Rap Sheet
Links on R&P from around the web
Fiery Orange County Cleric Influenced Figures behind Anti-Islamic Film
posted on September 17, 2012“The Southern California men behind the anti-Islamic movie that has enraged the Arab world were influenced by a fiery Coptic cleric who owns a home in Huntington Beach and is known around the globe for insults to the prophet Muhammad that are strikingly similar to those in the film,” report Jessica Garrison, Ken Bensinger and Harriet Ryan for The Los Angeles Times. Zakaria Botros Henein is infamous in the Muslim world for teaching “that Muhammad was a necrophile, a homosexual and a pedophile,” write Garrison, Bensinger, and Ryan. Sometimes called “Islam’s Public Enemy No. 1,” Botros Henein has recently gone into hiding.
African-American Christians Waver over Vote
posted on September 17, 2012“Some black clergy see no good presidential choice between a Mormon candidate and one who supports gay marriage, so they are telling their flocks to stay home on Election Day,” reports Rachel Zoll for the Associated Press. For this group of black pastors, Romney’s Mormon faith, which banned blacks from full membership until 1978, and President Obama’s “evolved” stance on gay marriage, mean that neither candidate is palatable. Still, reports Zoll, “[m]any [other] pastors have said that despite their misgivings about the candidates, blacks have fought too hard for the vote to ever stay away from the polls.”
Israeli Foreign Ministry: U.S. ignored Arab Radicalization
posted on September 17, 2012Barak Ravid and Jonathan Lis report for Haaretz that for months the Israeli Foreign Ministry have been warning the U.S. State Department about the risk of violent attacks on American embassies in North African countries. “Senior Foreign Ministry officials say their conversations with their Washington counterparts have focused on what Jerusalem terms ‘radicalizing trends’ against not only Israel but also against the United States and the West in general,” write Ravid and Lis. But according to the Israelis, the American response has been to bury “its head in the sand.”
Rev. Sun Myung Moon Funeral in South Korea Attended by Thousands
posted on September 17, 2012Hyung-Jin Kim reports for the Associated Press that “[t]ens of thousands of mourners sobbed, sang, prayed and vowed to cherish the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s teachings Saturday as they said goodbye to their self-proclaimed messiah and ‘True Father,’ whose death earlier this month shed light again on his controversial religious and business empire.” A Unification Church choir member, Lee Ok-su said that despite Moon’s passing, “[h]e will be in our minds permanently … He is our benevolent yet strict father.”
Police Hunting Down ‘Extremist Criminals’ after Protest
posted on September 17, 2012ABC News (Australia) reports that following violent anti-American protests in Sydney over the weekend, during which six police officers were injured, the police have vowed to bring the “extremist criminals” to justice. “The protest in Sydney followed similar action in the Middle East and North Africa which has left at least nine people dead in the past few days,” writes ABC News.
Foundation for Jewish Camp Announces Four New Specialty Camps
posted on September 17, 2012JTA reports the creation of four new summer camps for Jewish youth in the United States. According to the Cohen Center at Brandeis University, the vast majority of Jewish Americans “do not report memorable summer overnight camp experiences,” writes JTA. The new camps “are designed to reach demographic and geographic populations underserved in Jewish camping.”
The ‘Maverick’ Egyptian-American Copt behind the Anti-Muslim Film
posted on September 14, 2012Religion News Service’s Daniel Burke profiles the Egyptian-American behind the dissemination of the anti-Muslim film that sparked anti-American protests in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen. Morris Sadek, “an obscure Egyptian-born Coptic Christian who lives near Washington,” writes Burke, is “the man who translated the film into Arabic, sent it to Egyptian journalists, promoted it on his website and posted it on social media.”
A Pretext to Murder in Libya
posted on September 14, 2012At Tablet, Max Welch writes that many Americans are wrong to blame the filmmakers of the provocative depiction of the Prophet Muhammed for the death of Ambassador Chris Stephens in Libya. Welsh argues that the self-censorship, which leads even “free-speech heroes like Penn Jillette” to refuse to “tackle Islam ‘because we have families,'” is insidious and dangerous. “It is precisely in our proclivity for free-wheeling offense that America’s free-speech tradition becomes an irresistible magnet for those who live in the kinds of stifling societies where the government really does regulate expression,” writes Welch.
Future of U.S.-Egypt Relations Not So Clear
posted on September 14, 2012Commentary’s Max Boot writes, “President Obama’s comments on Egypt conform to Michael Kinsley’s famous definition of a gaffe: when a politician inadvertently tells the truth.” Obama recently told Telemundo, “I don’t think that we would consider [Egypt] an ally, but we don’t consider them an enemy.” Though the Obama administration quickly tried to walk back the comments, Boot writes, “When the president publicly questions whether a country like Egypt, which has been the second-largest recipient of American aid since the 1970s, is still an ally, it suggests that profound changes are afoot.”
Finding God in the Party Platforms
posted on September 14, 2012At The Huffington Post, Sen. Chris Coons weighs in on the temporary exclusion of the word “God” from the Democratic platform. “So determined to create trouble around the initial absence of the word ‘God,'” Coons writes, “Republican pundits missed the greater point: the Democratic platform was, in important ways, far more consistent with the Word of God than their own platform.”