AI
Sunday, September 16, 2012 6:17:18 AM
Obama Plays Hardball and Egypt’s Morsi Folds
Posted on 09/14/2012 by Juan Cole
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi happened because the Libyan government is still weak, rebuilding after its revolution against Muammar Qaddafi. But there was no doubt that the new government was a friend of the US ambassador who was killed, Chris Stevens, or that it would mobilize to deal with the cells of the Ansar al-Shariah extremists that launched the attack. Pro-America demonstrations regretting the attack on the consulate have been held all over Libya.
The puzzle comes in Egypt, where the government and security forces are strong, but were not deployed in force to protect the US embassy (unlike in the past), and where newly elected president Mohammad Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, did not explicitly condemn the small crowd that tried to invade the embassy grounds on Tuesday and which tore down the American flag.
Morsi was no doubt himself offended by the trailer on Youtube of a movie villifying the Prophet Muhammad, and he was probably concerned to not be outflanked by Muslim forces to his right, the Salafi Nour Party or the Gama’ah Islamiya (formerly a terrorist organization that has given up violence). But his declining to make a firm statement in defense of the sanctity of foreign embassies annoyed the Obama administration mightily.
In an interview with Telemundo, President Barack Obama [ http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/9/52845/World/International/US-downplays-Obamas-Egypt-comment,-calls-Cairo-clo.aspx ] showed his annoyance with Morsi:
” “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy,” the president said.
“I think that we are going to have to see how they respond to this incident,” Obama said.
“Certainly in this situation, what we’re going to expect is that they are responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected,” Obama said.
Egypt is among about 14 countries designated at “major non-NATO allies” by US presidents. This status recognizes that they do joint military exercises with the US, and gives them special access to advanced US weaponry. However, some of them are not allies in the precise legal sense. That is, there is no obligation of mutual defense. A true ally, as with NATO states, is one that the allied country is pledged to defend from attack. Still, US officials typically have referred to Egypt as an ally, and the State Department made clear that it continues to do so [ http://cnsnews.com/news/article/state-department-egypt-ally ].
So Obama was technically correct that Egypt is not an ally in the sense that Britain or even Turkey is. But unlike what some media outlets wrote, this statement was no gaffe. Rather, Obama was playing hardball with Morsi, trying to impress upon him that the status of ‘major non-NATO ally’ is not automatic now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in control. It will have to be re-earned, at least from Obama’s point of view. And the lack of response on the embassy attack is not consistent with ally status. Non-NATO ally status is bestowed by a stroke of the presidential pen, so Obama could take it away.
White House spokesman Jay Carney added on Thursday that “Obama spoke with President Mohamed Morsi, the first Islamist leader following an uprising which toppled Mubarak last year, on Wednesday and impressed upon him the need to protect US diplomats…”
Under Obama’s pressure, Morsi, in Brussels seeking European aid, finally explicitly condemned Tuesday’s attack on the US embassy in Egypt [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/morsi-remarks-on-mideast-violence/2012/09/13/0fc1c930-fdb8-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html ]:
“we don’t accept, condone, or approve at all for there to be attacks on embassies, consulates or people, or killing in any way.”
“We want to cooperate with the entire world and we are cooperating now with the E.U. and the European people and with the American people and others and the U.S. administration to prevent such practices in the future. Also, we insist on the protection of persons, properties and embassies. The Egyptian people are very civilized and could not ever express their rejection of such practices with an attack on an embassy or person or consulate.”
Some of Morsi’s sudden willingness to say all this was fueled by Obama’s pressure. In addition, Morsi revealed some of his other motives:
“Muslims and Christians in Egypt are equal citizens and have the same rights… We are cautious about those principles and human values, also respecting visitors and respecting tourists… and respecting and protecting diplomatic delegations and private and public properties, and not attacking them.”
That is, somebody told Morsi he had to say something if he wanted to keep the tourist trade, much less the American alliance!
Morsi was also upstaged before his Brussels statement by the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shater, who tweeted his condemnation of the embassy attacks, and his tweets were picked up by the Brotherhood twitter account, @Ikhwanweb. Al-Shater, a wealthy businessman, may be as much Morsi’s rival as his colleague.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood was at the same time whipping up anger over the so-called ‘film’ (which is a hoax) smearing the Prophet Muhammad, and pledging big anti-American demonstrations for today, Friday, the freewheeling US embassy twitter account in Cairo objected. Thanking @Ikhwanweb for the al-Shater statements, the embassy suggested the Brotherhood check out its Arabic feed [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57512519/u.s-embassy-in-cairo-gets-in-twitter-spat-with-muslim-brotherhood/ ]. “I hope you know we read those, too,” it said.
Under all this pressure, and given the continued violent but small demonstration in front of the US embassy on Thursday and into Friday morning, the Secretary General of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ahmad Hussein, appeared to back off calls for a big demonstration on Friday [ http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/14/237897.html ]. Ironically, the Salafi fundamentalists who are to the right of the Muslim Brotherhood had already said that any demonstrations should be held far from the US embassy. Its spokesman said, that it “strongly condemns using violence and vandalism to express our objections to this offensive work, especially if protesting involves attacking embassies and terrorising diplomatic missions.” When the Salafis are the adults in the room, the Brotherhood is looking pretty bad. Even worse, the former terrorist organization, now a civil society association, the al-Gama’ah al-Islamiya or Islamic Bloc, called the tearing down of the American flag on Tuesday “illegal and against Islamic Law.” That is still more than Morsi has said.
By Friday morning [ http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/world/meast/egypt-us-embassy-protests/index.html ], a couple hundred protesters at the US embassy had been at least slightly injured by the advance on them of riot police, and three dozen had been arrested. Police and armored vehicles pushed the protesters away from the embassy toward Tahrir Square.
In Libya, the just-installed government of Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur arrested several suspects from the Ansar al-Shariah (‘supporters of the holy law [ http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=14332 ]’) group as suspects in Tuesday’s attack on the US consulate. The Ministry of Defense announced that it was determined to dismantle the Ansar. The group is denying involvement in the consulate attack, and its leader, hard line fundamentalist Ismail Salabi, is denying a report that he went on the radio and approved of the attack. Obama sent two war ships to Libya, though the gesture is symbolic.
In Yemen, where the US is involved in a dirty, secret drone war against Sunni fundamentalists, some 4000 protesters assaulted the US embassy [ http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/ ]. An expeditionary force of Marines is on their way to Sanaa to protect it. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, the demonstrations on Thursday against the so-called film (apparently made by an Egyptian, and with which the US government has nothing to do) were tiny, just a few hundred in each place. We’ll see about Friday. My guess is that this whole controversy will die down soon, without much long-term impact on US foreign policy or foreign relations.
As for why people in the region should be so touchy, Abdel Bari Atwan of al-Quds al-Arabi wrote, according to the translation of the USG Open Source Center:
“The best ally of the Islamic jihadist organizations is the deep hostility of certain right-wing Christian groups toward Islam and Muslims as well as the control of pro-Israel Jewish groups of US foreign policy…
US interferences in Arab and Muslim affairs in favor of Israel, its occupation, and Judaization of the holy places, and the US’s embrace of groups hostile to Islam and Muslims are the main reason for the current scourge and instability, and even wars in our countries. This provocation must immediately cease if the United States wants to secure its interests and the security of its embassies and citizens.”
Al-Atwan is wrong that the US government could have done anything about that Youtube trailer, but that there is a pre-existent store of ill-will toward the US for the reasons he suggests would be hard to deny.
Still, Obama has enough assets in his contest with Morsi to influence the Egypt situation– loan reduction, civilian and military aid, and the danger that a US State Department travel warning could devastate Egypt’s tourist industry, which is worth billions a year. Even Obama’s willingness to play a politics of reputation with Morsi’s Egypt seems to have had some effect. It wasn’t a ‘gaffe.’
© (2012) JuanCole.com
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/obama-plays-hardball-and-egypts-morsi-folds.html [with comments]
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Steve Klein & 'Innocence Of Muslims': Film Promoter Remains Outspoken On Islam
In this frame grab from a video made on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, Steve Klein, an insurance agent and Christian activist involved in "Innocence of Muslims," a film denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Middle East, speaks during an interview at his office in Hemet, Calif.
(AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)
By GILLIAN FLACCUS 09/13/12 08:12 PM ET
HEMET, Calif. — The public face for the anti-Muslim film inflaming the Middle East is not the filmmaker, but an insurance agent and Vietnam War veteran whose unabashed and outspoken hatred of radical Muslims has drawn the attention of civil libertarians, who say he's a hate monger.
With the Coptic Christian filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in hiding, film promoter Steve Klein has taken center stage in the unfolding international drama. He's given a stream of interviews about the film and the man he says he knew only as Sam Bacile, and is using the attention to talk about his own political views.
Nakoula, who used Bacile spelled multiple ways as a pseudonym, contacted Klein months ago for advice about the limits of American free speech and asked for help vetting the movie's script, Klein said in an interview with The Associated Press. The filmmaker asked the 61-year-old grandfather if he would act as a spokesman if the film "caught on," and he agreed.
The role dovetailed with Klein's relentless pursuit of radical Muslims in America, an activity he says he began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It took on more meaning in 2007, when his son, then a 27-year-old Army staff sergeant, was seriously injured in Iraq. Matthew Klein, a medic, was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor and a Purple Heart for injuries he suffered in the attack by a suicide bomber, according to the Army Human Resources Command.
"What do I get out of this? I get to die one of these days hoping my granddaughters and my grandsons will be safe from these monsters," Klein said while sipping a beer on the front porch of his home.
He claimed to have visited "every mosque in California" and identified "500 to 750 of these people who are future suicide bombers and murderers."
"Those are the guys I'm looking for. I'm not interested in mom and pop running a pizza store or running a smoky shop, a hookah shop," he said.
Klein works with his wife as an insurance agent out of a small office on the second floor of a downtrodden business complex in Hemet, a small city in the shadows of the San Jacinto Mountains about 90 miles southeast of Los Angeles. He describes himself as a failed real estate investor who lost 20 properties in the recession. In 2002, he was the American Independent Party's candidate for state insurance commissioner, receiving 2 percent of the vote.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says they have been tracking Klein for several years and have labeled two of the organizations he is affiliated with as hate groups.
Klein founded Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques, and started Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, which preaches against Muslims and publishes volumes of anti-Muslim propaganda that Klein distributes. He also has helped train paramilitary militias at the church of Kaweah near Three Rivers, about an hour southeast of Fresno, to prepare for what they believe is a coming holy war with Muslim sleeper cells, according to the law center.
"It's extreme, ugly, violent rhetoric and the fact that he's involved in that weapons training at that church, when you combine things like weapons training with hatred of a people, that's very concerning to us. Those are the kind of things that lead to hate crimes," said Heidi Beirich, director of the center's Intelligence Project.
Beirich said her group has not linked Klein to any violence. A review of California court records shows only two minor traffic cases for Klein.
Klein is not affiliated with the church of Kaweah, Pastor Warren Mark said. He was invited to speak about Islam and hasn't been back in more than a year.
Klein dismissed the concerns of his critics, angrily calling them "the wife-beaters and the pedophiles."
"Those people are screwballs. End of comment," he said.
What Klein has been eager to discuss in the days since his name became publicly linked to Nakoula is his role in the film's creation and his own political views.
Klein said he recognized parallels between what he saw in Vietnam, where he says he infiltrated Viet Cong cells, and "Muslim sleeper cells" he began finding after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He visits mosques and confronts young Muslim men who "dress up like Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat."
Military records obtained by the AP from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis show he served in the Marine Corps from 1968 to 1977 on active duty and received a service star for participating in the campaign in Vietnam. He also received a good conduct medal and a combat action medal before retiring in 1980 with the rank of first lieutenant.
"I'm kind of an unsophisticated James Bond operative. I want to piss this guy off, I want to find out, Why does he want to kill me?" he said. "Why does he want to capture my daughter and granddaughter and rape them? Why does this guy want to act this way?"
That work indirectly led him to his affiliation with Nakoula, an Egyptian Christian living outside Los Angeles, who contacted him about making an anti-Muslim movie.
Klein reviewed the script and then the man disappeared, only to resurface months later with a complete film ready to show at a movie theater in Hollywood.
The filmmaker's idea was to give the film a title that would draw in "hardcore Muslims" and then trick them into watching a movie that bashed Islam in the hopes that they would give up their faith, Klein said.
Nakoula papered Southern California mosques with flyers about the "Innocence of Muslims," but not one ticket was sold, said Klein, who said Nakoula was crushed.
The AP has tried without success to find a copy of the entire film.
Later, a 14-minute trailer [for the record, next below] showed up on YouTube and has been blamed for inflaming mobs that attacked U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya this week as well as U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Thursday. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was one of four Americans killed Tuesday in an attack in Libya.
Klein said he had no regrets about participating in the movie's creation.
"Do I have blood on my hands? No. Did I kill this guy? No," he said. "Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this."
Associated Press Writers Rachel Zoll and Randy Herschaft and Associated Press Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York; Tracie Cone in Three Rivers, Calif., and Amy Taxin in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/steve-klein-innocence-of-muslims-producer_n_1882595.html [with comments]
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Innocence of Muslims movie trailer
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Anti-Muslim Film, 'Innocence Of Muslims', Sparks Concerns For Relationships Among Muslims, Copts, Jews
Lebanese protesters burn the American and Israeli flags during a protest about "Innocence of Muslims," a film ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Posted: 09/13/2012 7:07 pm Updated: 09/14/2012 8:27 am
Most acts of religiously motivated violence pit one faith against the other, but the uproar across the Middle East over clips of an anti-Islam, American-produced film has managed to draw several faiths into the fray, presenting a unique set of circumstances.
Reports have linked [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/libya-protests-anti-muslim-film-religion_n_1879245.html ] people from three major religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity with the film, and members of each say they fear repercussions against their own people and their relationships to other religions groups.
There have been more than a dozen deaths of Americans and Middle Eastern nationals during protests; the most high-profile victim was U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, though U.S. officials have said the attack on the Benghazi consulate where he and other Americans were killed may have been planned. Protesters in front of Yemen's U.S. Embassy died in clashes with police Thursday, while in Cairo demonstrators jumped over the wall of the U.S. embassy to tear down the American flag.
On Wednesday, media reports said the anti-Islam film, "Innocence of Muslims" was produced by an Israeli Jew with the financing of Jewish backers. Then other reports hinted that it was made by evangelicals and, as of Thursday, a Coptic Christian in California. At the same time, Muslims who took to the streets in protest have been blamed for fighting an extremist video with extremist actions.
In addition to Muslim anger over the film's unsavory depictions of the Islamic prophet -- any visual representations of the prophet are prohibited in the faith -- part of the growing tension stems from the lack of definitive knowledge and changing reports about the religious motivations behind the film, if any.
"It's a new dimension of the an age-old problem: blaming others and stereotyping," said Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who said he was concerned about initial reports that named a Jewish man named Sam Bacile -- now reported to be a fake name -- as a California-based, Israeli real estate developer who spent $5 million making the amateur-quality film.
"I guarantee you that somebody doing research on this moment in history five years from now, 10 years from now, is going to report almost innocently that an Israeli-American Jew decided to do a hate film on Muslims supported by the Jewish community that triggered riots across the world," he said.
Foxman called the film, which depicts the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, a child molester and a gay man, "juvenile, simplistic and ugly," and said its maker "knew it would push buttons, knew there were consequences."
With echos of protests over the infamous Danish newspaper cartoons in 2005 and marches in Islamic nations against a Florida pastor's proposed Quran burning in 2010, Muslims have demonstrated outside U.S. offices in a growing number of countries, including Iran, Iraq and Tunisia, since Tuesday.
“It illustrates how hot the fuel is that one spark ignites it so suddenly," said Michael Wood, a spokesman for Open Doors USA, a group that assists persecuted Christians worldwide. "Many of the protesters link the U.S. with Christianity. So that puts believers in these hot spots such as Libya and Egypt directly in the line of fire."
On Wednesday, the Associated Press identified Californian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/innocence-of-muslims-filmmaker-nakoula-basseley-nakoula_n_1880706.html ] as the man behind the film, citing an anonymous U.S. law enforcement official as its source.
Nakoula, who identifies himself as a Coptic Christian, said in earlier interviews that he managed the company that made the film. The film's director supported concerns about the treatment of the Copts by Muslims, said Nakoula, who also denied posing as Bacile. But the AP reported that telephone numbers for Bacile and Nakoula trace to the same address.
Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles said Nakoula called his alleged connections to the film "a political thing," in an interview [ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/coptic-orthodox-church-nakoula-anti-muslim-film.html ] with the Los Angeles Times. Nakoula called him and "denied completely any involvement" in the film, said Serapion.
Another U.S.-based Copt, Morris Sadek, has taken credit for putting the film online and translating it to Arabic for Middle Eastern viewers. He said he supported it because it included a scene on Christian persecution.
"Holistically blaming the Copts for the production of this movie is equivalent to holistically blaming Muslims for the actions of a few fanatics," added Serapion in an AP interview [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120913/us-filmmaker-coptic-christians-q-a/ ]. "Even though Christians often face persecution, injustice and calls for open attacks over the airwaves, we reject violence in all its forms."
The discussion over the role of Copts in the film led leaders of the Egypt-based church to call a rare meeting to condemn the video. Church leaders said the film was released as "part of a malicious campaign targeting defamation of religions aiming to divide the people, most notably the Egyptian people," according to a statement from the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Open Doors USA estimates that around 100,000 Copts left Egypt in the last year after the attacks on Coptic churches during the Arab Spring. Many came to the U.S., where large communities exist in Southern California, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Florida. The church, which is based in Alexandria, Egypt, has 7.5 million members in the nation, or about 9 percent of its population of 84 million.
The majority of other Egyptians are Muslim, though only a minority of them and Muslims in other countries have been protesting, points out Naeem Baig, vice president of public affairs for the Islamic Circle of North America.
"The normal and average reaction to such a video or (Danish) cartoons or any mockery of Islam -- and especially the Prophet Muhammad -- is being abhorred, but people ignore it in most cases," said Baig. "The images of people protesting and being violent, the percent of those people is not even zero when you think about the 1.5 or 1.6 billion Muslims in the world."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/anti-muslim-film-innocent-muslim-christian-jew_n_1882054.html [with comments]
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Coptic Bishops Blast Sadek, Nakoula And Abdelmasih, Copts Behind Anti-Muslim Film
By Daniel Burke
Posted: 09/14/2012 5:47 pm Updated: 09/14/2012 5:47 pm
(RNS) Coptic Christian leaders in the United States distanced themselves from an anti-Muslim film that has sparked protests in more than 24 countries, and denounced the Copts who reportedly produced and promoted the film.
"We reject any allegation that the Coptic Orthodox community has contributed to the production of this film," the Coptic Orthodox Archdiocese of America said in statement on Friday (Sept. 14). "Indeed, the producers of this film have taken these unwise and offensive actions independently and should be held responsible for their own actions."
Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Morris Sadek -- all Coptic Christians who live in the U.S. -- have emerged as the producers and promoters of the anti-Muslim film. Called "Innocence of Muslims," the crude film depicts Islam's Prophet Muhammad as a bumbling sexual pervert.
Protests against the film began in Egypt on Tuesday and have since spread to more than two dozen countries, including Libya, Yemen, Bangladesh, Sudan, Qatar, Kuwait, Jerusalem and Iraq, according to international reports. Four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in Libya on Tuesday. The Obama administration is investigating whether that attack was tied the film.
Joseph Nassralla, as he is known, heads a Christian charity. Nakoula is a convicted felon. Both live near Los Angeles, according to reports. Sadek is an incendiary activist who lives near Washington. Coptic leaders said they are investigating what ties -- if any -- the men have to mainstream Copts in the United States.
There are about 300,000 Copts in the United States, most of whom live in Los Angeles and the Northeast. Copts in Egypt, where the faith was born, regularly face discrimination and violence at the hands of the Muslim majority, according to the State Department.
Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii said he "strongly rejects dragging the respectable Copts of the Diaspora" into the controversy.
"The producers of this movie should be responsible for their actions," Serapion said in a statement. "The name of our blessed parishioners should not be associated with the efforts of individuals who have ulterior motives."
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/coptic-bishops-blast-anti-muslim-film_n_1885485.html [with comments]
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Egypt's Christians Anxious About Anti-Islam Film, Coptic Community Anticipate Troubles
FILE - In this Saturday, April 26, 2008 file photo, Coptic Christians take part in a midnight service to celebrate Christ's resurrection, at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's estimated 8 million Coptic Christians are feeling increasingly cornered amid the rise to power of hardline Islamists after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak's longtime authoritarian regime and fear that they will bear the brunt of blame for the film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
By MAGGIE MICHAEL 09/14/12 07:47 PM ET
CAIRO -- Christians gathered Friday in front of a Cairo cathedral holding signs denouncing a film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad amid fears that Muslims will take out their anger on Egypt's minority community.
The country's 8 million Coptic Christians were already feeling increasingly cornered amid the rise to power of hard-line Islamists in Egypt following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
Now U.S. authorities have identified a self-described Coptic Christian living in California as the key figure behind the inflammatory film, and the community at home fears it will bear the brunt of the blame.
"We are afraid the anger will engulf us," said Monier Hanna, a 58-year-old Coptic government employee who says he saw two unveiled Christian women being harassed over the movie by Muslim men in his middle-class district of Helwan on Thursday.
"They were telling the women they are responsible for the film," he said.
Mira Girgis, a 23-year-old Copt and recent college graduate, said she feels insecure.
"I can't go to church alone; my brother must be with me. I can't go out at night. When I return from work, a male – either my father or brother – must be waiting for me at the subway station," she said. "Being a Christian ... is hard in Egypt in these conditions."
A Christian journalist, Caroline Kamel, wrote in the Shorouk daily Friday that she and her family came under attack at a bus terminal in Cairo and another city over the film. "Am I supposed to ... apologize for stupidities of others just for the mere fact that we share the same religion?" she said.
In another sign of trouble, a young Coptic Christian blogger, Alber Sabry, reportedly posted a clip of the movie on his Facebook page, prompting threats Friday from his neighbors in the middle-class district of Marg, who vowed to set his house on fire, a security official said.
The neighbors notified police, who arrested the blogger and detained him for 15 days pending investigation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
The 14-minute clip of "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a womanizer, a fraud and a child molester, has unleashed protests across the Muslim world and attacks on U.S. and other Western embassies, including one in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
Egypt's Islamist politicians have lashed out at Coptic Christians living abroad but say they won't let the film cause sectarian hatred at home. But that has not eased fears among Egypt's Copts that anger over the film will spill over into broader anti-Christian sentiment.
On Tuesday, as the first anti-American protest was surging in front of the fortified U.S. Embassy in Cairo, mainly by hard-line Islamists, an extremist cleric, Abu Islam, drove up and announced over a loudspeaker that he had set fire to a Bible.
The Coptic Christian Church has issued a statement denouncing the film and rejecting "defamation" of the Muslim faith, and church officials have pledged that Christians will join their "brotherly Muslims" in sit-ins against the movie.
"This is part of a wicked campaign against religions, aimed at causing discord among people, especially Egyptians," read the statement, issued Wednesday by the Sacred Congregation of the Coptic Church.
Once a majority in Egypt, Coptic Christians now make up about 10 percent of the country's 85 million people. They are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and theirs is one of the region's oldest churches. Like the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches, it has no theological links with the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches.
Under Mubarak, Christians also faced discrimination by the government, which did little to prevent attacks by Muslims. Many Christians fled to the United States and other Western countries, and tensions have risen as the collapse of the police state gave way to a state of lawlessness and the Islamists assumed power.
With Egypt's first free elections in history giving victory to the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, fears have risen among Christians, many of whom supported his rival, a pro-Mubarak official, Ahmed Shafiq.
On Friday, a dozen young Coptic Christians lined up outside Cairo's St. Mark's Cathedral, denouncing the film and displaying signs that read "No to harming religions." Christians also joined a sit-in against the movie at a mosque in Giza.
Some pointed to such demonstrations by Copts as a sign that they feel confident that anger over the film won't be taken out on them.
"There is no doubt that Christians are fully confident that they will not be affected, as they are expressing solidarity with Muslims in their protests," said Fouad Gergis, a member of the secular council of the Coptic Church.
However, Coptic activists counter that Christians in Egypt will feel the heat sooner or later.
"Christians are worried and I anticipate more waves of immigration to the West," said Medhat Kelada, head of Copts United, a Swiss-based group that monitors reports of discrimination and other abuses against Christians in the Middle East.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/egypts-christians-anxious_n_1885899.html [with comments]
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Our Man in Benghazi
Ibrahim Alaguri/Associated Press
By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 13, 2012
LONDON — Chris Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya killed in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html ], represented the best of the U.S. Foreign Service. He was smart, dedicated and adroit. He loved his work and believed in its capacity for good. He knew history’s hold on Middle Eastern minds yet dismissed the notion that ancient conflict was insurmountable. Other cultures fascinated him even as his own inspired him. No American did more to end the tyranny of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Like most brave people he had a great sense of humor.
The fanatics who killed him represented the worst of Islam. They attacked the consulate in the midst of Muslim outrage over an amateurish American video portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a buffoon of indiscriminate and consuming sexual appetites. But no religious affront, however vile, can justify killing of a kind that jihadists have made only too familiar over the past two decades.
The makers, funders and promoters of the video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmodVun16Q4 (the original "Published on Jul 2, 2012 by sam bacile" upload; have used/linked other uploads embedding the video above, in case this original somehow disappears)], called “Innocence of Muslims,” represent the worst of an American bigotry whose central tenet is that Islam is evil, a religion bent on the takeover of the world and followed by people who are all violent extremists, Jew-haters and sexual predators.
The movie, a procession of insults to Muslims against a background of comically flimsy sets, is of a piece with the ideology, praised at times by Republicans including Newt Gingrich, that has sought to portray Shariah law as a mortal threat to America, perceived stealth jihadists knocking at every door from Phoenix to Peoria, and worked hard to persuade the world that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Whoever made the film — it was uploaded to YouTube in July by somebody calling himself Sam Bacile and identifying himself as an Israeli-American real estate developer — was driven by the visceral loathing of Islam that forms a significant current in post-9/11 right-wing thinking in the United States.
So perhaps it is no surprise that Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, would attempt to pander to that thinking in his response to the killing [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/behind-romneys-decision-to-criticize-obama-on-libya.html ] of Mr. Stevens and three of his staff. He claimed the Obama administration’s first response was “to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” called it “disgraceful,” and said “apology for America’s values is never the right course.”
Huh?
Even coming from a man who on a brief trip abroad in late July lost no opportunity to put his foot in his mouth, blundering into squabbles with the British and the Palestinians, this was heavy-handed. In fact, to use Romney’s word, it was disgraceful.
The Obama administration never expressed sympathy for the assailants. It never apologized for American values. What the Cairo embassy did, as violence brewed in the Egyptian capital and well before the Benghazi attack, was to condemn [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html ] “actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others” — specifically Muslims.
Since when was extreme bigotry that portrays the followers of one of the world’s great religions as child molesters an American value? Religious tolerance is as fundamental an American value as free speech. For Romney to offer implicit defense of a scurrilous movie in the name of free speech, while misrepresenting the Obama administration’s actions and offering not a word about hatred toward the world’s more than 1.5 billion Muslims, suggests he is deluded or desperate or both.
As a free-speech absolutist I defend the right of Bacile — or whoever — to make the video. It is equally important that the United States says what it thinks of such bile. President Obama got it right saying [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html ] the United States “rejects efforts to denigrate” others’ religious beliefs, while expressing unequivocal opposition to the “senseless violence” that killed Stevens.
This September surprise has given the world cause to appreciate the cool head in the White House and worry about the hothead who aspires to replace him. Romney, in Jacques Chirac’s immortal phrase, “lost a good opportunity to keep quiet.”
His words reflected a shoot-from-the-hip, America-first approach to the world that will not fly in a time of deep interdependency. Two scarring wars have demonstrated that.
Stevens understood the interdependency. He loved his country but did not seek to impose it. Last year, on July 4, shortly after I saw him in Benghazi, he sent a note to family and friends as the war to unseat Qaddafi raged:
“Greetings, all,” Stevens wrote. “I hope you are enjoying a great 4th with plenty of beer, ice cream, hamburgers and Chinese fireworks. I remember well the ‘sparklers’ we used to have in Grass Valley as little tots, and running around the lawn with abandon, catching our hair and eyebrows on fire.” He had celebrated Independence Day by hosting a party with “an entire lamb, grilled chicken, Arab salads and pastries,” ending with remarks expressing “our hope that Libyans would celebrate their freedom soon, too.”
Stevens died for American values. The least Romney might have done was avoid misrepresenting them. His terrible death was a rebuke to the quest for squalid political capital and a demand for reflection on the best of America.
*
Related News
Libya Attack Brings Challenges for U.S. (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html
A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/behind-romneys-decision-to-criticize-obama-on-libya.html
Related in Opinion
Editorial: Murder in Benghazi (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/murder-in-benghazi.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/opinion/roger-cohen-chris-stevens-in-benghazi.html [with comments]
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Posted on 09/14/2012 by Juan Cole
The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi happened because the Libyan government is still weak, rebuilding after its revolution against Muammar Qaddafi. But there was no doubt that the new government was a friend of the US ambassador who was killed, Chris Stevens, or that it would mobilize to deal with the cells of the Ansar al-Shariah extremists that launched the attack. Pro-America demonstrations regretting the attack on the consulate have been held all over Libya.
The puzzle comes in Egypt, where the government and security forces are strong, but were not deployed in force to protect the US embassy (unlike in the past), and where newly elected president Mohammad Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party, did not explicitly condemn the small crowd that tried to invade the embassy grounds on Tuesday and which tore down the American flag.
Morsi was no doubt himself offended by the trailer on Youtube of a movie villifying the Prophet Muhammad, and he was probably concerned to not be outflanked by Muslim forces to his right, the Salafi Nour Party or the Gama’ah Islamiya (formerly a terrorist organization that has given up violence). But his declining to make a firm statement in defense of the sanctity of foreign embassies annoyed the Obama administration mightily.
In an interview with Telemundo, President Barack Obama [ http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/9/52845/World/International/US-downplays-Obamas-Egypt-comment,-calls-Cairo-clo.aspx ] showed his annoyance with Morsi:
” “I don’t think that we would consider them an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy,” the president said.
“I think that we are going to have to see how they respond to this incident,” Obama said.
“Certainly in this situation, what we’re going to expect is that they are responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected,” Obama said.
Egypt is among about 14 countries designated at “major non-NATO allies” by US presidents. This status recognizes that they do joint military exercises with the US, and gives them special access to advanced US weaponry. However, some of them are not allies in the precise legal sense. That is, there is no obligation of mutual defense. A true ally, as with NATO states, is one that the allied country is pledged to defend from attack. Still, US officials typically have referred to Egypt as an ally, and the State Department made clear that it continues to do so [ http://cnsnews.com/news/article/state-department-egypt-ally ].
So Obama was technically correct that Egypt is not an ally in the sense that Britain or even Turkey is. But unlike what some media outlets wrote, this statement was no gaffe. Rather, Obama was playing hardball with Morsi, trying to impress upon him that the status of ‘major non-NATO ally’ is not automatic now that the Muslim Brotherhood is in control. It will have to be re-earned, at least from Obama’s point of view. And the lack of response on the embassy attack is not consistent with ally status. Non-NATO ally status is bestowed by a stroke of the presidential pen, so Obama could take it away.
White House spokesman Jay Carney added on Thursday that “Obama spoke with President Mohamed Morsi, the first Islamist leader following an uprising which toppled Mubarak last year, on Wednesday and impressed upon him the need to protect US diplomats…”
Under Obama’s pressure, Morsi, in Brussels seeking European aid, finally explicitly condemned Tuesday’s attack on the US embassy in Egypt [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/morsi-remarks-on-mideast-violence/2012/09/13/0fc1c930-fdb8-11e1-a31e-804fccb658f9_blog.html ]:
“we don’t accept, condone, or approve at all for there to be attacks on embassies, consulates or people, or killing in any way.”
“We want to cooperate with the entire world and we are cooperating now with the E.U. and the European people and with the American people and others and the U.S. administration to prevent such practices in the future. Also, we insist on the protection of persons, properties and embassies. The Egyptian people are very civilized and could not ever express their rejection of such practices with an attack on an embassy or person or consulate.”
Some of Morsi’s sudden willingness to say all this was fueled by Obama’s pressure. In addition, Morsi revealed some of his other motives:
“Muslims and Christians in Egypt are equal citizens and have the same rights… We are cautious about those principles and human values, also respecting visitors and respecting tourists… and respecting and protecting diplomatic delegations and private and public properties, and not attacking them.”
That is, somebody told Morsi he had to say something if he wanted to keep the tourist trade, much less the American alliance!
Morsi was also upstaged before his Brussels statement by the number two man in the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shater, who tweeted his condemnation of the embassy attacks, and his tweets were picked up by the Brotherhood twitter account, @Ikhwanweb. Al-Shater, a wealthy businessman, may be as much Morsi’s rival as his colleague.
Since the Muslim Brotherhood was at the same time whipping up anger over the so-called ‘film’ (which is a hoax) smearing the Prophet Muhammad, and pledging big anti-American demonstrations for today, Friday, the freewheeling US embassy twitter account in Cairo objected. Thanking @Ikhwanweb for the al-Shater statements, the embassy suggested the Brotherhood check out its Arabic feed [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57512519/u.s-embassy-in-cairo-gets-in-twitter-spat-with-muslim-brotherhood/ ]. “I hope you know we read those, too,” it said.
Under all this pressure, and given the continued violent but small demonstration in front of the US embassy on Thursday and into Friday morning, the Secretary General of the Muslim Brotherhood, Ahmad Hussein, appeared to back off calls for a big demonstration on Friday [ http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/14/237897.html ]. Ironically, the Salafi fundamentalists who are to the right of the Muslim Brotherhood had already said that any demonstrations should be held far from the US embassy. Its spokesman said, that it “strongly condemns using violence and vandalism to express our objections to this offensive work, especially if protesting involves attacking embassies and terrorising diplomatic missions.” When the Salafis are the adults in the room, the Brotherhood is looking pretty bad. Even worse, the former terrorist organization, now a civil society association, the al-Gama’ah al-Islamiya or Islamic Bloc, called the tearing down of the American flag on Tuesday “illegal and against Islamic Law.” That is still more than Morsi has said.
By Friday morning [ http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/14/world/meast/egypt-us-embassy-protests/index.html ], a couple hundred protesters at the US embassy had been at least slightly injured by the advance on them of riot police, and three dozen had been arrested. Police and armored vehicles pushed the protesters away from the embassy toward Tahrir Square.
In Libya, the just-installed government of Prime Minister Mustafa Abushagur arrested several suspects from the Ansar al-Shariah (‘supporters of the holy law [ http://www.libyaherald.com/?p=14332 ]’) group as suspects in Tuesday’s attack on the US consulate. The Ministry of Defense announced that it was determined to dismantle the Ansar. The group is denying involvement in the consulate attack, and its leader, hard line fundamentalist Ismail Salabi, is denying a report that he went on the radio and approved of the attack. Obama sent two war ships to Libya, though the gesture is symbolic.
In Yemen, where the US is involved in a dirty, secret drone war against Sunni fundamentalists, some 4000 protesters assaulted the US embassy [ http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/ ]. An expeditionary force of Marines is on their way to Sanaa to protect it. Elsewhere in the Muslim world, the demonstrations on Thursday against the so-called film (apparently made by an Egyptian, and with which the US government has nothing to do) were tiny, just a few hundred in each place. We’ll see about Friday. My guess is that this whole controversy will die down soon, without much long-term impact on US foreign policy or foreign relations.
As for why people in the region should be so touchy, Abdel Bari Atwan of al-Quds al-Arabi wrote, according to the translation of the USG Open Source Center:
“The best ally of the Islamic jihadist organizations is the deep hostility of certain right-wing Christian groups toward Islam and Muslims as well as the control of pro-Israel Jewish groups of US foreign policy…
US interferences in Arab and Muslim affairs in favor of Israel, its occupation, and Judaization of the holy places, and the US’s embrace of groups hostile to Islam and Muslims are the main reason for the current scourge and instability, and even wars in our countries. This provocation must immediately cease if the United States wants to secure its interests and the security of its embassies and citizens.”
Al-Atwan is wrong that the US government could have done anything about that Youtube trailer, but that there is a pre-existent store of ill-will toward the US for the reasons he suggests would be hard to deny.
Still, Obama has enough assets in his contest with Morsi to influence the Egypt situation– loan reduction, civilian and military aid, and the danger that a US State Department travel warning could devastate Egypt’s tourist industry, which is worth billions a year. Even Obama’s willingness to play a politics of reputation with Morsi’s Egypt seems to have had some effect. It wasn’t a ‘gaffe.’
© (2012) JuanCole.com
http://www.juancole.com/2012/09/obama-plays-hardball-and-egypts-morsi-folds.html [with comments]
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Steve Klein & 'Innocence Of Muslims': Film Promoter Remains Outspoken On Islam
In this frame grab from a video made on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2012, Steve Klein, an insurance agent and Christian activist involved in "Innocence of Muslims," a film denigrating Islam and the Prophet Muhammad that sparked outrage in the Middle East, speaks during an interview at his office in Hemet, Calif.
(AP Photo/Gillian Flaccus)
By GILLIAN FLACCUS 09/13/12 08:12 PM ET
HEMET, Calif. — The public face for the anti-Muslim film inflaming the Middle East is not the filmmaker, but an insurance agent and Vietnam War veteran whose unabashed and outspoken hatred of radical Muslims has drawn the attention of civil libertarians, who say he's a hate monger.
With the Coptic Christian filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula in hiding, film promoter Steve Klein has taken center stage in the unfolding international drama. He's given a stream of interviews about the film and the man he says he knew only as Sam Bacile, and is using the attention to talk about his own political views.
Nakoula, who used Bacile spelled multiple ways as a pseudonym, contacted Klein months ago for advice about the limits of American free speech and asked for help vetting the movie's script, Klein said in an interview with The Associated Press. The filmmaker asked the 61-year-old grandfather if he would act as a spokesman if the film "caught on," and he agreed.
The role dovetailed with Klein's relentless pursuit of radical Muslims in America, an activity he says he began after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. It took on more meaning in 2007, when his son, then a 27-year-old Army staff sergeant, was seriously injured in Iraq. Matthew Klein, a medic, was awarded the Bronze Star for Valor and a Purple Heart for injuries he suffered in the attack by a suicide bomber, according to the Army Human Resources Command.
"What do I get out of this? I get to die one of these days hoping my granddaughters and my grandsons will be safe from these monsters," Klein said while sipping a beer on the front porch of his home.
He claimed to have visited "every mosque in California" and identified "500 to 750 of these people who are future suicide bombers and murderers."
"Those are the guys I'm looking for. I'm not interested in mom and pop running a pizza store or running a smoky shop, a hookah shop," he said.
Klein works with his wife as an insurance agent out of a small office on the second floor of a downtrodden business complex in Hemet, a small city in the shadows of the San Jacinto Mountains about 90 miles southeast of Los Angeles. He describes himself as a failed real estate investor who lost 20 properties in the recession. In 2002, he was the American Independent Party's candidate for state insurance commissioner, receiving 2 percent of the vote.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says they have been tracking Klein for several years and have labeled two of the organizations he is affiliated with as hate groups.
Klein founded Courageous Christians United, which conducts protests outside abortion clinics, Mormon temples and mosques, and started Concerned Citizens for the First Amendment, which preaches against Muslims and publishes volumes of anti-Muslim propaganda that Klein distributes. He also has helped train paramilitary militias at the church of Kaweah near Three Rivers, about an hour southeast of Fresno, to prepare for what they believe is a coming holy war with Muslim sleeper cells, according to the law center.
"It's extreme, ugly, violent rhetoric and the fact that he's involved in that weapons training at that church, when you combine things like weapons training with hatred of a people, that's very concerning to us. Those are the kind of things that lead to hate crimes," said Heidi Beirich, director of the center's Intelligence Project.
Beirich said her group has not linked Klein to any violence. A review of California court records shows only two minor traffic cases for Klein.
Klein is not affiliated with the church of Kaweah, Pastor Warren Mark said. He was invited to speak about Islam and hasn't been back in more than a year.
Klein dismissed the concerns of his critics, angrily calling them "the wife-beaters and the pedophiles."
"Those people are screwballs. End of comment," he said.
What Klein has been eager to discuss in the days since his name became publicly linked to Nakoula is his role in the film's creation and his own political views.
Klein said he recognized parallels between what he saw in Vietnam, where he says he infiltrated Viet Cong cells, and "Muslim sleeper cells" he began finding after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He visits mosques and confronts young Muslim men who "dress up like Osama bin Laden and Yasser Arafat."
Military records obtained by the AP from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis show he served in the Marine Corps from 1968 to 1977 on active duty and received a service star for participating in the campaign in Vietnam. He also received a good conduct medal and a combat action medal before retiring in 1980 with the rank of first lieutenant.
"I'm kind of an unsophisticated James Bond operative. I want to piss this guy off, I want to find out, Why does he want to kill me?" he said. "Why does he want to capture my daughter and granddaughter and rape them? Why does this guy want to act this way?"
That work indirectly led him to his affiliation with Nakoula, an Egyptian Christian living outside Los Angeles, who contacted him about making an anti-Muslim movie.
Klein reviewed the script and then the man disappeared, only to resurface months later with a complete film ready to show at a movie theater in Hollywood.
The filmmaker's idea was to give the film a title that would draw in "hardcore Muslims" and then trick them into watching a movie that bashed Islam in the hopes that they would give up their faith, Klein said.
Nakoula papered Southern California mosques with flyers about the "Innocence of Muslims," but not one ticket was sold, said Klein, who said Nakoula was crushed.
The AP has tried without success to find a copy of the entire film.
Later, a 14-minute trailer [for the record, next below] showed up on YouTube and has been blamed for inflaming mobs that attacked U.S. missions in Egypt and Libya this week as well as U.S. Embassy in Yemen on Thursday. U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens was one of four Americans killed Tuesday in an attack in Libya.
Klein said he had no regrets about participating in the movie's creation.
"Do I have blood on my hands? No. Did I kill this guy? No," he said. "Do I feel guilty that these people were incited? Guess what? I didn't incite them. They're pre-incited, they're pre-programmed to do this."
Associated Press Writers Rachel Zoll and Randy Herschaft and Associated Press Researcher Rhonda Shafner in New York; Tracie Cone in Three Rivers, Calif., and Amy Taxin in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/steve-klein-innocence-of-muslims-producer_n_1882595.html [with comments]
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Innocence of Muslims movie trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjoa3QazVy8 [also at e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAiOEV0v2RM , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RagKWM8ldk and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC6yGzpSvjU ]
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Anti-Muslim Film, 'Innocence Of Muslims', Sparks Concerns For Relationships Among Muslims, Copts, Jews
Lebanese protesters burn the American and Israeli flags during a protest about "Innocence of Muslims," a film ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2012.
By Jaweed Kaleem
Posted: 09/13/2012 7:07 pm Updated: 09/14/2012 8:27 am
Most acts of religiously motivated violence pit one faith against the other, but the uproar across the Middle East over clips of an anti-Islam, American-produced film has managed to draw several faiths into the fray, presenting a unique set of circumstances.
Reports have linked [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/12/libya-protests-anti-muslim-film-religion_n_1879245.html ] people from three major religions, Islam, Judaism and Christianity with the film, and members of each say they fear repercussions against their own people and their relationships to other religions groups.
There have been more than a dozen deaths of Americans and Middle Eastern nationals during protests; the most high-profile victim was U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens, though U.S. officials have said the attack on the Benghazi consulate where he and other Americans were killed may have been planned. Protesters in front of Yemen's U.S. Embassy died in clashes with police Thursday, while in Cairo demonstrators jumped over the wall of the U.S. embassy to tear down the American flag.
On Wednesday, media reports said the anti-Islam film, "Innocence of Muslims" was produced by an Israeli Jew with the financing of Jewish backers. Then other reports hinted that it was made by evangelicals and, as of Thursday, a Coptic Christian in California. At the same time, Muslims who took to the streets in protest have been blamed for fighting an extremist video with extremist actions.
In addition to Muslim anger over the film's unsavory depictions of the Islamic prophet -- any visual representations of the prophet are prohibited in the faith -- part of the growing tension stems from the lack of definitive knowledge and changing reports about the religious motivations behind the film, if any.
"It's a new dimension of the an age-old problem: blaming others and stereotyping," said Abe Foxman, director of the Anti-Defamation League, who said he was concerned about initial reports that named a Jewish man named Sam Bacile -- now reported to be a fake name -- as a California-based, Israeli real estate developer who spent $5 million making the amateur-quality film.
"I guarantee you that somebody doing research on this moment in history five years from now, 10 years from now, is going to report almost innocently that an Israeli-American Jew decided to do a hate film on Muslims supported by the Jewish community that triggered riots across the world," he said.
Foxman called the film, which depicts the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a womanizer, a child molester and a gay man, "juvenile, simplistic and ugly," and said its maker "knew it would push buttons, knew there were consequences."
With echos of protests over the infamous Danish newspaper cartoons in 2005 and marches in Islamic nations against a Florida pastor's proposed Quran burning in 2010, Muslims have demonstrated outside U.S. offices in a growing number of countries, including Iran, Iraq and Tunisia, since Tuesday.
“It illustrates how hot the fuel is that one spark ignites it so suddenly," said Michael Wood, a spokesman for Open Doors USA, a group that assists persecuted Christians worldwide. "Many of the protesters link the U.S. with Christianity. So that puts believers in these hot spots such as Libya and Egypt directly in the line of fire."
On Wednesday, the Associated Press identified Californian Nakoula Basseley Nakoula [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/innocence-of-muslims-filmmaker-nakoula-basseley-nakoula_n_1880706.html ] as the man behind the film, citing an anonymous U.S. law enforcement official as its source.
Nakoula, who identifies himself as a Coptic Christian, said in earlier interviews that he managed the company that made the film. The film's director supported concerns about the treatment of the Copts by Muslims, said Nakoula, who also denied posing as Bacile. But the AP reported that telephone numbers for Bacile and Nakoula trace to the same address.
Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles said Nakoula called his alleged connections to the film "a political thing," in an interview [ http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/09/coptic-orthodox-church-nakoula-anti-muslim-film.html ] with the Los Angeles Times. Nakoula called him and "denied completely any involvement" in the film, said Serapion.
Another U.S.-based Copt, Morris Sadek, has taken credit for putting the film online and translating it to Arabic for Middle Eastern viewers. He said he supported it because it included a scene on Christian persecution.
"Holistically blaming the Copts for the production of this movie is equivalent to holistically blaming Muslims for the actions of a few fanatics," added Serapion in an AP interview [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20120913/us-filmmaker-coptic-christians-q-a/ ]. "Even though Christians often face persecution, injustice and calls for open attacks over the airwaves, we reject violence in all its forms."
The discussion over the role of Copts in the film led leaders of the Egypt-based church to call a rare meeting to condemn the video. Church leaders said the film was released as "part of a malicious campaign targeting defamation of religions aiming to divide the people, most notably the Egyptian people," according to a statement from the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Open Doors USA estimates that around 100,000 Copts left Egypt in the last year after the attacks on Coptic churches during the Arab Spring. Many came to the U.S., where large communities exist in Southern California, Houston, Detroit, New Jersey and Florida. The church, which is based in Alexandria, Egypt, has 7.5 million members in the nation, or about 9 percent of its population of 84 million.
The majority of other Egyptians are Muslim, though only a minority of them and Muslims in other countries have been protesting, points out Naeem Baig, vice president of public affairs for the Islamic Circle of North America.
"The normal and average reaction to such a video or (Danish) cartoons or any mockery of Islam -- and especially the Prophet Muhammad -- is being abhorred, but people ignore it in most cases," said Baig. "The images of people protesting and being violent, the percent of those people is not even zero when you think about the 1.5 or 1.6 billion Muslims in the world."
Copyright © 2012 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/anti-muslim-film-innocent-muslim-christian-jew_n_1882054.html [with comments]
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Coptic Bishops Blast Sadek, Nakoula And Abdelmasih, Copts Behind Anti-Muslim Film
By Daniel Burke
Posted: 09/14/2012 5:47 pm Updated: 09/14/2012 5:47 pm
(RNS) Coptic Christian leaders in the United States distanced themselves from an anti-Muslim film that has sparked protests in more than 24 countries, and denounced the Copts who reportedly produced and promoted the film.
"We reject any allegation that the Coptic Orthodox community has contributed to the production of this film," the Coptic Orthodox Archdiocese of America said in statement on Friday (Sept. 14). "Indeed, the producers of this film have taken these unwise and offensive actions independently and should be held responsible for their own actions."
Joseph Nassralla Abdelmasih, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and Morris Sadek -- all Coptic Christians who live in the U.S. -- have emerged as the producers and promoters of the anti-Muslim film. Called "Innocence of Muslims," the crude film depicts Islam's Prophet Muhammad as a bumbling sexual pervert.
Protests against the film began in Egypt on Tuesday and have since spread to more than two dozen countries, including Libya, Yemen, Bangladesh, Sudan, Qatar, Kuwait, Jerusalem and Iraq, according to international reports. Four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, were killed in Libya on Tuesday. The Obama administration is investigating whether that attack was tied the film.
Joseph Nassralla, as he is known, heads a Christian charity. Nakoula is a convicted felon. Both live near Los Angeles, according to reports. Sadek is an incendiary activist who lives near Washington. Coptic leaders said they are investigating what ties -- if any -- the men have to mainstream Copts in the United States.
There are about 300,000 Copts in the United States, most of whom live in Los Angeles and the Northeast. Copts in Egypt, where the faith was born, regularly face discrimination and violence at the hands of the Muslim majority, according to the State Department.
Bishop Serapion of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Los Angeles, Southern California and Hawaii said he "strongly rejects dragging the respectable Copts of the Diaspora" into the controversy.
"The producers of this movie should be responsible for their actions," Serapion said in a statement. "The name of our blessed parishioners should not be associated with the efforts of individuals who have ulterior motives."
Copyright 2012 Religion News Service
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/coptic-bishops-blast-anti-muslim-film_n_1885485.html [with comments]
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Egypt's Christians Anxious About Anti-Islam Film, Coptic Community Anticipate Troubles
FILE - In this Saturday, April 26, 2008 file photo, Coptic Christians take part in a midnight service to celebrate Christ's resurrection, at the Coptic Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. Egypt's estimated 8 million Coptic Christians are feeling increasingly cornered amid the rise to power of hardline Islamists after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak's longtime authoritarian regime and fear that they will bear the brunt of blame for the film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
By MAGGIE MICHAEL 09/14/12 07:47 PM ET
CAIRO -- Christians gathered Friday in front of a Cairo cathedral holding signs denouncing a film that mocked the Prophet Muhammad amid fears that Muslims will take out their anger on Egypt's minority community.
The country's 8 million Coptic Christians were already feeling increasingly cornered amid the rise to power of hard-line Islamists in Egypt following the ouster of Hosni Mubarak.
Now U.S. authorities have identified a self-described Coptic Christian living in California as the key figure behind the inflammatory film, and the community at home fears it will bear the brunt of the blame.
"We are afraid the anger will engulf us," said Monier Hanna, a 58-year-old Coptic government employee who says he saw two unveiled Christian women being harassed over the movie by Muslim men in his middle-class district of Helwan on Thursday.
"They were telling the women they are responsible for the film," he said.
Mira Girgis, a 23-year-old Copt and recent college graduate, said she feels insecure.
"I can't go to church alone; my brother must be with me. I can't go out at night. When I return from work, a male – either my father or brother – must be waiting for me at the subway station," she said. "Being a Christian ... is hard in Egypt in these conditions."
A Christian journalist, Caroline Kamel, wrote in the Shorouk daily Friday that she and her family came under attack at a bus terminal in Cairo and another city over the film. "Am I supposed to ... apologize for stupidities of others just for the mere fact that we share the same religion?" she said.
In another sign of trouble, a young Coptic Christian blogger, Alber Sabry, reportedly posted a clip of the movie on his Facebook page, prompting threats Friday from his neighbors in the middle-class district of Marg, who vowed to set his house on fire, a security official said.
The neighbors notified police, who arrested the blogger and detained him for 15 days pending investigation, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to the media.
The 14-minute clip of "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a womanizer, a fraud and a child molester, has unleashed protests across the Muslim world and attacks on U.S. and other Western embassies, including one in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.
Egypt's Islamist politicians have lashed out at Coptic Christians living abroad but say they won't let the film cause sectarian hatred at home. But that has not eased fears among Egypt's Copts that anger over the film will spill over into broader anti-Christian sentiment.
On Tuesday, as the first anti-American protest was surging in front of the fortified U.S. Embassy in Cairo, mainly by hard-line Islamists, an extremist cleric, Abu Islam, drove up and announced over a loudspeaker that he had set fire to a Bible.
The Coptic Christian Church has issued a statement denouncing the film and rejecting "defamation" of the Muslim faith, and church officials have pledged that Christians will join their "brotherly Muslims" in sit-ins against the movie.
"This is part of a wicked campaign against religions, aimed at causing discord among people, especially Egyptians," read the statement, issued Wednesday by the Sacred Congregation of the Coptic Church.
Once a majority in Egypt, Coptic Christians now make up about 10 percent of the country's 85 million people. They are the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and theirs is one of the region's oldest churches. Like the Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox churches, it has no theological links with the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches.
Under Mubarak, Christians also faced discrimination by the government, which did little to prevent attacks by Muslims. Many Christians fled to the United States and other Western countries, and tensions have risen as the collapse of the police state gave way to a state of lawlessness and the Islamists assumed power.
With Egypt's first free elections in history giving victory to the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, fears have risen among Christians, many of whom supported his rival, a pro-Mubarak official, Ahmed Shafiq.
On Friday, a dozen young Coptic Christians lined up outside Cairo's St. Mark's Cathedral, denouncing the film and displaying signs that read "No to harming religions." Christians also joined a sit-in against the movie at a mosque in Giza.
Some pointed to such demonstrations by Copts as a sign that they feel confident that anger over the film won't be taken out on them.
"There is no doubt that Christians are fully confident that they will not be affected, as they are expressing solidarity with Muslims in their protests," said Fouad Gergis, a member of the secular council of the Coptic Church.
However, Coptic activists counter that Christians in Egypt will feel the heat sooner or later.
"Christians are worried and I anticipate more waves of immigration to the West," said Medhat Kelada, head of Copts United, a Swiss-based group that monitors reports of discrimination and other abuses against Christians in the Middle East.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/14/egypts-christians-anxious_n_1885899.html [with comments]
===
Our Man in Benghazi
Ibrahim Alaguri/Associated Press
By ROGER COHEN
Published: September 13, 2012
LONDON — Chris Stevens, the American ambassador to Libya killed in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html ], represented the best of the U.S. Foreign Service. He was smart, dedicated and adroit. He loved his work and believed in its capacity for good. He knew history’s hold on Middle Eastern minds yet dismissed the notion that ancient conflict was insurmountable. Other cultures fascinated him even as his own inspired him. No American did more to end the tyranny of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Like most brave people he had a great sense of humor.
The fanatics who killed him represented the worst of Islam. They attacked the consulate in the midst of Muslim outrage over an amateurish American video portraying the Prophet Muhammad as a buffoon of indiscriminate and consuming sexual appetites. But no religious affront, however vile, can justify killing of a kind that jihadists have made only too familiar over the past two decades.
The makers, funders and promoters of the video [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmodVun16Q4 (the original "Published on Jul 2, 2012 by sam bacile" upload; have used/linked other uploads embedding the video above, in case this original somehow disappears)], called “Innocence of Muslims,” represent the worst of an American bigotry whose central tenet is that Islam is evil, a religion bent on the takeover of the world and followed by people who are all violent extremists, Jew-haters and sexual predators.
The movie, a procession of insults to Muslims against a background of comically flimsy sets, is of a piece with the ideology, praised at times by Republicans including Newt Gingrich, that has sought to portray Shariah law as a mortal threat to America, perceived stealth jihadists knocking at every door from Phoenix to Peoria, and worked hard to persuade the world that Barack Obama is a Muslim.
Whoever made the film — it was uploaded to YouTube in July by somebody calling himself Sam Bacile and identifying himself as an Israeli-American real estate developer — was driven by the visceral loathing of Islam that forms a significant current in post-9/11 right-wing thinking in the United States.
So perhaps it is no surprise that Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential candidate, would attempt to pander to that thinking in his response to the killing [ http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/behind-romneys-decision-to-criticize-obama-on-libya.html ] of Mr. Stevens and three of his staff. He claimed the Obama administration’s first response was “to sympathize with those who waged the attacks,” called it “disgraceful,” and said “apology for America’s values is never the right course.”
Huh?
Even coming from a man who on a brief trip abroad in late July lost no opportunity to put his foot in his mouth, blundering into squabbles with the British and the Palestinians, this was heavy-handed. In fact, to use Romney’s word, it was disgraceful.
The Obama administration never expressed sympathy for the assailants. It never apologized for American values. What the Cairo embassy did, as violence brewed in the Egyptian capital and well before the Benghazi attack, was to condemn [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html ] “actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others” — specifically Muslims.
Since when was extreme bigotry that portrays the followers of one of the world’s great religions as child molesters an American value? Religious tolerance is as fundamental an American value as free speech. For Romney to offer implicit defense of a scurrilous movie in the name of free speech, while misrepresenting the Obama administration’s actions and offering not a word about hatred toward the world’s more than 1.5 billion Muslims, suggests he is deluded or desperate or both.
As a free-speech absolutist I defend the right of Bacile — or whoever — to make the video. It is equally important that the United States says what it thinks of such bile. President Obama got it right saying [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/09/12/us/politics/libya-statements.html ] the United States “rejects efforts to denigrate” others’ religious beliefs, while expressing unequivocal opposition to the “senseless violence” that killed Stevens.
This September surprise has given the world cause to appreciate the cool head in the White House and worry about the hothead who aspires to replace him. Romney, in Jacques Chirac’s immortal phrase, “lost a good opportunity to keep quiet.”
His words reflected a shoot-from-the-hip, America-first approach to the world that will not fly in a time of deep interdependency. Two scarring wars have demonstrated that.
Stevens understood the interdependency. He loved his country but did not seek to impose it. Last year, on July 4, shortly after I saw him in Benghazi, he sent a note to family and friends as the war to unseat Qaddafi raged:
“Greetings, all,” Stevens wrote. “I hope you are enjoying a great 4th with plenty of beer, ice cream, hamburgers and Chinese fireworks. I remember well the ‘sparklers’ we used to have in Grass Valley as little tots, and running around the lawn with abandon, catching our hair and eyebrows on fire.” He had celebrated Independence Day by hosting a party with “an entire lamb, grilled chicken, Arab salads and pastries,” ending with remarks expressing “our hope that Libyans would celebrate their freedom soon, too.”
Stevens died for American values. The least Romney might have done was avoid misrepresenting them. His terrible death was a rebuke to the quest for squalid political capital and a demand for reflection on the best of America.
*
Related News
Libya Attack Brings Challenges for U.S. (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/world/middleeast/us-envoy-to-libya-is-reported-killed.html
A Challenger’s Criticism Is Furiously Returned (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/behind-romneys-decision-to-criticize-obama-on-libya.html
Related in Opinion
Editorial: Murder in Benghazi (September 13, 2012)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/murder-in-benghazi.html
*
© 2012 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/opinion/roger-cohen-chris-stevens-in-benghazi.html [with comments]
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