MFS - The Other News

   Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity Russia 5.5 ; Vanuatu 5.3 and New Zealand 5.1 ! More info here.

• Japan : For the most accurate info on the nuclear disaster go to : Paul Langley's Nuclear History Blog.Here.

• Obamacare Has No CLASS: Administration Admits Entitlement Program Unsustainable.(BigGovernment).The Obama administration has admitted that it cannot move forward with a major feature of Obamacare, its long-term care insurance program, due to the fact that it contains a critical design flaw.The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, known as CLASS, a pet program of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D- Massachusetts), was to have been sponsored by the federal government but maintained as a voluntary plan to which healthy, younger, working Americans would contribute in the event they became disabled later on in life. Participants would have paid a monthly premium that ranged widely between $235-$3000, depending on income, during their employment years, and then collected a daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled.The tragic flaw in the plan is that unless large numbers of healthy people are willing to sign up for the program during their working years, the cost of the program would become prohibitive due to the needs of the disabled who would benefit from the plan. Unlike the purchase of long term care insurance in the private sector, CLASS did not offer lower premiums to healthier participants. Thus, the program attracted those who were already disabled in some way, yet able to work to some extent, and who anticipated the need for long term care in the future. Without healthy subscribers paying into the system, these individuals would not likely be able to afford the steep premiums.Not surprisingly, if the program had survived, it would have ultimately been “too big to fail” and required a tax bailout. Congressional Republicans intend to repeal CLASS, which, according to the Heritage Foundation was “poorly designed, and actuaries criticized it as being unsustainable well before the passage of Obamacare.”Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, who had argued for some time that the flaw in the program could be fixed, announced on Friday that the plan could not, in fact, be saved–a situation that was met by significant protest on the part of liberal seniors’ lobby, AARP, and union leaders. Supporters of CLASS wrote a letter to President Obama, urging him to use his “authority,” provided to him under his signature legislation, to “make necessary changes to the design of CLASS to make it work. We fully expect the administration to go forward and use that authority in implementing the law.”It is almost incredible that the Obama administration entertained the notion that CLASS would actually work. In fact, it is questionable whether the White House ever expected it to survive or if it just threw the program into Obamacare as a bone to its base, never intending to make it viable. In essence, CLASS was really an entitlement within an entitlement, another entire Social Security program built into a government health insurance plan.Of course, when AARP and the unions wrote the president, asking him to use his “authority” to make CLASS work, we can be assured that what they were urging is for the program to become mandatory rather than voluntary.All of Obamacare must be repealed, but the fact that its authors now admit CLASS is unsustainable is a major victory for taxpayers and freedom lovers alike.Read the full story here.

• Most transparant Administration Evah!Obama administration appeals ruling on White House visitor logs.(Politico).The Obama administration is appealing a judge's ruling that Secret Service records of visitors to the White House complex are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.The Justice Department filed a formal notice of appeal Friday afternoon regarding U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell's August ruling rejecting arguments that the so-called WAVES records belong to the White House even though they are maintained and used by the Secret Service.The decision to appeal the ruling to the D.C. Circuit would appear to be in tension with Obama's repeated pledges to operate the most transparent administration in history. The White House announced in Sept. 2009 that it was voluntarily releasing the names of most White House visitors from Sept. 15 forward. However, the conservative group Judicial Watch sought information on visits before that date.The position taken by the Obama Justice Department, namely that White House visitor records are presidential records and not agency records, is essentially the same one that the department took under President George W. Bush.Howell did not rule that every White House visit had to be disclosed. However, she concluded that all the data had to be made public unless the government asserted a specific exemption from FOIA, such as provisions protecting national security and privacy.There was no immediate comment on the appeal from the White House or the Justice Department.Read the full story here.

• Holder Knew About Fast and Furious, Before He Didn’t Know About It.(BigGovernment).On March 24, 2009, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden made the following announcement: “The President has directed us to take action to fight [Mexican] cartels…and Attorney General Holder and I are taking several new and aggressive steps as part of the administration’s comprehensive plan.”Note: From the moment this announcement begins, “the President” and “Attorney General Holder” are both involved in some capacity.The announcement continued by saying the DEA was going to increase its presence in Mexico and on the border, and that the ATF was using $10 million from the stimulus funds to add “37 new employees and 3 new offices” and “redeploying 100 personnel to the Southwest border in the next 45 days, to fortify its project gunrunner, which is aimed at disrupting arms trafficking between the United States and Mexico.”Of course, this dovetails perfectly with Holder’s speech in Mexico on April 2, 2009, where he literally referred back to Ogden’s announcement in describing the focus on the southern border and project gunrunner:

Last week, our administration launched a major new effort to break the backs of the cartels. My department is committing 100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner, DEA is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion. DHS is making similar commitments, as Secretary Napolitano will detail. (emphasis mine)To date, Holder & Co. have dodged questions on these speeches and announcements by saying Project Gunrunner and Operation Fast and Furious were two different things. Thus, his knowledge of one doesn’t necessitate knowledge of the other. Of course this isn’t plausible, because Gunrunner and Fast & Furious were both parts of the same overarching “comprehensive plan.” They were two sides of the same coin.(In fact, to say you knew about one without knowing about the other would be like a football coach saying, “I have knowledge of the plays we run on first and ten, but not on third and long.” Such an excuse won’t work because first down plays and third down plays are part of an overarching game plan that the coaches win or lose by together.The attempt to split the two up, and thereby construct some some wall of ignorance that protects Holder from knowing about Fast and Furious, is exactly what’s making it so hard for the AG and Obama to keep their stories straight.Thus, while Holder claims he only learned of Fast and Furious in the “few weeks” prior to May 3^rd, in March 2011 Obama made a statement which at least alluded to a conversation about Fast and Furious and gun walking he’d had with Holder, whom Obama said “has been very clear that he knew nothing about this.”Folks, there are serious problems here.

Number one, Holder had to know about Fast and Furious – he had to at least have been told about it – in order to deny involvement in it before Obama made his statement in March 2011.

Problem number two, Holder’s reason for distancing himself from Fast and Furious was the gun walking aspect of it. But we’ve all read Ogden’s announcement and Holders’ speech, where both men mention Gunrunner as part of the overarching comprehensive plan.

The bottom line: Holder knew about Fast and Furious before he didn’t know about it. And he bragged about the gun walking plan on April 2, 2009.The lies surrounding this operation are so blatant, so bald, that even writing on the story can be infuriating.Hmmmm........The proverbial writing is not on the wall..... it's a gunrack attached to the wall.Read the full story here.

• Why Is The FBI Recording Talk Radio?(PrisonPlanet).The Department of Homeland Security has specifically listed “rightwing extremist activity” as a potential threat that needs to be monitored.

- If you call in to the Alex Jones Show or hundreds of other talk radio stations around the country that maintain a web presence, there is a good chance the FBI will recorded you.Mark Weaver, writing for WMAL talk radio in Washington, D.C., reports that the FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record all the internet broadcast talk radio it can find.“This doesn’t give us any enhanced capability, prying into or any ‘big brother’ concerns because this is information that’s being put out on the airwaves,” FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told WMAL.com. “Its very important to our investigators to know what’s being reported.”In order to make his point, Bresson cited the Times Square non-bomber. “It’s ideal for cases like that because we can extract information that’s already been reported and help our investigators make better decisions."If you believe this explanation, I have a bridge to sell you.The FBI has functioned since its inception as a national political police force used by the establishment to monitor and if need be “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” (according to the late J. Edgar Hoover) political organizations and individuals deemed a threat to the establishment.Talk radio – especially “right-wing” talk radio – poses just such a threat.The Department of Homeland Security has specifically listed “rightwing extremist activity” as a potential threat that needs to be monitored.In 2009, the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC) released an internal report listing then presidential candidates Ron Paul, Chuck Baldwin, and Bob Barr as “militia” influenced terrorists and advised police to be on the lookout for their supporters displaying bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with the Constitutional, Campaign for Liberty, and Libertarian parties.Recording talk radio has nothing to do with news reports about the supposed Times Square bomber – who was, after all, under surveillance by the FBI at the time he supposedly drove a car filled with fireworks and barbeque grill gas canisters into Times Square – but instead it is designed as yet another effort to monitor the political opposition and (by telling the media about it) as a way to intimidate and make you paranoid when you call into talk radio shows.Hmmmmm.......Read the full story here.

• Obama has placed more calls to Erdoğan than to any other world leader this year.(TodaysZaman).International relations experts agree the United States and Turkey’s well-established alliance and Turkey’s ascent in the international arena explain why President Barack Obama has chatted with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan more than almost any other world leader despite fissures in a number of policy areas and differences between the two leaders’ governing styles.The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Obama has placed more calls to Erdoğan than to any other world leader this year next to British Prime Minister David Cameron.“It is remarkable to hear how often they speak,” former New York Times bureau chief in İstanbul Stephen Kinzer told Sunday’s Zaman in an exclusive interview. “I think that it’s due above all not to a personal relationship between the two but to Obama’s realization of the role that Turkey has come to play in the region and in the wider world. He understands what Turkey has become, and I think he understands Turkey’s potential to project into other Muslim countries ideals the West would like to see projected but cannot do itself,” Kinzer explained.David L. Phillips, director of the Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights, called Erdoğan and Obama’s governing styles “diametrically opposite.”“Obama is a consensus-builder, while Erdoğan is emotional and able to act singularly based on conditions,” Phillips, who is also a fellow at Harvard University’s Project on the Future of Diplomacy, said in remarks to Sunday’s Zaman.Kinzer agreed, arguing that the two leaders often get themselves in a bind because of their temperaments: “Erdoğan is decisive to the point of arrogance, while Obama is weak to the point of appeasement and eternal compromise.” While Obama is understated to the point that it outrages many of his supporters, Erdoğan’s prickly sense of honor and feisty temper have presented problems both at home and in international affairs, Kinzer argued.But Sunday’s Zaman Washington correspondent Ali H. Aslan and former adviser to the prime minister İbrahim Kalın argued that Erdoğan and Obama are more similar than some may think.Dr. Joshua Walker, assistant professor of leadership studies at the University of Richmond and currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Crown Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University, described the two leaders’ steady alliance. “Obama and Erdoğan are very different leaders with differing approaches and styles, yet they have been able to develop a crucial relationship built on pragmatism and trust.”One such road bump in the two countries’ relations has been the row between Israel and Turkey that began last year when Israel attacked a Turkish ship that was part of an international humanitarian aid flotilla. During Erdoğan’s Arab Spring tour, he blasted Israel and called for Palestine’s full membership as a UN member.Phillips argues that the conflict between its two allies has been particularly trying the US government’s patience. “There is nothing wrong with Erdoğan’s championing the Palestinian cause, but it is not necessary to go out of his way when he wants to pick a fight with Israel. This confrontational approach puts the US in an awkward position with two important allies and runs the risk of an incident that could spiral out of control.”But according to Aslan, Obama is not exactly happy with Israel, either. “They [the Obama administration] have continuously encouraged Israel to fulfill Turkey’s conditions, but they have not been able to convince the [Israeli] administration. Obama has had a hard time working with the current Israeli leadership,” he said.Obama’s frequently logged calls to Erdoğan, whom Kinzer jokingly referred to as “Obama’s second best friend,” have not gone unnoticed by the US leader’s opposition, Kinzer remarked. Plus, while foreign policy does not tend to play a major role in US elections, the former NYT İstanbul bureau chief said Israel is one issue that always seems to pop up. “I suspect that among all of the accusations Obama’s opposition will throw at him will be the accusation that he is friendly with a country and a leader who is not a cheerleader for Israel,” Kinzer speculated.But Aslan disagreed, arguing that Turkey is not usually a major issue in elections. “We just had the Republican debate, and there was not much reference to Turkey. Some may criticize Obama in the coming months for his relationship with Turkey while it is fighting with Israel, but everything depends on future developments,” he said.While Dr. Walker, who is also a fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, called the US-Turkish relationship far more complicated than just between two leaders, he added that Erdoğan and Obama have brought the two countries as close as they can. “They have a similar understanding of the world and a flexible pragmatism that guides their policies and relationships.Hmmmm....."The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers".Both share the same love for Israel.Read the full story here.

• Turkey won't recognize Greek Cyprus as EU presidency.(TodaysZaman).Turkey's prime minister says his country will not sit at the table with Greek Cyprus if it assumes the European Union's presidency before a deal reunifying the ethnically split island is reached.Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has already warned that Turkey will freeze its relations with the 27-nation bloc if Greek Cyprus takes over its rotating presidency in July 2012. He said that Turkey will not deal with a "so-called country." Turkey does not recognize the divided island nation as a sovereign nation. Cyprus was split into an internationally recognized Greek-speaking south and Turkish-speaking north in 1974 when Turkey intervened after a coup by supporters of union with Greece. Only the Greek section is part of the EU. Erdoğan spoke Saturday during a televised address to members of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in the town of Kızılcahamam, near the Turkish capital of Ankara. He reiterated Turkey's wish that a unified Greek Cyprus takes over the EU presidency.Hmmmm......Read the full story here.
  
• Obama admin wants to see Turkey as member of EU.(NewsAZ).A Spokesperson for the US State Department, Victoria Nuland, said on Friday that US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu discussed Iran during phone conversation.Nuland told a daily press briefing that Clinton informed Davutoglu on an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir during the conversation.Replying to a question on the European Commission's progress report on Turkey, Nuland said that the United States has been supporting Turkey's eagerness to join the EU. The United States wanted to see Turkey as a member of the EU, Nuland said.Clinton also said that she would attend a meeting of the Assembly of Turkish-American Associations in Washington at end of this month, but Davutoglu told her that he could not attend this meeting due to his schedule and a conference on Afghanistan that would take place in Istanbul at the beginning of November.Davutoglu told Clinton that he hoped to meet with her during the conference in Istanbul.Meanwhile, Kosovo's Foreign Minister Enver Hoxhaj also called Davutoglu on the phone and the two ministers discussed the latest developments in Balkans.Hmmmmm.........Read the full story here.

• Germany prevents Turkey to sell T-155 artillery system to Azerbaijan.(NewsAZ).Despite the obstacles created by some European companies, Turkey insists on selling T-155 Fırtına self-propelled howitzer to Azerbaijan.The statement came from Turkey’s Undersecretary for Defence Industries Murad Bayar said.Though Azerbaijan and Turkey reached an agreement on purchase and sale of Firtina self-propelled howitzer, according to the reports there are some technical problems in the project. Germany’s MTU company, which is providing Firtina with engine, refused to provide with engine the self-propelled howitzer that will be sold to Azerbaijan. Yonca-Onuk company, which is going to sell boats to Azerbaijan, has faced similar problem.“As a brotherly country we have assumed the solution of this problem,” Bayar said.According to Murad Bayar, Turkey is considering two new variants on export of weapons to Azerbaijan. One of them is the purchase of engine from another country.“Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation is considering alternative variants. The second variant is the production of engine in Turkey. We have started work for the production of engines in Turkey. It will take approximately four or five years. There will be no problems after that,” he said.Bayar also added that T-155 “Firtina” system was a very strong weapon. Azerbaijan will gain the additional power by including it to the weapon inventory. The Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation’s (MKEK) CEO Unal Onsipahioglu said that the problem was on the eve of its settlement: “The engine and transmission problems of the artillery system have been solved and the alternative company was found”.Germany’s MTU Company which provided “Firtina” with engine, refused to give an engine to Azerbaijan because of Nagorno Karabakh conflict.Hmmmm.....All Turkish moves with Obama approval?Read the full story here.

• Israeli-Palestinian prisoner swap deal may be delayed.(RaiNovosti).Israel and Palestine have failed so far to agree on the date of swapping Palestinian prisoners for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, told the Voice of Palestine on Sunday.Hamas leaders announced on Friday that a deal between Israel and Hamas on the exchange of over 1,000 jailed Palestinians for Israeli soldier Shalit would begin on Tuesday.Hamad, who is a deputy foreign minister in the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas and who played a key role in reaching the prisoner swap deal, said no agreement had been reached so far on the number of Palestinian women to be released from Israeli prisons and the number of Palestinian prisoners to be deported.According to the Palestinian Ministry for Prisoners’ Affairs, there are 37 Palestinian women kept in Israeli prisoners and Palestinians are demanding that all of them be released while Israel is ready to free only 27 of them.Hamad said that indirect talks sponsored by Egypt would be held in Cairo on Sunday to try to resolve disagreements.Shalit, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was captured in June 2006, aged 19, by Palestinian militants in a raid near the Gaza Strip.Read the full story here.

• Debka: Leon Panetta Brokered Shalit Deal.(Matzav).Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu reported to the hastily convened full government session Monday night, Oct. 11 that the deal with Hamas for bringing Gilad Shalit home within days was initialed Thursday and signed Monday, Oct. 11. It was the best possible, he said although the agreed price for the swap is heavy: one thousand jailed Palestinian terrorists, including 60 convicted on multiple murders, who will be exiled to the Gaza Strip and Arab countries.DEBKAfile discloses that secret clauses of the transaction for recovering the Israel soldier, whom Hamas kept hidden for five years, were finalized between the United States, Egypt, Israel and Hamas during US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s visits to Israel and Egypt on Sept. 3-4. Those clauses, negotiated directly between Panetta and Hamas’ political chief Khaled Meshaal, entailed the shutting down of Hamas headquarters in Damascus in order to undercut Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iran and Hizballah and loosen their hold on the Palestinians. Meshaal who visited Tehran a week ago agreed to gradually downgrade his ties with Iran in return for American patronage of Hamas.Netanyahu told the Israeli ministers that he had faced a tough dilemma between rescuing the Israeli soldier and national security and a balance was hard to strike. But his commitment to saving Gilad Shalit was absolute. The “window of opportunity” presented now may never recur, he warned, given the turbulence besetting the Middle East. He therefore asked the ministers for their unanimous endorsement of the swap.During the cabinet meeting, three ministers, Silvan Shalom, Moshe Yaalon and Avigdor Lieberman, voiced reservations in view of the high risk of setting so many terrorists loose.That window, DEBKAfile reports, was the deal the Obama administration had reached with Hamas leaders and their parent, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s rift with Tehran.The Prime Minister thanked the Egyptian government and intelligence agencies for their great contribution toward brokering the deal. He also voiced appreciation for the efforts of the German mediator and Chancellor Angela Merkel who gave the process her wholehearted support.Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped in a cross-border raid from Gaza five years ago, and held without any visitors including the Red Cross every since, will first be transferred from Gaza to Cairo to await Israel’s release of the first batch of 450 Palestinian prisoners.The remaining 550 prisoners will be freed after the soldier arrives home. This is the heaviest price Israel has ever paid for any soldiers in Arab captivity.As to the backdoor diplomacy leading to Gilad Shalit’s release, DEBKAfile further discloses that recognizing the rising electoral strength of the Muslim Brotherhood and its Salafi allies in Egypt’s forthcoming parliamentary elections next month, the Obama administration entered into active dialogue with its leaders to draw them away from Tehran and bring them close to the ruling military junta and Washington.Shortly before Panetta arrived in the Middle East, a US diplomat revealed that US officials had arrived in Cairo on Oct. 2 for talks with Brotherhood representatives. The American side was headed by Prem. G. Kumar, the National Security Council Director for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs at the White House.This was the first clue that the White House was after a deal not only with the Brotherhood but also its Palestinian offshoot Hamas, part of which was to be the release of the Israeli soldier. Two days later, on Oct. 4, the US Defense Secretary arrived to seal the accord while in another part of Cairo, the Israeli prime minister’s personal representative David Meidan and the commander of Hamas’ military wing, Ezz a-din al Qassam, Mohammed Jabry, hammered out the minutiae of the prisoner exchange for Shalit’s release.Netanyahu referred to the heavy price Israel was paying in terms of security by letting a thousand terrorists walk free - scores much Israeli blood on their hands. But he also paid a heavy political price: Israel’s acceptance of the United States’ rapprochement with the Egyptian Muslim brothers - henceforth dubbed in Obama administration parlance a “moderate Muslim force.”.  Israel can only hope that this gamble pays off. By procuring the release of 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli jails, Hamas has outperformed is rival, the Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas as the lead champion of the Palestinian cause. After defying the Obama administration by applying for UN recognition for Palestinian statehood, Abbas is now getting his punishment.Read the full story here.

• U.S. considers sanctions on Iran's central bank.(LATimes).The Obama administration said it was "actively" considering sanctioning Iran's central bank in retaliation for an alleged Iranian assassination plot, a move that could severely damage Iran's economy and potentially provoke a strong response from Tehran.David Cohen, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, told the Senate Banking Committee that officials were "looking very actively" at such a step and might carry it out if other nations could be persuaded to follow suit.The blacklisting is the first specific step the administration has identified as a possible response to the alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's envoy to the United States and to attack embassies in the U.S. and Argentina.Such sanctions would aim to isolate the Bank Markazi, or central bank, from the world economic system by barring any firm that deals with it from doing business with U.S. financial institutions. That would make it far more difficult for Iran to sell crude oil, which funds much of the government's activities.Some Iranian officials have warned that they would look on such a move as an act of war.The sanctions would probably be effective, however, only if other world powers joined in. And the administration would have to overcome arguments that the action would harm ordinary Iranians and damage the oil markets.Cohen, who is in charge of U.S. sanctions on Iran, told the committee that if other countries joined in the blacklisting, it "could further isolate the central bank of Iran, with a potentially powerful impact on Iran."Mark Dubowitz, a specialist on sanctions at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said a so-called designation of the bank would not halt all of Iran's crude oil sales, but it would sharply raise the cost of such transactions and thus "drain the Iranian treasury." He said Iran, the third-largest OPEC oil exporter, is a "one-crop country" that derives 50% to 75% of its government revenue from crude oil. Congress last year slapped sanctions on Iranian banks involved in the energy sector to bar them from contact with the U.S. financial system. But U.S. officials say these banks have continued to conduct oil business because the central bank has secretly carried out the transactions on their behalf.In his testimony, Cohen said U.S. officials were also considering another proposal many lawmakers favor: halting all sales of oil products made from Iranian crude to the U.S. market. Americans use gasoline that is refined from Iranian crude by international oil companies, which then distribute it in the United States. Cohen said Treasury economists were studying that proposal to evaluate its effect on oil markets.Hmmmmm......It's 'effect'?Iran is chairman for  OPEC...what effect do you geniuses think it will have?Lower the price a barrel of crude?Sigh.......coming from the same 'geniuses' who predicted last year $80/Barrel oil for 2011.Read the full story here.

• Coptic Church Construction And Egyptian Muslim ‘Emasculation’.(BigPeace).Because it was excerpted in Bat Ye’or’s pioneering The Dhimmi, I obtained Moshe Perlmann’s (1975) complete translation of a 1739 essay on the Churches of Cairo. Written by Sheikh Damanhuri (1689-1764), a highly esteemed leader of Al Azhar University, the pinnacle of learning in Sunni Islamdom, since 973 A.D., the learned jurist’s tract was a reply to a query in that year when, “…the dhimmis began the construction of a church in Cairo…causing great agitation among Muslims.” The good sheikh notes,

When I learned of the rise of this deplorable affair, and that in this community no longer is the prophetic injunction heeded to deter the infidels, the enemies of the faith, from their goal, I began to write the answer…by explaining the right path

Sheikh Damanhuri entitled his reply—in accord with the conclusion of his learned, Islamically-correct argument, “The presentation of the clear proof for the obligatory destruction of the churches of Old and New Cairo.”

Damanhuri states explicity (on p. 20) that areas “demarcated and settled by Muslims,” including Cairo, Kufa, Basra, Baghdad, Wasit, as well as “any village that was taken by force,” and not returned by a Muslim Caliph to those vanquished and dispossessed,

These are Muslim cities in which the protected people may not display any of their religious symbols, for example, erect churches, bring out wine or pork, or sound the clapper (calling to the church, a counterpart of bells). No new synagogue, church, monk’s cell, prayer assembly of theirs is allowed in these cities, by the consensus of the doctors [of Islamic law]. It has been mentioned above that our city, Cairo, is an Islamic town, started after the conquest of Egypt, under the reign of the Fatimids. Therefore, no church, synagogue, and the rest, may be erected in it.

But what Bat Ye’or excerpted in The Dhimmi that is truly fascinating—pathognomonic as we say in medicine—is how this learned Muslim jurist, in conformity with the prevailing orthodoxy, viewed Church construction by Christians as a form of Muslim emasculation! From (p. 21) of Perlmann’s 1975 translation of Damanhuri’s tract:

The Prophet, peace and blessing upon him, said: “No emasculation [khisa] and no church in Islam.” The word “emasculation,” khisa follows the fial, as the verbal noun of khsy, “to emasculate.” The relation between “emasculation” and “church” is that the erection of a church in Muslim territory denotes the elimination of manliness in the people of the territory, just as emasculation, in reality, is the elimination of virility in an animal. Though the sense of the word in our context is withdrawal from women by attachment to churches. The connection is evident. By “no church” the Prophet meant no construction thereof, a prohibition, that is, that no church in Islamic territory signifies the elimination of virility in the people of that territory, which is not permissible, even as the elimination of man’s virility by castration is not.

I would maintain this perverse, ugly sentiment of perceived “emasculation” remains amongst Egyptian Muslims and accounts for their lethal mass violence directed at The Copts for simply, and peaceably, exercising what modern human beings regard as a basic freedom—freedom of worship.Read the full story here.