The Persecution That Doesnât Make the Headlines
I am a Muslim convert to Christianity. I lived for 15 years as a Christian believer in Morocco, much of that time in what we called the underground church.
Listen carefully, because this is what âmoderate Islamâ looked like for us:
Morocco is considered one of the most moderate Muslim countries. That is true compared with Mauritania and Libya, where converts from Islam face the death penalty, or Egypt, Jordan, Syria, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Pakistan, where converts face imprisonment, torture, intimidation, or severe persecution.
But here is the reality of âmoderateâ Morocco.
We gathered secretly in homes every Sunday because churches were for foreign Christians, not Moroccan converts. We sang in low voices so the neighbors would not hear us. We arrived two at a time to avoid suspicion. If anyone asked, we pretended it was simply a gathering of family and friends.
We baptized converts in bathtubs.
I was baptized in a bathtub myself. A missionary and a few Moroccan Christians were the only people present.
We kept our house churches small, usually fewer than twenty people. When they became too large, we split them. Christmas and a few special occasions were exceptions.
Police raided Christian gatherings, confiscated Christian materials, dragged believers to police stations, interrogated them, threatened them, and humiliated them with vulgar language.
Our children had to go to school and study Islam and memorize the Quran even though their parents were Christians.
We could not freely give our children Christian names. The government did not need to write âChristian names are forbiddenâ in bold letters. The authorities simply refused to register them.
Our marriages were treated as Islamic marriages under Sharia because the Moroccan state refused to recognize us for what we actually were: Moroccan Christians.
A Moroccan Christian woman could not simply marry a foreign Christian man as a Christian. He had to establish before the authorities that he was Muslim because, according to the government, she was still a Muslim.
The state decided our religion for us.
Even death did not end it.
When a Moroccan Christian died, he was buried in a Muslim cemetery under Islamic rituals because the government still considered him Muslim. I remember one Moroccan Christian who died in Tangier. We had to do the impossible to get his body to Ceuta so he could receive a Christian funeral.
Imagine having to smuggle your religious identity across a border just to be buried according to your own faith.
We could not establish our own legal Moroccan churches. We could not get permission to build even one church for Moroccan converts. Our house churches were illegal gatherings. We lived at the mercy of the police. Any meeting could be raided. Any neighbor could report us.
Foreign Christians had churches.
Moroccan Christians had secrecy, whispers, living rooms, bathtubs, police interrogations, and fear.
And then Muslims lecture the West about âIslamophobia.â
Spare me.
1/2
Four days ago, Amnesty International published a report documenting extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses by Hamas militias against Palestinians in Gaza.
Has anyone seen prominent pro-Palestine voices in the West speak about it?
If not, why? Why is accountability for Hamasâs crimes against Palestinians met with silence from the same people who claim to champion Palestinian human rights?
Or do Palestinian lives matter to them only when Israel is killing them?
On October 7, Eden Nimri (22) bravely confronted Hamas single-handedly. At the time, she was wearing pajamas and stood at the entrance of a bomb shelter, protecting the people inside. She saved 17 girls.
According to a Ynet report, all 17 girls survived safely.
Survivors recounted that when Eden ran out of ammunition, she fought the terrorists unarmed, using only her bare hands.
She sacrificed her life while defending Israel and her friends. Eden was only 22 years old. Her bravery will never be forgotten. Her memory will always remain with us đïž
Dit is een grafiek van de oorlogsslachtoffers in Gaza, op basis van Hamas-cijfers. Ga ervan uit dat alle vrouwen burgerslachtoffers zijn. Ga ervan uit dat er net zoveel mannelijke als vrouwelijke burgerslachtoffers zijn. Dan is de verhouding strijder-burger onder de slachtoffers 1:1,5.
De grootste database ter wereld over zulke situaties is van het Uppsala Conflict Data Program. Die geeft voor conflicten in grote stedelijke gebieden een gemiddelde van 1:2. Een groter percentage burgerslachtoffers dus dan in Gaza.
Dit zou voor altijd voldoende moeten zijn om beschuldigingen van genocide in Gaza van tafel te vegen. Uiteraard kun je erover discussiëren of het gerechtvaardigd is dat Israël tegen Hamas blijft vechten zolang die zich niet overgegeven heeft of ontwapend is. (Voor de duidelijkheid: ik vind het wel.) Maar dat is echt iets anders.
Maar de vrijwel exclusieve aandacht voor deze oorlog; de vrijwel exclusieve morele verontwaardiging over deze oorlog; en vooral het ter verantwoording roepen van niet-Israëlische joden overal ter wereld over deze oorlog: dat is zo diep onlogisch. Dat is antisemitisme.
Ik zie je bruine hemd.
Al-Shifa Hospital: More than a medical facility and the journalists who filmed it
"10:40am on October 7, a large number of vehicles drove through the gates of Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza. These were not ambulances, and they were not transporting wounded terrorists. They were transporting Israeli hostages."
Al-Shifa Hospital was not merely Gazaâs main hospital that day. On the morning of October 7th, it functioned as a Hamas operational hub for receiving, processing and distributing Israeli hostages. Armed fighters were present and crowds celebrated the arrivals.
Video evidence tracks a stolen IDF jeep that left Nahal Oz base with Israeli hostages. It travelled through Gaza, passsed other hospitals and entered the Al-Shifa compound. Approximately 16 different vehicles can be identified. Dozens of hostages, including Naama Levy and Ori Megidish, were transported into Al-Shifa. Armed fighters were visibly present in the hospital at that time.
Seperate footage shows another murdered Israeli hostage, Ran Gvili, being transported by a terrorist on a motorcycle from Kibbutz Alumin to Gaza. The terrorist also arrives at the Al-Shifa compound, where his arrival is once again greeted by a cheering crowd.
Additional video footage also shows what appears to be an ambulance being used to transfer hostages from the hospital to the apartments of their captors. Some of those apartments were later identified as belonging to UNRWA teachers and medical workers.
The use of ambulances by Hamas was not isolated. Throughout the war, Hamas terrorists repeatedly exploited them. In one such case, terrorists Adham and Ismail Hawwas admitted placing Thai and Nepalese agricultural workers into an ambulance and driving them to Al-Shifa Hospital.
Prominent Gaza-based journalists were present and filming at the compound that day. None reported the arrival of Israeli hostages. One, however, falsely portrayed a jeep full of captured Israeli women as "wounded Palestinians" being brought in for medical treatment.
The vehicle convoy, armed presence, cheering crowds and deliberate bypass of a nearer hospital (Al-Ahli) make the non-medical purpose of Al-Shifa clear. The selective silence of Palestinian journalists formed part of the information warfare that obscured these facts on the morning of October 7 and throughout the war that followed.