Security forces reportedly rounded up protesters inside al-Fath mosque, located in Cairo's central Ramses Square.
The Israeli-Arab conflict has nothing to do with the “settlements” and everything to do with Arab refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told United Nations head Ban Ki-moon on Friday.
Netanyahu and Ban met in Jerusalem, and the Prime Minister asked Ban to look into the UNRWA summer camps in Gaza which are used to delegitimize Israel, call for its destruction and educate Palestinian Authority Arab children to carry out jihad.
“I know, like me, you want to see the peace process which has been resumed, succeed. I know that like me you know that the most important thing is to prepare our respective peoples for peace and in this regard, I’m sure you are going to look into the abuse of UNRWA camps in Gaza that have been used purportedly for peace camps, but actually to instill the culture of hatred and the ideas of destroying Israel amidst Palestinian children,” Netanyahu said.
“It’s very hard to habituate and prepare the next generation for peace when they’re told that Jews are the descendants of pigs and monkeys and that the Jewish State has no right to exist, so I trust that you will make sure that these abuses of UN goals and UN funds does not continue,” he told Ban.
“As far as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, we have to get to the root cause of the problem and the root cause was and remains the persistent refusal to recognize the Jewish State in any boundary,” said Netanyahu.
The sound of gunfire could be heard in the background.
Egypt's official news agency MENA reported that gunmen opened fire on security forces from the mosque's minaret. Local television stations broadcast live footage of soldiers firing assault rifles at the minaret.
Around 1,000 Muslim Brotherhood supporters were holed up overnight in the al-Fath mosque, just off Ramses Square, which had been used as a field hospital during Friday's bloodshed
At least 72 people were killed on Friday in what the Muslim Brotherhood called a "Day of Rage"- ignited by anger at security forces for clearing two sit-in demonstrations earlier in the week, leaving hundreds dead.
The Brotherhood stated on Saturday that one of the sons of Brotherhood General Guide Mohammed Badie was killed on Friday in Cairo.
Ammar Badie, 38, died of a bullet wound sustained while taking part in protests in Ramses Square on Friday, it said. Mohammed Badie's whereabouts are unknown. He has been charged with inciting violence and faces a trial that starts on Aug 25.
Egyptian soldiers entered the mosque on Saturday morning. The private Egyptian ONTV Live television channel showed the soldiers entering, while Al-Jazeera's Egypt affiliate streamed footage on its website of the soldiers inside the mosque.
Netanyahu and Ban met in Jerusalem, and the Prime Minister asked Ban to look into the UNRWA summer camps in Gaza which are used to delegitimize Israel, call for its destruction and educate Palestinian Authority Arab children to carry out jihad.
“It’s very hard to habituate and prepare the next generation for peace when they’re told that Jews are the descendants of pigs and monkeys and that the Jewish State has no right to exist, so I trust that you will make sure that these abuses of UN goals and UN funds does not continue,” he told Ban.
“As far as the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, we have to get to the root cause of the problem and the root cause was and remains the persistent refusal to recognize the Jewish State in any boundary,” said Netanyahu.
Egypt’s Christians are being targeted and scapegoated for the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood. An Egyptian human rights activist tweeted that the Virgin Mary in Minya, one of the oldest churches in Egypt, built in the 4th century, was destroyed by fire yesterday. There have also been media reports about attacks on churches in the city of Suez and other villages. Jason Isaacson, Director of Government and International Affairs for the American Jewish Committee condemned these acts: "Organized violence against Egypt's Copts, the murder of innocents and destruction of churches, is outrageous and unforgivable."
As defenseless and abandoned as Mideast Christians seem today, it is worth remembering their historical roots, and recognizing just how much the plight of Middle East Christians has deteriorated. Over 2,000 years ago, Christianity was born as a religion and spread from Jerusalem to other parts of the Levant, including territories in modern Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. The Christian faith flourished as one of the major religions in the Middle East until the Muslim conquests of the 7th century.
Despite Muslim domination of the region, Christians comprised an estimated 20% of the Middle East population until the early 20th century. Today, however, Christians make up a mere 2-5% of the Middle East and their numbers are fast dwindling. Writing in the Winter 2001 issue of Middle East Quarterly, scholar Daniel Pipes estimated that Middle East Christians would "likely drop to" half of their numbers "by the year 2020" because of declining birth rates, and a pattern of "exclusion and persecution" leading to emigration.
The "Arab Spring" has only worsened conditions for the indigenous Christians of the Middle East. Like the Kurds, Middle East Christians are a stateless minority, struggling to survive in the world's toughest neighborhood. But the Kurds at least have enjoyed partial autonomy in Iraqi Kurdistan since 1991 and most of them are Sunni Muslim, making it easier for them to survive in the Muslim-dominated Middle East. Christians, on the other hand, are a religious minority that controls no territory and is entirely subject to the whims of their hosts. These host countries – with the exception of Israel – offer a grim future to Middle East Christians.
Home to one of the oldest Christian communities in the world, Egypt also has the largest Christian population in the Middle East, totaling 8-12 million people. But because Christian Copts make up only about 10-15% of Egypt's estimated 80 million people, they have for decades lived in fear as second-class citizens, subjected to attacks on churches, villages, homes, and shops; mob killings; and the abduction and forced Islamic conversion of Christian women compelled to marry Muslim men. Such abuse took place under the staunchly secular regime of Hosni Mubarak, but grew much worse under the rule of Mohammed Morsi, the jailed Muslim Brotherhood activist who succeeded Mubarak, and they are now being blamed for Morsi's ouster.
In Lebanon, Christians represent a bigger portion of the population, so their fate is for now less precarious than that of their Egyptian coreligionists, but their long-term prospects are worrisome. The Christian population is estimated to have dropped from over 50% (according to a 1932 census) to about 40%. Over the last few years, the de facto governing power in Lebanon has become Hezbollah, the radical and heavily-armed Shiite movement sponsored by Iran. With all of the spillover violence and instability produced by the Syrian civil war and Hezbollah's open involvement in it, and/or the next war that Hezbollah decides to start with Israel, the emigration of Christians out of Lebanon will probably only increase in the coming years, leaving those who stay increasingly vulnerable.
In Syria, 2.5 million Christians comprised about 10% of the population and enjoyed some protection under the secular and often brutal regimes of the Assad dynasty. But as jihadi groups fighting Assad extend their territorial control, the past protection of Christians is often the cause of their current persecution by resentful Sunnis who revile the Assad regime and seek to impose Sharia law wherever they can. Christians have been regularly targeted and killed by rebels, and the sectarian chaos and violence that will likely prevail in Assad's wake will only increase the number of Christians fleeing Syria.
In Iraq, the bloody aftermath of the 2003 invasion demonstrated how dangerous life can become for a Christian minority when a multicultural society in the Middle East explodes into sectarian violence. By 2008, half of the 800,000 Iraqi Christians were estimated to have left, rendering those remaining even more insecure. In 2010, Salafist extremists attacked a Baghdad church during Sunday Mass, killing or wounding nearly the whole congregation. Such incidents turn any communal gathering into a potential massacre, forcing Christians across the Middle East to ask the ultimate question of faith: "Am I prepared to die for Christian worship?"
The so-called "Arab Spring" threatens to exacerbate matters in much of the Middle East, as Islamists now either control the government or influence it enough to persecute Christians with impunity. As new Islamist regimes in the Middle East condone religious intolerance and introduce Sharia and blasphemy laws, the long-term trend for Christians in their ancestral lands will only grow bleaker.
The one bright spot is the state of Israel – "the only place in the Middle East [where] Christians are really safe," according to the Vicar of St George's Church in Baghdad, Canon Andrew White. Home to Christianity's holiest sites and to a colorful array of Christian denominations, Israel has the only growing Christian community in the Middle East.
Because Israel is the only non-Muslim state in all of the Middle East and North Africa, it represents a small victory for religious minorities in the region, and serves as the last protector of freedom and security for Jews, Christians, Bahai, Druze, and others. Without Israel, how much more vulnerable would Christians in the Middle East become?
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