The Slaughter at Cairo

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

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Could the bombing Sunday at Cairo prove to be a turning point in the war against Christians in the Middle East? The attack killed dozens of Coptic Christians — mostly women and children — while they were worshipping in a church. The world, it has all too often seemed, has become accustomed to mayhem in the Middle East. But the slaughter Sunday is extraordinary in its nihilism, even in a country where the Christian minority has been targeted for years. It deserves to be addressed by the highest levels of our leadership.

The killings took place at the compound of Egypt’s main Christian cathedral. According to the Wall Street Journal, quoting the state press, the explosion struck the “women’s side of the worshiping hall in the small church of St. Peter and St. Paul.” It is attached to the Coptic cathedral itself. It isn’t the only major attack on Christians. Some 23 were killed in the New Year’s Day bombing of 2011 at the Two Saints Church at Alexandria. Those murders have yet to be solved by authorities.

Imagine the reaction were an attack like what just happened at Cairo perpetrated against a church here in America. It is hard not to imagine our country going onto a proper war footing, and understandably so. What has happened to sensibilities when a bombing like that in a friendly country, perpetrated almost certainly by a common enemy of Egypt and America, is met with silence, as it has so far, from our own leadership? Are the Christians of the Middle East some kind of sideshow?

That question has vexed these columns throughout the long travail of the Middle East wars. We have commented several times on Secretary of State Clinton’s attempt to blame the 2012 riots in Egypt on a cartoon video that, it turned out, was made by a Coptic Christian to protest — in kind of a primal scream — the murders of his co-religionists. While the maker of the film was sent to jail (at California, no less, albeit on other charges), the substance of his plea was ignored by a state secretary whose focus was entirely on running for the American presidency. Let it be a lesson.

To suggest that the wars of the Middle East are entirely religious in nature would be inaccurate. That, though, is no reason — or even explanation — for our leadership to fail to stand behind the religious minorities in the region. These include not only Christians but Jews. And there is no reason not to defend specifically their religious standing and their religious rights to stand apart. Particularly because under the American concept, these rights are not granted by any government, not even ours, but are given by God.

Just the other day at MacDill Air Force Base, during a l’envoi to our troops, the President asked that “my final words to you as your Commander-in-Chief be a reminder of what it is that you’re fighting for.” He then declared that “America is not a country that imposes religious tests as a price for freedom.” The attack in Cairo, though, would be a logical moment for Mr. Obama and for the new administration to mark the importance of keeping religious freedom front and center of our foreign policy in a strategic way.


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