Worthy Christian News » Christian Persecution » Christian Persecution - Africa » Egypt » Why the Muslim Brotherhood targets Christians
Why the Muslim Brotherhood targets Christians
By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent
CAIRO, EGYPT (Worthy News)-- A pogrom against Christians is in keeping with the Muslim Brotherhood's supremacist ideology, but according to PJ Media's Andrew McCarthy, that pogrom says more about Egypt than the Brotherhood because this murderous Muslim movement came out of Egypt's own Islamist culture.
"The Brothers are an effect, not a cause," concluded McCarthy.
McCarthy points to polling showing that only 26 percent of Egyptians supported the military's coup of Muhammad Morsi while 63 percent were against it; this was the same majority that cheered radical Sheikh Qaradawi in Tahrir Square just one week after President Mubarak's ouster.
"In his sermon, Qaradawi celebrated the revolution as Allah's victory and heralded it as a divine omen for 'our brothers in Palestine,'" said McCarthy. "Just as Allah had provided 'victory in Egypt,' so too would there soon be a 'conquest of the al-Aqsa Mosque' in Jerusalem."
As if on cue, attacks against Coptic Christians became more violent: On New Year's eve, a church in Alexandria was bombed, killing 23; in May, jihadists razed the Virgin Mary Church in Cairo and attacked a residential complex, killing 12 and wounding more than 200, and in October, thousands of Muslims destroyed the St. George Coptic church in Edfu.
In response, Cairo's Copts marched in protest to a media center in Maspero, but their demonstration became a massacre as Egyptian soldiers ran them over with armored personnel carriers, killing dozens while wounding hundreds more.
"We can only hope," said McCarthy, "that enough international pressure can be brought to bear that the Egyptian armed forces will be moved to stop the ongoing brutalization of Christians. We can only hope that the military takeover will eventually lead to a more inclusive Egyptian society that turns away from sharia repression and toward the protection of the fundamental rights of minorities and women. But we should not kid ourselves: Egypt is a long, long way from there ..."