Posted on 08/27/2006 8:48:04 AM PDT by TaxachusettsMan
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Two FOX News journalists were released by their kidnappers Sunday, nearly two weeks after they were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.
Steve Centanni, 60, and Olaf Wiig, 36, left Gaza and have since crossed into Israel after their release. The men left Gaza through the Erez border crossing.
The freeing of Centanni, a correspondent, and Wiig, a cameraman, ends the longest-running drama involving foreign hostages in Gaza.
The two journalists were dropped off at Gaza City's Beach Hotel by Palestinian security officials and appeared to be in good health. A tearful Centanni embraced a Palestinian journalist briefly as he entered, then rushed upstairs as Wiig followed.
Centanni, in a phone interview shortly after his release, said "I'm fine. I'm just so happy to be free."
He recounted how he and Wiig were pulled out of their car on August 14 and taken at gunpoint into another car. The kidnappers blindfolded them and handcuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties. They were then transferred to another car and driven to a building that they later learned was a garage.
"We were pushed down onto the dirt-covered concrete floor and we were forced to lie face down with our handcuffs on," Centanni said.
"Olaf was in the same room with me. Our shoulders were wrenched back, very painful."
Both of the men were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint, Centanni said.
"We were forced to convert to Islam at gunpoint," Centanni told FOX News. "Don't get me wrong here. I have the highest respect for Islam, and I learned a lot of good things about it, but it was something we felt we had to do because they had the guns, and we didn't know what the hell was going on."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Very good point. I don't trust these journalists no matter who they work for. Every one of them seems to have a personal political agenda.
Stockholm Syndrome, perhaps?
Could be... I guess we have to wait and see.
That's for sure.
Then the muslims are the majority of the believers--which was my point.
Athiests can only be counted on to go whichever the way the wind blows--they cannot be counted on to resist the Muslims.
You've got a helluva goofy name for an atheist. I guess you are just yanking our chains with that....
I'd have more respect for you if you actually were a Muslim; I'd beat you down on an airplane if you acted f'ed up, but I'd respect you.
As an atheist, you're just going to crap on all sides until someone wins and then you are just going to crap on them....
Note my tagline.
I am a convert to Christianity. My conversion consisted of study of the faith, bible study, classes, exploration of conscience and of the soul.
At my conversion, the only thing held to my head was a font containing cool baptismal water. The only force was a gently help assisting in rising from that baptismal font.
I converted in heart, mind and soul with no fear, no force and nothing but joy for accepting Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
That is a conversion, not what these two men were forced to do.
The "journalists and cameramen" can't. They're either in the thick of it, and wide open targets, or they're out of the loop and out of a job.
Pretending to be someone else, another identity, is not the same as converting. The Nazis were looking at race not religion so Jews were pretending to be racially someone else. The Nazis did not care if someone was a practicing Catholic. If they knew that a parent/s were Jewish they would consider them of Jewish blood. It was a racial not a religious thing.
Also exctinction of Jews was not an issue. European Jews constituted 50% of the world's Jews, a sizeable percentage but not all.
The governing doctrine that conversion is impermissable was set out by Maimonedes (Rambam) in relationship to the persecution of Yemenite Jews by the Muslims.
Islam sure fits the definitions.
You thought incorrectly. Jesus said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgement." (John 7:24)
Obviously the fates of all of our souls are in God's hands. However, one cannot be at once a Muslim and a Christian. To be a Muslim is to deny the divinity of Christ. If one converts to Islam, then one has denied the divinity of Christ, even if under duress. Your attempts to personalize the matter don't change the basic facts here.
Where have I said such a thing?
Of the Apostles, all were martyred except for John, the only one of them who witnessed the martyrdom of Jesus. All of the rest were martyred for refusing to deny Jesus, even Peter, eventually.
If one can have one's fingers crossed when denying Jesus, so as to say that one hasn't really denied Him, then martyrdom would be a foolish waste. Do you really believe that?
I find it unaccountable that those on the side of liberal civilization would HELP with this crucial enemy stratagem, and at the same time undercut those striving for liberalism within the Muslim world, often at great personal risk -- certainly as much risk as Natansky or Walesa or Solzhenitsyn faced in the Communist world in their times. Those fighting Islamism from within Islam deserve support, not nullification. It's literally Orwellian to try and render them "unpersons" by loudly proclaiming their nonexistence.
But nevertheless, and although I can't honestly retract anything I said, I shouldn't have personalized it. Sorry for that.
If I were them, I'd un-convert from Islam as quickly as possible.
Perhaps they fear a fatwa if they reveal themselves to be infidels, after their forced conversions.
But I won't wait too long. LOL.
For your analogy to pass muster, Natansky, Walesa and Solzhenitsyn would have been striving for liberalism within the Communist world. They weren't, they were seeking the end of Communism.
I fart in Islam's general direction!
= = = =
I can imagine a number of slightly stronger things to do . . . and on the heads of all the Mullahs; and all the traitorous Senators in our own land.
Those are one and the same thing. Communism is inherently totalitarian. Liberalism (in the classical sense) is the polar opposite of totalism. Therefore "striving for liberalism" within the Communist world was striving to destroy Communism. The two cannot coexist. By the same token Islamism is inherently totalitarian (a totalistic system) and cannot coexist with liberalism, or even with partial reform, such as the liberation of women for instance. The Islamists certainly realize this. That's why they seek to destroy liberalism in any form, both as imported from the "West" and from within Islam.
All I'm asking is that we don't HELP them in that effort!
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