Egypt Persecutes Christians. Why Won't Congress Oppose Foreign Aid to It?

Last year, a bipartisan group of members of Congress introduced H.Res.776: a resolution expressing concern about the persecution of Coptic Christians under Egypt’s Islamic regime.

The resolution has only picked up 8 cosponsors and has yet to make it out of committee.

By contrast, 103 House Democrats voted to cut aid to Israel out of H. R. 8595 which also apportions $1.4 billion to Egypt and $1.6 billion to Jordan.

Meanwhile an amendment to zero out the $1.4 billion in military aid to Egypt never even made it out of the House Rules Committee while none of the Democrats who voted to cut off aid to Israel voted in favor of a similar amendment to cut off aid to Jordan, a totalitarian monarchy which harbors Islamic terrorists, including those who have murdered Americans, by 421-6.

The inability of resolutions and amendments critical of Egypt to make it out of committee comes a year after Sen. Bob Menendez was sent to prison over bribery and foreign agent charges, for taking “actions to benefit the Government of Egypt” and even “ghostwriting a letter for Egypt to be provided to his own Senate colleagues”: but that led no congressional action against Egypt.

Both Israel and Egypt aid use the ‘Foreign Military Financing Program”. There are, however, profound differences between Israel and Egypt. Israel has been a longstanding American ally while Egypt was a Soviet ally until the 1970s. Israel and America have cultural and religious ties while Egypt is one election away from becoming an Islamic terror state… as we saw in 2012.

Before his death, 1 in 5 Egyptians had expressed “confidence” in Osama bin Laden, about half of them support Hamas: a spinoff of the Muslim Brotherhood that was transplanted into Gaza.

Last year, Egypt and China conducted the joint ‘Eagles of Civilization’ air force drill. And Egypt has also taken to buying weapons systems from the People’s Republic of China. Despite that, the United States continues providing advanced weapons systems to Egypt, including nearly $5 billion in M1A1 tank upgrades conducted in Egypt, whose only possible target could be Israel.

With an 83% favorable rating, the Israelis like us, while most Egyptians don’t like us and don’t even want our aid..In one survey a decade ago, 58% of Egyptians had a negative view of our military aid while only 10% had a positive one. It’s not surprising then that Christians continue to be a persecuted minority in Egypt despite making up 10% of the country’s population.

The persecution of Christians in Egypt has been a longstanding issue and includes both mob violence directed against Christians trying to build churches and worship in them that has led to incidents of ethnic cleansing as well as oppression that comes from Egyptian law and from the Egyptian state. The Egyptian constitution, like those of most Muslim countries, states that, “Islam is the religion of the State” and “Islamic law (Sharia) is the principal source of legislation”.

Egyptian ID cards include every individual’s religion making it easy to discriminate against Christians. Christians must apply for permission to build churches, preachers have been imprisoned for defending their religion in debates and Christian converts are threatened.

And yet aid to Israel is controversial, over ‘human rights’ while aid to Egypt sails through.

A number of Democrats claimed that they voted to end aid to Israel to ‘send a message’ to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but none felt impelled to send a message to Egypt’s government despite the State Department and the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reporting multiple incidents in which Christians were sent to prison for their religion: including a prisoner who was placed in solitary confinement for copying bible verses.

But 103 Democrats believe that a Muslim country locking up Christians deserves $1.4 billion in aid while Israel has to be cut off because it’s bombing too many Hamas Islamic terrorists.

Some of the Democrats who voted to cut off aid to Israel, complained about ‘democracy’, even though elections bring actual changes of government in Israel, while in Egypt they’re meaningless.

After being briefly run by the Muslim Brotherhood during Obama’s Arab Spring, Egypt is once again being run by the military. The same Democrats who have been scolding Israel and claiming that it’s undermining a “democratic future” by refusing to surrender to terrorists have generally failed to note that Egypt, just across the Gaza border, is run by political parties that act as fronts for the army, the police, militias and other elements of an authoritarian regime.

Egypt and Israel are fighting Islamic terrorists around 30 miles apart from each other.

Israel originally began fighting Hamas in Gaza. Egypt has been fighting on the other side of the border in North Sinai. Both conflicts intensified due to the fallout from the brief Muslim Brotherhood coup in Egypt. Weapons were smuggled in and out of Gaza, leading to street violence in Egyptian cities and an insurgency in the Sinai that involved Islamist groups, local Bedouin tribes and eventually ISIS. Egypt and Israel have fought their respective conflicts similarly with air strikes, ground deployments, and house demolitions. Both militaries have been accused by Islamist media of killing civilians. But only one of those led to a worldwide campaign on behalf of the Islamic terrorists. And with equal predictably, it was the one in which the conflict was [not] between fellow Muslims, rather than between non-Muslims and Muslims.

The lack of any vote on Egypt shows that this isn’t about ‘democracy’ or ‘human rights’, it’s not about sending a message to a government, it’s about pandering to Islamist agendas.

In Egypt, 10 million Christians face persecution, lack equal rights and risk prison for speaking about their religion, and yet Democrats are willing to keep sending $1.4 billion in military aid.

The few Democrats who mention the human rights situation in Egypt generally focus on the status of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned after staging its coup, rather than on the millions of Christians who aren’t trying to take over Egypt, just to worship in their own way.

The message from House Democrats is that Christian lives don’t matter and Jewish lives don’t matter, only Islamic Jihadist lives and agendas do.

Egypt has been fighting (Hamas) on the other side of the border in North Sinai...Egypt and Israel have fought their respective conflicts similarly with air strikes, ground deployments, and house demolitions.

How many people know about this? I didn't until I read this article.

The simple bottom line: what we have ruling there now is the lesser of two evils and about the best you’re going to get.

The alternative is someone more like Morsi, about 1000% worse for everyone.

How many people know about this?

Let’s see. I was a Marine Security Guard in Cairo in the 80s. This was commonplace. it was a part of US Embassy policy at the request of the host government, to employ more Muslims than Coptics, and to ensure the Foreign Service National board was controlled by Muslims.

Shobra is one of the poorest parts of Cairo. You’d call it a ghetto. That is where all the Coptics live. Why? There is no upward mobility in that society. Coptics can’t even play for the Egyptian national soccer team.

The big ass USAID building I used to guard (with the Japanese embassy one floor below), was filled with US-funded agricultural and irrigation projects in the tens of billions of dollars.

It is nothing new.

Because congress and their stafferes and the people holding the blackmail materials for said congresscritters get kickbaks from the ‘foreign aid’?

I recently spent time in Egypt and spoke with a Coptic Christian leader. I asked him in confidence, how safe he felt in Egypt. “Very safe!” He insisted. He gave me a lot of background about how moderate Muslims and Coptic Christians had helped to get el-Sisi elected and he has been charting a course rejecting Muslim extremism and protecting Christians. It would seem to me that this report is based on old information which may be why US foreign aid is being proposed.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.