ISIS hit on Coptic Christians leaves Egypt in emergency

OPINION:

Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, declared three days of mourning, and three months of national emergency, in the wake of the ISIS terror strikes on Coptic Christians while they worshipped in church services for Palm Sunday.

Sisi also said his country would be forming a supreme council to fight terrorism and extremism, and that Egypt was committed to unity. That’s nice. But is ISIS?

Let’s be real here. When’s the last time an Islamic terrorist came forward to embrace the concept of religious diversity?

Or, put another way, does the Koran stutter?

“The [Koran] contains at least 109 verses that call Muslims to war with nonbelievers for the sake of Islamic rule,” the website, The Religion of Peace, reports. “Unfortunately, there are very few versus of tolerance and peace to balance out the many that call for nonbelievers to be fought and subdued until they either accept humiliation, convert to Islam or are killed.”

In the case of the Coptic Christians — 49 of them, as the death count rose on Monday — guess it was Door No. 3, “are killed,” for them.

But a tweet from Egypt’s government, post church bombing, read: “As we grieve the tragic & heartbreaking loss of Egyptian lives, it is still a failed attempt against our unity.”

And Sisi’s statement, in part, read: “The attack will not undermine the resolve and true will of the Egyptian people to counter the forces of evil, but will only harden their determination to move forward on their trajectory to realize security, stability and comprehensive development.”

Now take those, and consider this, from ISIS.

The terror group more attacks, they are a’coming.

“The Crusaders and their apostate followers must be aware that the bill between us and them is very large, and they will be paying it like a river of blood from their sons, if God is willing,” CNN reported, citing the group’s statement, as translated from Arabic to English.

That came after the bloody scenes of the attack made the media wave. The attack was two-fold: A pre-planted bomb tore through Palm Sunday service at St. George’s Church in Tanta, killing 27, wounding 78. Shortly after, a suicide bomber detonated at St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Alexandria. The images and videos were horrific — chaos, blood, body parts, lost souls wandering and desperately asking for their family members.

Here’s a statement from one churchgoer, interviewed by CNN: “We were just singing and suddenly in a blink of [an] eye, smoke, fire everywhere. I didn’t realize what’s happening until I saw blood and organs of our friends scattered over the ground.”

And then this, from the same guy, a notable reflection of the realities of Islam and Christianity, coexisting in peace: “I was shocked [at the attacks]. But I’m not angry because … we’re used to it here in Egypt. … Every church in Egypt just prepares for this. Everyone knows that some time you will get bombed, you will be killed.”

And with that, declaring a state of emergency and doubling down on the need for “comprehensive development” suddenly seems very useless.