My point is that when the **SUCCESFUL **Presidental candidate for an Islamist organization like the Muslim Brotherhood kicks off his campaign on Egyptian TV smiling and apparently assenting, on the same stage, with the fanatical filth spouted by this cleric, then I think I know how we should answer the topic of the OP, namely, “Has the Arab Spring in Egypt turned into an Islamist nightmare?”
So, this is like when Reverend Wright said “God damn America!” and then Obama got elected, which is the point at which the United States turned into a freedom-hating nightmare. You could hardly make a more convincing argument.
Your analogy isn’t right—It would be true only if Obama had been seated right next to Rev Wright, and Obama had smiled at the cameras while Wright was speaking.
In reality, there are no analogies between Muslim extremists and American Christian extremists. And people who automatically reply to threads about Muslims by saying that America has religious fanatics too are missing the point.
Yeah, there is a crazy pastor or two who want to burn Korans. But only one or two, and even they still abide by the US Constitution, with separation of church and state. There is zero chance that,say, fundamentalist Baptists will change the foundation of American society and its legal system and abolish the first ammendment. There is zero chance that America will stop holding free elections every 4 years. There is zero chance that Rev Wright will ever be in charge.
There is a very,very real chance that Egypt will adopt Shariah law. There is a very,very real chance that Egypt’s first free election will be its last, and that the imams will be in charge for several generations.With several billion dollars worth of the best American miltary equipment.
Proportion, proportion, proportion. Did the Reverend Wright make an imperialist, warmongering speech like this guy that went on for maybe 10 minutes while the crowd cheered and Obama smiled and nodded his asent? I know the Islamist apologists are really scraping the bottom of the barrel when they are completely unable to excuse the Egyptian President hobnobbing with this lunatic, and can do nothing more than desperately search for “tu quoque” arguments from America, no matter how dissimilar they are.
Yeah, silly me for thinking it would be helpful to provide information and evidence about topics discussed in the thread. I never learn, do I?
You’re pretty nimble with those goalposts, I must say. You started out asking "how is it that this May 1 kickoff […] is apparently not reported in English elsewhere than this special English translation supplied by the Memri service?". So I responded with cites to show that it was reported in English elsewhere, both in MENA-published media and in western media.
Now you’re trying to shift the question to whether these English-language reports “would normally be read by the majority of people in western countries”.
That’s quite a nifty little forensic bait-and-switch routine you’ve got going there.
Valteron: [some ill-supported claim] Some Other Poster: [rebuttal] Valteron: [speculative justification rationalizing the desired answer] Some Other Poster: [evidence contradicting the speculation] Valteron: [shifts to more guarded modified version of ill-supported claim] Some Other Poster: [rebuttal of modified version] Valteron: That’s not relevant! Stop trying to derail the discussion with side issues! Some Other Poster: :rolleyes: