The persecution of Egypt's Coptic minority is taking an ironic, and dangerous, turn: Islamist leaders are now projecting the worst traits of radical Islam onto Egypt's Christians. A psychological phenomenon first described by Sigmund Freud, "projection" is defined as "the attribution of one's own ideas, feelings, or attitudes to other people." As such, consider how the following excerpt from this recent report is a perfect example of projection:

In the last month various fundamentalist groups held ten demonstrations [in Egypt], each after coming out of mosques following Friday prayers, against the 86-year-old ailing Coptic Pontiff, in which he was accused of being a US agent, an abductor and torturer of female Muslim converts from Christianity, of stockpiling weapons in monasteries and churches to carry out war against Muslims, and of plans to divide Egypt to create a Coptic State.

All of these accusations are as ludicrous to apply to the Coptic Church as they perfectly apply to Islamists. Let us first examine the context of these charges:

"Abducting and torturing female Muslim converts from Christianity." Context: The wife of a Coptic priest,Camelia Shehata, was reportedly kidnapped by Islamists, but then returned to her family. In response, Islamist leaders began saying that she had willingly runaway and converted to Islam, and, in fact, has been "re-kidnapped" by the Coptic Church, which has trapped her in a monastery where she is being "tortured" and "re-indoctrinated" to Christianity.

In fact, the opposite scenario — kidnapping Christian women and forcing them to convert to Islam — is awell documented and notorious phenomenon in Egypt. So now the Coptic Church is being accused of behaving identically — not just kidnapping, but torturing, brainwashing, and forcing women to convert. Moreover, that Camelia has appeared on video fervently affirming her Christian faith and denying that she ever converted to Islam has been ignored, no doubt because Islam's ingrained notion of taqiyya, or deceit, is also being projected onto the Copts. Finally, little wonder this charge jibes well with Muslims: their own sharia mandates that Muslim women who apostatize must be incarcerated and tormented until they return to Islam, such as in the recent case of Nagla Imam.

"Stockpiling weapons in monasteries and churches to carry out war against Muslims." Context: On September 15, leading Islamic figure Dr. Muhammad Salim al-Awwa appeared on Al Jazeera and, in a wild tirade, accused the Copts of "stocking arms and ammunitions in their churches and monasteries"— imported from Israel, no less, since "Israel is in the heart of the Coptic Cause" — and "preparing to wage war against Muslims." He warned that if nothing is done, the "country will burn," inciting Muslims to "counteract the strength of the [Coptic] Church." Awwa further charged that Egypt's security forces cannot enter the monasteries to investigate for weapons (an amazing assertion, considering that Coptic monasteries are not only at the mercy of the state, but easy prey to Islamist attacks, with monks tortured and crucifixes spat upon).

Needless to say, such charges are preposterous: in a nation and society where Islam is supreme; where sharia (which mandates subjugation for non-Muslims, a la Koran 9:29) is part of the Constitution; where Copts have been conditioned over centuries to be happy just being left alone — is it reasonable to believe that these selfsame, down-trodden Christians, who make up 12-15% of the population, are planning a violent takeover of Egypt? It is easy to see, however, why such charges resonate with Muslims; after all, Islamists are constantly arming and stockpiling weapons — a Koranic charge — including in mosques, as they prepare to violently seize power across the nations, Egypt being an especially coveted target. Indeed, at one point, Awwa himself ceded that "Muslims are arrested every day [in Egypt] for extremism and the possession of arms."

"Planning to divide Egypt to create a Coptic State." Context: In a closed conference, Coptic Bishop Bishoy had the temerity to acknowledge history: "Muslims are guests in this country, Christians are the original residents. Prior to the Arab invasion of Egypt, which took place in the seventh century, the majority of Egypt's population was Christian." As usual, this otherwise historically accurate observation has enraged Muslims, been denounced by Al Azhar, and cited as "proof" that the Copts seek to divide Egypt and establish their own state.

It is actually Muslim minorities who habitually try to secede from non-Muslim countries. Whether by creating their own nations (Pakistan), or creating enclaves in the West, the notion of separating from the infidel is commanded in the Koran (e.g., 3:28, 4:89, 4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23, and 58:22), codified in the doctrine ofwala wa bara, and imprinted on the Muslim psyche. Unsurprisingly, then, Muslims have come to project this divisive impulse onto the Copts as well.

Yet, there is perhaps no clearer example of Muslim projection than when the aforementioned bishop, in response to the anti-Copt upsurge, declared that Egypt's Christians are reaching the point of martyrdom; amazingly, this, too, has been thoroughly "Islamicized" as a declaration of war-to-the-death, including by Awwa, who, during his Al Jazeera rant, asserted that "Father Bishoy declared that they would reach the point of martyrdom, which can only mean war. He said, 'If you talk about our churches, we will reach the point of martyrdom.' This means war."

Of course, the notion that a martyr is someone who wages and dies in jihad, or "holy war," is intrinsic to Islam (e.g., Koran 9:111). Even the authoritative Hans Wehr Arabic-English Dictionary translates shahid("martyr") as "one killed in battle with infidels." On the other hand, Christian martyrdom has always meant being persecuted and killed for refusing to recant Christianity — and this is precisely the definition that has for centuries applied to Egypt's Copts, the definition that Bishop Bishoy clearly meant. (See this article for the pivotal differences between Christian and Muslim martyrdom.)

To recap: Islamists regularly abduct, abuse, brainwash, and compel Coptic girls to convert — and now Copts are accused of doing the exact same thing; Islamists regularly smuggle and stockpile weapons, including in their holy places — and now Copts are accused of doing the exact same thing; Islamists are constantly either trying to break away or conquer infidel nations — and now Copts are accused of doing the exact same thing; Islamic martyrdom means participating and dying in jihad — and now Christian martyrdom is defined as the exact same thing.

While anti-Copt sentiment is as old as the Muslim conquest of Egypt, this recent batch of bizarre accusations is making Muslims more irate and paranoid, and bodes greater evil for Egypt's beleaguered Christians. According to sharia's dhimmi pact, the necessary condition for Copts to be tolerated is that they live as subordinate, second-class "citizens." The Islamist psyche — and Egypt is increasingly Islamicizing — expects this. Yet these recent charges portray the Copts as violent antagonists bent on war and conquest. If the Muslim popular mind accepts this new interpretation, far from subjugated dhimmis, or even co-equals, the Copts will be perceived as little better than infidel terrorists, and treated accordingly, that is, barbarously.

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

The One Incontrovertible Problem with Islam

Published in Pajamas Media

A recent report titled "Arab Columnists: Stop Talking About Offensive Jihad," alludes to the ultimate problem between Islam and the non-Muslim world: offensive jihad, or jihad al-talab — the Islamic imperative to subjugate the world. The report opens by saying "One dominant theme during Ramadan in the Arab world is the discussion, in the media and in religious circles, of the commandment of jihad and the obligation therein to wage war against the infidels." It then focuses on two recent op-eds, written by Arab-Muslims, that discuss the need to suppress Muslim talk of offensive jihad.

One writer, Khaled Al-Ghanami, states that the "wiser" supporters of offensive jihad believe that Muslims "must sit and wait until the era of our strength returns." In the meantime, according to these Muslims, "there is nothing shameful about taqiyya [deception] until the time is ripe." Al-Ghanami bemoans the fact that such Muslims operate naively "on the assumption that the world doesn't read, doesn't monitor… and is not paying attention to the calls for killing, tyranny, and aggression that we are spreading."

Similarly, Abdallah Al-Naggar writes: "Today, the Muslims' circumstances are different [i.e., they are weak], and talk of this aspect [of jihad] requires a smart approach, one that stresses the aspect of self defense, instead of aggression and onslaught," since discussing offensive jihad "arouses the enmity of people"; thus, "there is a need for wisdom [i.e., kitman] in our impassioned discussions of war and battles."

These writers are insightful enough to understand that Islam's imperative for Muslims to wage offensive jihad is the one insurmountable obstacle for peace between Muslims and non-Muslims. Best not to keep reminding the infidel world, then.

Consider: most of the things Islam gets criticized for — lack of democracy, male-female relations, draconian punishments, etc. —are intra-civilizational to Islam; that is, they affect Muslims alone. As such, it is for Muslims to decide on their utility; for it is the responsibility of every civilization to reform itself from the inside, not through outside "help" or coercion, the former mistrusted, the latter resented. Modern democracy in the West developed only after the people of the West wanted it bad enough to fight for it themselves, and only after centuries of bloody — but internal — conflicts. Feminism was not forcefully imported from some alien civilization but homegrown in the West. Pragmatically speaking, then, so long as sharia's mandates affect Muslims alone, non-Muslims have no legitimate grievances.

And this is the dividing line: what one civilization maintains as "right" and "normal" for itself is acceptable. However, when one civilization tries to apply, through force, those same principles onto other civilizations — whether the West trying to import liberalism to Islam, or Islam trying to spread sharia-style fascism to the West — that is objectively wrong. After all, the age-old argument that "we must supplant your ways, with ourbetter ways, for your own good," works both ways, and in fact has been an oft cited justification for offensive jihad since the 7th century.

Or would the reader be surprised to learn that jihadists (i.e., terrorists) regularly posit their war as an expression of altruism to "liberate" Westerners from their self-imposed "delusions"? Even Al Qaeda partially justifies its jihad against America for being "a nation that exploits women like consumer products"; for not rejecting the "immoral acts of fornication, homosexuality, intoxicants, gambling, and usury." In short, if the "white man's burden" is to "civilize" Muslims, the "Muslim man's burden" has long been to "civilize" Western man, namely, by enforcing sharia law. To justify the one is to make allowance for the other.

Yet while civilizations continue to quarrel over the philosophical position of man, one fact remains: all humans — secular or religious, Muslim or non-Muslim, from antiquity to today — agree that being forced to uphold a particular lifestyle against their will is wrong, bringing us right back to our topic: the purpose of offensive jihad is to do just that — forcefully impose a particular way of life on non-Muslims, culminating withdhimmitude for those who, after being conquered, refuse to convert.

Worse, offensive jihad is part and parcel of Islam; it is no less codified than, say, Islam's Five Pillars, which no Muslim rejects. The Encyclopaedia of Islam's entry for "jihad" states that the "spread of Islam by arms is a religious duty upon Muslims in general … Jihad must continue to be done until the whole world is under the rule of Islam … Islam must completely be made over before the doctrine of jihad can be eliminated." Scholar Majid Khadurri (1909-2007), after defining jihad as warfare, writes that jihad "is regarded by all jurists, with almost no exception, as a collective obligation of the whole Muslim community."

Even that chronic complainer Osama bin Laden makes it clear that offensive jihad is the root problem: "Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue… Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually? Yes. There are only three choices in Islam... Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die."

Clearly, then, it is in the Muslim world's interest to keep the West ignorant of the fact that, irrespective of all Muslim grievances — real or feigned — nothing less than Islamic law itself mandates a state of constant hostility. Indeed, if the implications of offensive jihad were fully embraced, humanity might be compelled to view the Muslim world as a perpetual, existentialist threat, in need of preemptive containment. That said, and considering the willful ignorance of the West's political elite — who are guided less by objective facts and more by their "feel-good" ideals — Muslim talk of offensive jihad, no matter how loud or ubiquitous, will likely continue to fall on deaf ears.

Raymond Ibrahim is associate director of the Middle East Forum, author of The Al Qaeda Reader, and guest lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College.

by Ryan Jones
Israel Today Magazine

Egypt has parliamentary elections coming up next month and an important presidential election next year. As with similar regimes throughout history, the current rulers of Egypt need a scapegoat to take the voters' attention off its disastrous social and economic policies (after all, rigging elections is so tedious).

Unfortunately for Egypt's 10 million Christians, they are the perfect scapegoat in an increasingly radicalized Muslim society.

To stir up the public against the Christians, Egyptian Muslim clerics and media outlets have circulated a claim that the nation's Coptic Christian minority is importing weapons from Israel in preparation for an assault on Egypt's Muslims.

The claim originated on the pan-Arab satellite news network Al Jazeera, which ensured that just about every Egyptian Muslim, if not ever Middle East Muslim, was aware of the unfounded assertion that Egypt's Christians were preparing for war with the aid of the hated "Zionist entity."

Speaking on Al Jazeera on September 15, prominent Egyptian Muslim cleric Mohammed Salim al-Awwa declared that Egyptian Christians were "stocking arms and ammunition in their churches and monasteries – arms imported from Israel, no less, as Israel is at the heart of the Coptic Cause – and are preparing to wage war against Muslims."

Other reports have included rumors that the Christian assault has already begun, and that Christian women who have converted to Islam are being kidnapped and tortured by the Copts.

Since those reports first started circulating last month, the Barnabas Fund, an organization that provides assistance to persecuted Christian communities, says that at least 10 large Muslim demonstrations against Christians have taken place in Egypt.

At least one Muslim group is calling for a "bloodbath" to be perpetrated against the Christian minority.

Further inflaming Muslim passions was an official Egyptian government body's insistence that the Coptic Church formally apologize after one of its clergymen criticized a verse from the Koran that refers to Christians as "infidels." The leader of the Coptic Church, Pope Shenouda III, promptly apologized, but the Muslim anger was not appeased.

Raymond Ibrahim, associate director of the Middle East Forum and a regular lecturer at the National Defense Intelligence College in Washington, DC, believes Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, held aloft by the West as the Middle East's most "moderate" Arab leader, is behind the anti-Christian sentiment.

"Recent events indicate that the Mubarak regime is intentionally inciting Egypt's Muslims against the Copts," Ibrahim wrote for the Hudson Institute. "Not only has it not prevented or dispersed the increasingly rabid demonstrations against the Copts…but Egyptian security…actually facilitates, and sometimes participates in, these mass demonstrations."

Ibrahim explained that the more secular Mubarak regime, which the aging and ill leader wants his son to take over, has only remained in power for so long thanks to an unwritten agreement with Egypt's Islamist factions. Those factions are permitted to control the media, eduction and other government administration, and in return Mubarak's rule is not too hotly contested.

Another Egyptian writer, Youssef Ibrahim, notes that "as part of the deal, Mubarak [also] agreed to feed Egypt's Christians to the growing Islamic beast."

Raymond Ibrahim concluded is piece by lamenting that "as Egypt reverts to its medieval character, the Copts find themselves again in a period of severe persecution."

Tellingly, the international media has almost completely ignored this story, while not failing to provide prime headline real estate whenever Israeli Jews build a few houses that upset the Palestinian Arabs.

That the construction of Jewish apartments can result in emergency UN meetings, official condemnations and weeks of front page news, but the persecution and potential slaughter of Egypt's Christians cannot is evidence that the international community's motives are not truly humanitarian in nature.