Muslims In Egypt Injure And Kill Dozens Of Christians, Burn Down Churches, Yet The New York Times Reports As "Sectarian Tensions"

NPR's headline declares that "After Deadly Clashes, Egypt's Christians On Edge." (See http://www.npr.org/2011/05/09/136144094/after-deadly-clashes-egypts-christians-on-edge for further details). What New York Times calls "sectarian tensions in the three months since the revolution that ousted President Hosni Mubarak" is taking place. The New York Times is demonstrative of how other mainstream media folks have reported this.

"Sectarian tensions" is the New York Times's phrase for increased violence by Muslims against Christians in Egypt. Of course if a Christian burned down a Mosque or attacked Muslims in the West like Muslims just did against Christians in Egypt, I doubt that it would be reported as "sectarian tensions." This is the bigotry of low expectations when it comes to the goings on in the Muslim world at its finest.

It is worth noting how this violence started according the New York Times itself: "Like many recent episodes of Muslim-Christian violence here, the strife started with rumors about an interfaith romance and a woman’s abduction. According to a police report, a Muslim named Yassim Thaabet Anwar from a city up the Nile had come to Imbaba looking for his wife. He said she was a former Christian from the neighborhood who had converted to Islam in 2010 but had recently disappeared. And he asserted she had been kidnapped and held in the Church of St. Mina against her will — a pattern of allegations that has recurred in several recent high-profile episodes of sectarian conflict. Christians in the neighborhood said that there was no such woman in the church, and, by Sunday night, the local police and government officials agreed. " So Muslims start blowing up Churches and killing and injuring dozens of Christians based on a disgusting libel, and that's the context for what the New York Times reports as "sectarian tensions"? That is nothing short of perverse and obscene mainstream media reporting.

Meanwhile, the American Jewish Committee "called on the Egyptian government to take the necessary measures to ensure the safety of Christians Copts and their religious institutions, after two Cairo churches were burned last night." I think it is wonderful to see Jews alarmed at the treatment of Christians and taking notice. I would hope some Christian groups are keeping as close an eye.

Maybe this kind of a story could be the precise call to action for Christians that Jewish nationally syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager recently wrote about. Prager wrote that "aside from the pope and some activist groups, the Christian world is as silent today [regarding persecution of Christians in the Middle East] as it was when Christians were imprisoned and killed in the Soviet Union. It is time to change this pattern. Christians should organize an international day or week of solidarity for persecuted Christians in the Muslim world. And not only Christians should attend these hopefully large events. Jews and Muslims should also be in attendance, and their representatives should speak. Jews should because it is right and because of all Christians did for Soviet Jewry and do for Israel; and Muslims should because it is right and because nothing would protect the good name of Muslims like joining non-Muslims in voicing solidarity with the many Christian victims of persecution in Muslim countries." Tweet