January 18, 2012 Opinion: A time for truth by Dexter Van Zile https://www.jewishjournal.com/ opinion/article/a_time_for_truth_20120118/
It is time for another Durban Conference. No, I’m not asking for a repeat of the U.N.-sponsored festival of Jew-hatred that took place in South Africa in 2001. The last thing we need is to have Israel demonized by Islamists and their allies in the West. We do not need another conference where so-called human-rights activists lament the fact that Hitler did not “finish the job” and where Arab lawyers hand out booklets with swastikas superimposed over the Jewish Star of David. What we need is a human rights conference worthy of the name. We need a conference that speaks the truth about the impact of Islamist ideology and Shariah law on human rights, not just in the Middle East, but also in Muslim-majority countries throughout the world. We need a conference where adherents of the Baha’i faith describe the persecution they have endured in Iran. We need a conference where Baha’i leaders tell the world about the destruction of their national center in Iran with pickaxes in 1955. We need a conference where Iran’s leaders are confronted with the executions of more than 200 followers of the Baha’i faith since the Islamic revolution in 1979. We need a conference where Assyrian Christians can tell their story of oppression at the hands of Islamists in Iraq who are trying to drive them out of their homeland. We need a conference where Assyrian Christians can talk about the bombings, the shootings and the abductions they have endured regularly over the past decade. We need a conference where Iraqi Christians, who numbered 1.5 million in 2003 and now number less than 500,000, can explain why they are leaving the country of their birth. They need a chance to make their case for an autonomous province in Iraq where religious and ethnic minorities can gather together against Islamists who are intent on making them disappear. We need a conference where Coptic Christians in Egypt can describe the humiliation and acts of violence they endure daily in their homeland. We need a conference where Coptic Christians can describe the ongoing attacks on their churches and their very lives. We need a conference where Coptic Christians can describe the church bombings, the abductions, the rapes and forced conversions they endure at the hands of Islamists in Egypt. We need a conference where Christians, whose churches have been destroyed in Nigeria and Ethiopia, can describe the attacks they’ve endured at the hands of Islamists. We need a conference where activists from groups like Open Doors, Voice of the Martyrs and Christian Solidarity International can testify to the suffering Christians have endured under Shariah law throughout the world. We need a conference where women who have endured beatings at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan can tell their story. We need a conference where women who have been beaten and punished for refusing to wear burqas can speak of the oppression they have endured. We need a conference where women who have been set on fire or have been splashed with acid by their relatives can tell their story. We need a conference where victims of rape who have been charged with adultery by the police who should have arrested the rapists, can testify to the injustice. We need a conference where Christian men from the Philippines who were castrated after marrying Muslim women can tell their story. We need a conference where gay men and lesbians can speak of the violence they have endured under Islamic regimes throughout the world. It is a time for truth. People of good will throughout the world have a right and an obligation to insist that Muslim leaders of all stripes take an honest look at what is happening in the countries they lead and govern. We need to ask them if this is the type of world a loving God would have us live in.
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