US Christian Right Delegation Meets Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi

Participants included General William “Jerry” Boykin

From Haaretz:

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi met on Wednesday with a group of leading evangelical Christian activists from the United States at his office in Cairo, where they discussed the fight against ISIS, the prospects for peace between Israel and the Arab world and the situation of Christians in Egypt and elsewhere in the region.

…The meeting was initiated by Joel Rosenberg, an evangelical activist and author who lives in Jerusalem. Rosenberg participated in a meeting that Sissi held earlier this year in Washington, D.C., with experts on the Middle East, leaders of Jewish organizations and former senior U.S. government officials.

…A number of the participants in the meeting on Wednesday are members of President Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Council, and Rosenberg is considered close to Vice President Mike Pence.

Rosenberg, who is of partly Jewish heritage, has formerly worked for Rush Limbaugh, Steve Forbes and Benjamin Netanyahu. In recent years he has made his name as the author of apocalyptic Christian novels such as The Ezekiel Option, “a political thriller about the threat of a Russian-Iranian alliance to destroy Israel based on the Biblical prophecies found in the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 38 and 39.” Here he can be heard in friendly conversation with the anti-Islam activist and conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney.

American participants at the meeting also included General William “Jerry” Boykin and Mike D. Evans. According to Boykin on Facebook:

The meeting tackled ways to confront terrorism. The President affirmed that it will only be achieved through collective action and the adoption by the international community of a multi-pronged strategy. All elements and parties supporting terrorist organizations will be dealt with, in order to stop providing shelter, weapons, training camps or funding. The President also stressed the importance of supporting efforts to restore stability in the region and to consolidate national institutions with their countries, in order to fill the vacuum that provides an opportunity for the growth of terrorism.

It is difficult to reconcile this with Boykin’s history of blanket condemnations of Islam, and his associations with the likes of Kamal Saleem.

Evans, meanwhile, has since issued a statement:

Please pray for Mr. el-Sisi and his team. They are courageously fighting a winner-take-all-battle against Radical Islamist terrorists. They are working to stabilize a country that was going up in flames under the hellish tyranny of the Muslim brotherhood. They are determined to rebuild a shattered economy, safeguard all Egyptians (including the nation’s Coptic Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians), rebuild churches destroyed or damaged during the Arab Spring, maintain the peace treaty with Israel and rebuild the U.S.-Egyptian alliance deeply damaged under President Obama.

Oddly, Evans does not ask us to pray for Ibrahim Metwally Hegazy, the Egyptian lawyer currently in custody for investigating enforced disappearances in the country. Like Rosenberg, Evans is of Jewish heritage and based in Jerusalem; his works include Showdown with Nuclear Iran: Radical Islam’s Messianic Mission to Destroy Israel and Cripple the United States, which was written with the assistance of the birther Jerome Corsi.

Also present, among others, was Egyptian-American pastor Michael Youssef; his website has an account.

In September, Human Rights Watch reported that

Under President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s regular police and National Security officers routinely torture political detainees with techniques including beatings, electric shocks, stress positions, and sometimes rape.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has the full list, which also includes Michele Bachmann:

American evangelical attendees, according to a photo of the event, were Joel Rosenberg, an American writer who lives in Jerusalem; retired U.S. Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin, deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence in the second Bush administration; Family Research Council President Tony Perkins; San Diego pastor Jim Garlow; Florida pastor Mario Bramnick; Middle East commentator Michael Evans; communications executive Larry Ross; political activist Robert Vander Plaats; Campus Crusade for Christ Global Leadership Vice President Dela Adadevoh; former congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.); Egyptian American Atlanta pastor Michael Youssef; and [California pastor and public affairs executive Johnnie] Moore.

One Response

  1. That is very creepy

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