CAIRO: Growing up in Egypt, Mina and other Copts remember all too well the anti-Christian slurs they used to hear at school and on the street.
Once, while playing football, a Muslim youth snatched Mina’s necklace and crucifix and stomped on it.
“I won’t forget that day,” said Mina, now in his 30s.
Egypt is now trying to come to terms with the kind of religious bigotry behind a December 11 suicide bombing in a Cairo church that killed 26 people during Sunday mass.
“School curricula, some (religious) platforms and the absence of an enlightened current are what have led to this,” said Coptic Church spokesman Boulos Halim.
Egyptian authorities have announced the arrest of four jihadist suspects.
But the authorities must go much further and address the kind of prejudice running through Egyptian society that for decades has fueled attacks on Coptic Christians, said Halim.
“Police and military power have never been able to erase terrorism. It must be accompanied by the power of thought,” he said.
The attack claimed by the Daesh group was the second church bombing in Egypt since 2011 and only the latest sectarian incident in the Muslim-majority country where Christians have long complained of discrimination.
Copts, who make up about 10 percent of Egypt’s 90-million population, say they are sidelined both in the education system and state institutions.
Halim traces the roots of violence against his community to the 1970s, when then president Anwar Sadat empowered Islamists against his socialist opponents.
Attacks by Muslims on Christians, especially in rural areas, carried on after Sadat himself was assassinated by jihadists in 1981 and succeeded by his vice president, Hosni Mubarak.
In more recent times, Copts have also had to contend with Islamist extremists whose propaganda portrays them as outsiders and second-class citizens.
Teaching bigotry
Some say the roots of discrimination can be found in schools.
Schools teach compulsory classes in religion, with Christians leaving classrooms during Islamic lessons to attend separate Christian religion tuition.
In Arabic classes, Christians memorize Qur'anic verses — a primary reference for teaching the language — while Muslims are taught about Christianity from an Islamic perspective.
“They don’t learn anything about my religion,” said Peter, a Copt in his 30s.
Bigotry was one of the reasons that Peter, who asked not to be fully identified, left Egypt, saying it made him feel “like I’m not from this country.”
Halim said confronting discrimination should involve government ministries as well as institutions from both sides of the religious divide.
They should “create a national project to start a current of enlightenment among Egyptians,” Halim said.
After Mubarak’s overthrow in a 2011 uprising, Copts came under attack again, with dozens killed in sectarian clashes and in a confrontation with the military in October that year.
Under Islamist president Muhammad Mursi, fundamentalists regularly incited violence against Christians.
Following his overthrow by the military in 2013, Muslim mobs attacked dozens of churches and Christian properties accusing the Copts of having sided with the army.
With former military chief Abdel Fattah El-Sisi’s election a year later, Copts hoped they had found an ally who understood the dangers of Islamist extremism.
Sisi, who oversaw a bloody crackdown on Mursi’s supporters and pledged to wipe out a jihadist insurgency, became Egypt’s first president to attend a Christmas mass.
His administration also finally regulated church construction under a law supported by the Coptic Church, though opposed by critics for retaining obstacles.
Changing ideologies
“What happened is not enough to change ideologies,” said Halim.
There has been an uptick of sectarian incidents in 2016.
In May, Muslim villagers set ablaze Christian homes and paraded an elderly Coptic woman naked over rumors that her son was in a relationship with a Muslim woman.
In February, authorities halted the hiring of a Christian woman as a school principal after student protests in Minya province, south of the capital.
Violent attacks have increased, with clashes often ignited by rumors that Christians were building a church.
Activists say extremist Salafi preachers are spreading hatred in non-mainstream religious services, some of them available online.
“It is very clear that hatred is present in speeches. I don’t know what they (the authorities) are waiting for,” Halim said.
This year, four Coptic teenagers were convicted of insulting Islam after they recorded a video mocking the Daesh group.
The government prefers to defuse communal tensions or clashes between Muslims and Copts by holding “conciliation meetings” rather than applying the law, critics say.
Egypt church bombing raises calls to uproot bigotry
Egypt church bombing raises calls to uproot bigotry
15 Turkish-backed fighters killed in north Syria clashes with Kurdish-led forces
BEIRUT: At least 15 Ankara-backed Syrian fighters were killed Sunday after Kurdish-led forces infiltrated their territory in the country’s north, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), who controls swathes of the country’s northeast, “infiltrated positions of the Turkish-backed” fighters in the Aleppo countryside, said the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.
“The two sides engaged in violent clashes” that killed 15 of the Ankara-backed fighters, the monitor said.
An AFP correspondent in Syria’s north said the clashes had taken place near the city of Al-Bab, where authorities said schools would be suspended on Monday due to the violence.
The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded the fighting against the Daesh group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.
It is dominated by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), viewed by Ankara as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which claimed the attack on Ankara.
Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of them targeting the SDF.
Israel moving towards a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, Axios reports
BEIRUT: Israel is moving towards a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon with the Hezbollah militant group, Axios reporter Barak Ravid posted on X on Sunday, citing a senior Israeli official.
A separate report from Israel's public broadcaster Kan, citing an Israeli official, said there was no green light given on an agreement in Lebanon, with issues still yet to be resolved.
Russia plane evacuated in Turkiye as engine catches fire
- “Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries”
ISTANBUL: More than 90 passengers and crew were evacuated from a Russian plane Sunday after one of its engines caught fire while landing at an airport in southern Turkiye, the transport ministry said.
The incident involved a Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SU95) operated by Russia’s Azimuth Airlines.
They plane had just landed at Antalya airport on Turkiye’s Mediterranean coast when a fire broke out in one of its engines, a ministry statement said.
“A SU95 type and RA89085-registered aircraft of Azimuth Airlines traveling from Sochi airport in Russia to Antalya airport had an engine fire during landing,” it said.
“Eighty nine passengers and six crew members on board were safely evacuated at 9:43 p.m. (1843 GMT) and there were no injuries.”
All further scheduled landings at the airport would be canceled until 3:00 am, it added, saying other planes waiting to depart would use the airport’s military runway for takeoff.
An airport official told Anadolou state news agency that the fire had affected its left engine but had been quickly extinguished.
War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December
- Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
- Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday
BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars
- The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.
IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.
ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.
