Egypt's Coptic Christian Minority Under Attack: Where is the Outrage in the US?

Yesterday, in a Financial Times article entitled "Attacks increase against Egypt’s Coptic Christians" (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/281e19b6-eaf2-11e2-bfdb-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2YtrKSSUD), Borzou Daragahi observed:

"In recent weeks, at least nine Christians have been killed nationwide, including at least one priest. More than a dozen churches have been attacked and damaged. Coptic-owned businesses have been tagged with graffiti and threatening fliers have been distributed. Rights advocates and community leaders say the wave of persecution has been inflamed by the rhetoric of Islamists angry over the toppling of their leader."

In fact, Muslim Brotherhood violence against Egypt's Christian minority, comprising some 10 percent of the country's population of 85 million, is nothing new. As reported in April by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/04/28/new-video-shows-egyptian-police-allowing-attack-on-coptic-cathedral/), long before the army coup which dislodged Mohamed Morsi's government, Egypt's Copts were under siege by the Brotherhood:

"Newly-emerged video appears to show Egyptian police standing idly by - and even helping attackers during a deadly assault earlier this month on a Coptic cathedral where Christians were mourning five men killed in an earlier clash with Muslims.

The video shot April 7 and first obtained by MidEast Christian News, shows a men shooting guns, wielding machetes and hurling stones and possibly Molotov cocktails as mourners carry caskets out of St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in the Abbassia District of Cairo as uniformed police watch, unmoving. At one point, a police officer appears to help a gunman take aim at a courtyard full of mourners who had spilled out of the church. The attack left two Copts dead and another 84 people injured, including 11 police officers.

When it was over, the only arrests made were of four Copts. Christians, who were already outraged over a three-day attack that began April 4 attack in Khosous which saw the four men killed and homes, a nursery and a church burned."

Remarkably, on exactly the same day that St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral came under attack in Cairo, Jeff Fager, chairman of CBS News, was spreading lies about Israel's security barrier at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Canaan, Connecticut.

As reported by Dexter Van Zile (http://www.jns.org/latest-articles/2013/4/9/cbs-news-needs-to-come-clean-about-60-minutes-palestinian-christians-segment):

"Invited to speak at the church by his pastor Rev. Peter Walsh, Fager showed an audience of more than 200 of his fellow parishioners a segment about Palestinian Christians that aired on the CBS '60 Minutes' program in April 2012.

During the segment, correspondent Bob Simon stated that the security fence 'completely surrounds Bethlehem, turning the ‘little town' where Christ was born into what its residents call ‘an open air prison.’'

The fence does not completely surround Bethlehem, as Simon reported. The security fence is located to the north and west of Bethlehem and leaves the rest of the city’s perimeter open to the West Bank.

. . . .

The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA), pointed out the '60 Minutes' error in an article on its website soon after the segment aired and in a half-page ad that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 14, 2012.

Nevertheless, the CBS show has not issued a correction to this day.

After showing his fellow parishioners the '60 Minutes' segment, Fager complained about the angry response the show elicited. In particular, he condemned the Wall Street Journal’s decision to run CAMERA’s ad, which he said was intended to create havoc on the CBS show’s reporting.

Fager then told his audience that CAMERA got it wrong about the security fence in its ad and that 'Bethlehem is surrounded by a wall.'

. . . .

During the question and answer period, I raised my hand, stated I worked for CAMERA, the organization responsible for the ad in question, and then issued a simple and direct challenge: If Jeff Fager could prove that the security fence completely surrounds Bethlehem like he said a few moments before, I would donate $5,000 to a charity of his choosing.

His response was a simple 'Okay.'

After the event concluded and the people in attendance started to leave for the church’s Sunday services, I gave him my business card. So far, no response."

As can be seen on any map, the Israeli security barrier does not surround Bethlehem (see, for example: http://www.btselem.org/download/separation_barrier_map_eng.pdf), but this did not prevent Fager from disseminating lies at his church, even at a time when Christians were under attack in Egypt.

I sent an e-mail to Reverend Peter Walsh of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in New Canaan, who had told his congregation that Fager is “a man of extraordinary integrity and character," asking that Fager's "falsehood, intended to foster enmity, be addressed and rectified in your House of God" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/05/cbs-news-chairman-jeff-fagers-lie.html).

Reverend Walsh never responded to me.

Sad.