The Islamic State and other factions of psychotic Islam have targeted Coptic Christians in the Middle East. In fact, it was estimated over 4,000 Coptic Christians were murdered in the region last year. But it's a story you rarely hear on the mainstream media, and Barack Obama and his administration have done everything in their power to strip away any connections between Islam and these insane acts of violence. On TV last night, Glenn asked why more Christians here in America aren't standing up against this horror.
Below is a transcript of this segment:
When Pope Francis comes out and he talks about gay marriage or redistribution of wealth, everybody all around the world, it is headlines, front page, media is all over it, but when he comes out and condemns the complicit silence about the killing of Christians all around the globe as he did on Good Friday, it’s deafening silence.
I seem to remember a promise we made to each other. We seemed to make a promise we would never let the world fall into this darkness again; we would never let a Holocaust happen again, and yet here we sit, willfully blinded, even indifferent, as Christians continue to be slaughtered by radical Islamic monsters. The latest came last Thursday when students at a Kenyan university were finishing up classes and preparing for the holiday weekend. It was just like any other day until radical Islamist terrorists stormed into the campus and proceeded to unleash a violent, ruthless assault that lasted 13 hours and left 147 dead. Many are still missing and unaccounted for.
This is the worst attack since the bombing of the US Embassy in Nairobi back in 1998. They went room by room. They grabbed the students and then began to interrogate about religion. If you were Christian, you were shot on the spot. Many were decapitated. According to witnesses, any student attending the morning prayers at mosque were not attacked.
The terror group responsible, al-Shabaab, they took responsibility for what they called an operation against infidels. “We sorted people out and released the Muslims. There are many dead bodies of Christians inside the building. We are also holding many Christians alive.”
Imagine being a father, your child or your daughter is off at college, and you hear about this attack. You know that your daughter is at that college. The daughter called in the morning in a panic during the attack. Later in the day, the parents’ phone rang again. It was a man on the other end. He demanded that he talk to the Kenyan president within two minutes. The family said we don’t have access to the Kenyan president; we can’t put him on the phone. He said, “I’m going to kill your daughter.” They heard gunshots over the phone. The man said, “She is now with her God,” and dropped the phone to the floor.
In February, 22 Egyptian Coptic Christians were beheaded by ISIS. We’ve shown you this video many times. The intentional move to strip away any mention of Islamic when talking about the extremists, the psychos, the terrorists, makes identifying and defeating the enemy even more difficult. President Obama didn’t even identify the victims’ Christianity when they were beheaded by ISIS on the beach merely for being Christians. By doing so, it keeps the motive for the violence hidden.
According to Open Doors, 4,344 Christians have been killed for faith-related reasons between December 1 and November 30 of last year. That’s double from the previous year. That number is much likely much higher because the group only counts victims who they can identify by name and an exact cause of death can be determined.
Christians have also routinely been targeted in Iraq and Syria. ISIS has become genocidal. They had a march in Iraq’s Nineveh plain last August. Then they moved to Khaybar. They executed and exiled religious minorities like the Yazidis while we did nothing. They destroyed Assyrian artifacts in Iraq while we did nothing. They blew up an 80-year-old Assyrian church on Easter while we did nothing. Christians are being driven from the Middle East in what some have called the new Exodus.
Part of the problem leading to the increased persecution is the fact that Christianity has spread. Kenya is now 82% Christian. Kenya has been repeatedly attacked by al-Shabaab terrorists. We just talked about the university attack. Before that it was the 2013 mall attack where they lined the Christians up, demanded they quote verses from the Koran. Anyone who could was let go; anyone who couldn’t, murdered. Before that it was the 2012 attack on churches during Sunday services—families with their children.
Our world leaders—sorry, calling them that is laughable. Our world leaders are anything but leaders, and they can sanitize the language all they want, but it is psychotic Islam that is causing this. The radicals are not mincing words. This is a religious war for them. This is the beginning of a Christian genocide for them, and it is getting worse. After they’re done with the Christians, they will go to the Jews and the Muslims.
In Egypt, Coptic Christians building a church in honor of those beheaded by ISIS were attacked late at night with Molotov cocktails. They set cars on fire. Stones and bricks were thrown. After meeting with an organizing group, something organized by the local governor, it was decided that the location of the church would be moved.
Last month, ISIS went door to door in Libya searching for Coptic Christians, Christians among a compound housing day laborers. Put yourself in this man’s position. He’s a day laborer. There’s a knock on his door. He opens it at night. He has the horrifying realization of who is standing on the other side of his threshold, and they asked if he and his roommate were Christians. He only had a split second to think. He lied. He said, “No, I Muslim.” They asked if any of the rooms had any Christians in it. He lied again. He and his three friends survived, but thirteen others were taken away. Later they were beheaded on a beach as part of the propaganda video.
Coptic Christians, they are the largest Christian denomination in Egypt and part of the largest Christian community in the Middle East, but they are a minority of the entire population, accounting for only 10%. So you know, a lot of people will say, “What is a Coptic Christian? I don’t know what it means.” Copt comes from the Greek word meaning Egyptian, so all Egyptians at one point were Copts, but over time and several Muslim conquests, they began using Coptic or Copt as a derogatory term to refer to anyone who didn’t convert to Islam.
Remember, Egypt at one time was a Christian nation. Not anymore, and there are not going to be any Christians left in the entire Middle East unless somebody does something. This scene has played out over and over again. It’s played out before. In the upcoming episode of The Root, we are going to chronicle the history of Christian persecution that took place over the last 100 years in the Middle East.
Few recognize it in full context, but when you see it, you will understand what is motivating these extremists, and it’s not American foreign policy. It’s not even our culture. It’s a religious war, and amazingly world leaders are turning a blind eye. The pope admonished, but because he wasn’t talking about redistribution of wealth, no one seemed to listen.
I’ve been talking about this for so long that I can’t imagine why you even watch or listen anymore. It sounds crazy to say it. To Jewish people, it’s offensive to say this is a Christian Holocaust. That word is reserved for a special place, and I understand that, but we better start telling each other the truth. What is coming is a Christian Holocaust. It appears we have forgotten the promise never again.
It’s why Jews are coming up to me now saying, “Please, talk about the Christians.” It’s why we’re seeing more and more citizens, people just like you, pack up and go to the Middle East—not to fight for ISIS, but to fight for the other side, to protect the Christians. We had a guy on the program named Matthew VanDyke. He’s trying to train Iraqis and Syrians to defend themselves against ISIS because we’re not doing any of it.
TheBlaze today has an amazing story, an exclusive video, featuring a group of American volunteers fighting with the Kurdish Peshmerga against ISIS. It is absolutely breathtaking video as snipers have them pinned down, and you hear the bullets whizzing by. One volunteer gets hit in the leg as they retreat. It’s an incredible story and an incredible video.
Why is this happening? Because we no longer as a country—and if I may, we no longer as Christians even stand for anything. The people who do realize what is happening in the world are sick and tired of inaction, so they’re literally doing it themselves. I don’t know if that’s a good idea or a bad idea. They have more bravery than I do.
Another amazing story, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit is also taking action. They’re dedicating their efforts to helping girls and children who have escaped the horrors of ISIS in Iraq. You know what pisses me off? How people just spend their time prattling on about a war on women because of birth control. ISIS is ground zero for a war on women—rape, torture, selling into sex slavery. These are people and families just like yours, and the only reason why they’re being sold into sex slavery and being broken up as families and beheaded is because they are Christian.
We promised never again. Isn’t it time we put up or shut up? And I mean as people. We as people failed to listen to people like George Clooney on the Sudan. We wanted to make it about politics. And I’m not saying us, per se. I asked George Clooney. I remember being in the radio studio a few years back, and I asked George Clooney. I said, “Please, let’s partner with this, because I care just as much as you do.” It never happened because people want to play politics. Let’s not. What do you say let’s not?
Our politicians have failed to publicly denounce the Armenian genocide. It’s the 100th anniversary this month. That is really, really important. Why? You’ll understand when we show you The Root. We’re doing a special on the anniversary of the Armenian genocide, and we hope the world will finally see what the truth really is and why that was important, why it’s important today to recognize what the Turks did to the Christians and the Armenians.
I don’t know what we’re building towards. I do, I think. I don’t even want to say it out loud. This is not separate from my trip to Auschwitz. I feel it in my bones. This is not separate from me telling my children four, five years ago we have to educate ourselves; we have to know who we are; we have to decide to become the Righteous Among the Nations before it begins to happen. I hoped that that would all go away, but I don’t think it’s going to.
I was on Facebook last night because I posted some video, and there’s an update on that video that I posted last night—horrible, horrible stuff. I said, “When are Christians going to wake up?” Somebody said, “What do we do?” I said, “Here’s what you do, you go to your pastors and your priests and your rabbis, and you ask them (A) is there a Coptic Christian church in our area? (B) Can we reach out to them? Can we comfort those who are supposed to be mourning? And why aren’t you talking about this every single Sunday from the pulpit?”
You wouldn’t believe the response I got. So many people said, “What is that going to do?” “Glenn Beck, that’s a dumb answer.” Is it? How about educating yourself first? How about educating others first? How about then going to our pulpits? The American Revolution, the Civil War, and the civil rights movement came and were won from the pulpit first. Our pulpits should be on fire, but our pulpits are barely an ember.
It’s shameful what is happening. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, not to speak is to speak, not to stand is to stand, not to watch is to watch. Don’t you see, because of technology, God is condemning all of us now? We can see it. We couldn’t see the Holocaust before. We can see it this time. He is condemning us.
You say I don’t want to watch it. I don’t know how many people said, “I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to watch it. I don’t want to watch it.” Why? Why don’t you want to watch it? Well, because you’ll never be able to unsee it. Good. You should be able to watch it and never unsee it.
How many horror movies do we watch? How many things do we see over and over again? We’re putting that garbage, that filth, into our head, and then when it really happens, I don’t want to watch it. Why not? Because you know it condemns you once you’ve seen it.
I’ve got news for you, you have access to it. Not to watch is to watch. You’re making a choice. God will not hold us blameless, so I suggest that you reach out to the Coptic Christians. They are persecuted. They need your help. I suggest that you reach out to your pastor, your priest, and your rabbi, and if he won’t do it, you do it. We’ve got to stand together. There is powerful evil.
Remember what Paulina told me, the woman who was one of the Righteous Among the Nations. She said the righteous didn’t suddenly become righteous; they just didn’t go over the cliff with everybody else. Everybody else is going over the cliff. They’re going over the cliff, and what is the cliff? The cliff is I don’t want to see it; I don’t want to think about it; I can’t do anything about it. Don’t go over the cliff. Don’t. Stand.
You know what’s right. You may not know what you can do. Maybe all you can do is pray like you’ve never prayed before. Maybe all you can do is seek out somebody who is actually going over there and fund them. Maybe you can go over. Maybe you are a priest or a pastor or a rabbi. You were born for times such as this.
