RUTHFULLY YOURS

CAIRO—A gun attack on a church near Egypt’s capital killed at least nine people and wounded five others early Friday, officials said, the latest in a string of assaults targeting the Christian minority.

The assailant, armed with an explosive device and a machine gun, fired at the entrance of Saint Mina Coptic Church in Helwan, a southern suburb of Cairo, as he tried to cross a security barricade to enter the house of worship, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

Security forces arrested the perpetrator after shooting him, preventing further deaths, the interior ministry said, noting that the assailant is an active extremist who has taken part in previous assaults.

Islamic State on Friday claimed responsibility for the assault on the church. In a statement posted by its media arm Amaq, the extremist group said the attack was carried out by “covert units” but didn’t give any details.

The surge in militancy, especially against Coptic Christians, has triggered rare criticism against Presidential Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, even from Copts who make up some of his staunchest supporters. Egypt’s Christians make up about 10% of the country’s more than 90 million population.

The former military chief vowed to wipe out militancy when he ran for office in 2014, and continues to project himself as a regional bulwark against terrorism ahead of next year’s presidential race. But a yearslong crackdown on Islamist supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi has only bolstered the insurgents.

The attack comes amidst ramped-up security measures by authorities around churches ahead of Coptic Christmas celebrations, which take place in early January. The largest religious minority in Egypt has suffered a sharp increase in attacks from extremists, including twin bomb attacks on Palm Sunday in April and one at Cairo’s main Coptic Christian cathedral compound last December that left dozens dead.

The Arab world’s most populous nation is grappling with an uptick in terror strikes, with militants targeting security forces and civilians in recent months. Hundreds were killed and injured last month when gunmen armed with explosives attacked a Sufi-linked mosque in Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula, the deadliest assault in the country’s modern history. Sufi rituals are deemed heretical by extremists. CONTINUE AT SITE

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia in 2017 laid the groundwork for momentous change next year, defying its conservative reputation for slow, cautious reforms by announcing plans to let women drive, allow movie theaters to return and to issue tourist visas. The kingdom could even get a new king.

King Salman and his ambitious 32-year-old son and heir, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, have upended decades of royal family protocol, social norms and traditional ways of doing business. They bet instead on a young generation of Saudis hungry for change and a Saudi public fed up with corruption and government bureaucracy.

Here’ a look at the major pivots of the past year and the reforms to come in 2018:

___

WOMEN START DRIVING

In a surprise late-night announcement, Saudi Arabia announced in September that it would finally lift a ban on women driving , becoming the last country in the world to allow women to get behind the wheel. Activists had been arrested for driving since 1990, when the first driving campaign was launched by women who drove cars in the capital, Riyadh.

In June, the kingdom plans to begin issuing licenses to women, even allowing them to drive motorcycles, according to local reports. It will be a huge change for women who have had to rely on costly male drivers or male relatives to get to work or school or to run errands and visit friends.

In 2018, women will also be allowed to attend sporting matches in national stadiums, where they were previously banned. Designated “family sections” will ensure women are separate from male-only quarters of the stadiums. The crown prince tested public reaction to the move when he allowed women and families into the capital’s main stadium for National Day celebrations this year.

___

MOVIE THEATERS RETURN

After more than 35 years, movie theaters are returning to the kingdom. They were shut down in the 1980s during a wave of ultraconservatism. Many Saudi clerics view Western movies and even Arabic films as sinful.

The first theaters are expected to open in March. Previously, Saudis could stream movies online or watch them on satellite TV. To attend a cinema, though, they would have to travel to neighboring countries like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

The opening of cinemas will give families and young Saudis another way to kill time as the crown prince introduces more entertainment options to encourage local spending.

___

CONCERTS AND COMIC-CON

This past year, rapper Nelly and two Games of Thrones stars came to Saudi Arabia for the first time. John Travolta also visited the kingdom, meeting with fans and talking to them about the U.S. film industry.

It’s a notable shift from just a few years ago, when the religious police — known as the Muttawa — would shoo women out of malls for wearing bright nail polish, insist restaurants turn off music and break up gatherings where unrelated men and women were mixing.

The practice of substituting political correctness for scholarship, namely educating the public in the West about actual the contents of Islam, has become so prevalent that it is undermining our ability to recognize, let alone rectify, any problems.

“Some prominent scientists and philosophers have stated openly that moral and political considerations should influence whether we accept or promulgate scientific theories… [M]isrepresenting findings in science to achieve desirable social goals will ultimately harm both science and society.” — Nathan Cofnas, writing in the journal Foundations of Science.

Many people who need structure prefer every activity proscribed for them. In addition, many people with sadistic wishes might be lured by being given permission to act on these wishes; and not only that, but they are told that these acts are, indeed, obligatory and good, and that the person acting on them is, in the view of many Islamic tenets, heroic.

Responding to findings of a recent study on what motivates both ISIS fighters and those who combat them, Arie W. Kruglanski, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Maryland and former co-director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said:

“The ideology component addresses individuals’ need to matter and feel significant. … It tells people what to do, such as fight and make sacrifices, in order to gain respect and admiration from others.”

Kruglanski, whose 2014 article, “Psychology Not Theology: Overcoming ISIS’ Secret Appeal,” argues that religion (in this instance, Islam) plays a smaller part in what makes terrorists tick than “the [human] need for… personal significance.” He added:

“Especially when it comes to violence that is shunned by most religions and most cultures, you need validation from a group of people that would then become your reference group. So the group component is very important, particularly when it comes to antisocial activities that are forbidden or shunned.”

Domestically and internationally, President Trump finished 2017 in dramatic fashion. Obtaining the most sweeping tax cuts in 30-plus years (and repealing ObamaCare’s most philosophically oppressive aspect, the individual mandate) was a landmark achievement. And, by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, then suggesting major changes in U.S. funding of the United Nations, he disrupted foreign-policy conventional wisdom on both the Middle East and “global governance.”

The administration’s national security strategy, published this month, centered its foreign policy in the conservative mainstream, but there is little time for complacency. On Inauguration Day, the president inherited acute dangers and longer-range strategic challenges, ignored or mishandled for years. While Trump has emphasized his intention to reverse course, the national security agencies have a mixed record in actually following his lead. Events in 2018 could well determine whether America resumes control of its international fate, or whether it continues to be buffeted by threats it could overcome but chooses not to.

In this article today, we review the administration’s 2017 record and 2018 prospects in three critical near-term areas: Middle East turmoil, international terrorism, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Tomorrow, we consider the longer-term risks posed by China and Russia, and the overarching issue of U.S. sovereignty.

Trump’s Jerusalem decision had the virtue of recognizing reality and simultaneously erasing libraries of arid scholasticism on the “Middle East peace process.” The long-predicted violent reaction by the “Arab Street” largely failed to materialize, despite palpable efforts by Turkey’s President Erdogan and Tehran’s ayatollahs to foment trouble. And the inevitable efforts in the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly were essentially charades, ritualistic theater that now makes even the participants weary. The lasting consequences of bashing America in New York will more likely be felt within the United Nations, as we will see tomorrow, rather than in the Middle East.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are undergoing sweeping changes, the full dimensions of which cannot yet be confidently predicted. These changes have, in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s view, opened prospects for resolving the Palestinian and broader regional issues heretofore beyond reach. The behind-the-scenes White House peace initiative, also unconventional, has given the foreign policy establishment a case of the vapors.

While the world is in a dither about America recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, it is, predictably, totally unconcerned about the constant and ongoing practice of “legally or culturally enforced discrimination and/or persecution based on a person’s race or national identity” – to wit, apartheid – in the Muslim world. Consider that:

Arab League states discriminate against and exclude Palestinians because of their national identity.
Palestinian refugees have been denied citizenship for two generations or more in Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.
Palestinians have been expelled from many Middle Eastern countries – e.g., Kuwait, Jordan, Libya, and Iraq.
In Lebanon, Palestinians must live in designated areas, cannot own homes, and are barred from 70 occupations.

And yet, every year, universities across America host Israel Apartheid Week despite the fact that “Israel actually is the only apartheid-free state in the Middle East – a state whose Arab population enjoys full equality before the law and more prerogatives than most ethnic minorities in the free world, from the designation of Arabic as an official language to the recognition of non-Jewish religious holidays as legal days of rest.”

Contrast this with the fact that Muslim religiously based apartheid continues, since “Muslims historically view themselves as superior to all others and consider non-Muslims or kuffars as dhimmis.” Thus, Christians, Jews, and Bahá’í remain second-class citizens throughout the Muslim world. Racism is rampant in the Arab world, and “Africans of sub-Saharan descent are held in deep contempt, a vestige of the region’s historical role as epicenter of the international slave trade.”

And while Palestinian refugees are championed by the Arab world, they are treated like outcasts. Khaled Abu Toameh writes, “[I]t was revealed that the Iraqi government has approved a new law that effectively abolishes the rights given to Palestinians living there. The new law changes the status of Palestinians from nationals to foreigners.” In sum, “[t]he hypocrisy of the Arab countries is in full swing. While they pretend to show solidarity with their Palestinian brothers, Arab governments work tirelessly to ethnically cleanse them. Palestinian leaders, meanwhile[,] care nothing about the plight of their own people in Arab countries. They are much too busy inciting Palestinians against Israel and Trump[.]”