Life of fear for Christian Arabs

Jewish World Review ^ | 3-2-05 | Richard Z. Chesnoff

[SJackson]

Last month's grisly murder in Jersey City of Hossam Armanious, his wife, Amal, and two daughters, Sylvia and Monica, remains unsolved. But friends and relatives of the family are convinced the bloody crime is rooted in a growing wave of violence and oppression against Christians taking place in Arab countries.

They may well be right.

The Armanious family was devoutly Coptic Christian — an ancient orthodox Egyptian sect that has long suffered from discrimination and coercion in largely Muslim Egypt. Armanious did something in America that he wouldn't dare try in his native Egypt: He attempted to convert Muslims to Christianity.

That, say members of the local Coptic community, angered Islamic extremists and led to the murder.

New Jersey police say they have no proof it was religious murder and are still considering robbery among the motives, although Armanious was far from rich and family jewelry was found untouched in the house.

Hudson County Prosecutor Edward De Fazio tells me he doesn't believe it was religious murder, although he also won't rule it out.

[jusduat]

Just off the radar with this story...if they say it was
robbery enough times, they will have convinced themselves.

[Monterrosa-24]

When I ask my conservative friends if they have heard of this case they answer in the negative. Some of them are real news hounds and they haven't heard anything about it.

Think of the death toll of four. It is the same as Kent State and the same as the Birmingham church bombing. Those were huge stories. But this New Jersey case is a nonevent. We had the song FOUR DEAD IN OHIO: "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming..." but not word about the four dead in NJ.

[Monterrosa-24]

When I ask my conservative friends if they have heard of this case they answer in the negative. Some of them are real news hounds and they haven't heard anything about it.

Think of the death toll of four. It is the same as Kent State and the same as the Birmingham church bombing. Those were huge stories. But this New Jersey case is a nonevent. We had the song FOUR DEAD IN OHIO: "Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming..." but not word about the four dead in NJ.

[Spirited]

I appreciate this article from a Jewish source.

The murder of Christians raises rarely a ripple anywhere these days and bashing them is the "in" thing to do whether the source is Islamic, Jewish, secular or "other".

Even if it's a case of "the enemy of my enemy.." it is gratefully received because it means that perhaps some remember that, "They came for the copts but I was not a copt so I did nothing....."

[Paleo Conservative]

We had the song FOUR DEAD IN OHIO:

Sounds like really poor shooting.