Last week, a bearded teen of Middle Eastern appearance, armed with a knife and crying Islam’s war cry — “Allahu akbar!” (Allah is greater!) — savagely stabbed an Orthodox Christian clergyman, Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, as he was delivering a sermon from the pulpit of his church in Sydney, Australia. The attack was captured on video as the worship service was livestreaming.
While this incident may strike some as startling, for those in the know, it’s quite common. Off the top of my head, I can think of two separate accounts — both from Egypt — where “radical” Muslims stabbed to death two Orthodox priests in public. (This is to say nothing of the dozens, if not hundreds, of Christians killed by “Allahu akbar”-screaming Muslims on any given month around the world — most in sub-Saharan Africa.)
Nor is the Sydney stabbing surprising in light of a communique issued by the Islamic State (“ISIS”) earlier this year, the title of which paraphrases Koran 9:5: “Kill Them [Non-Muslims] Wherever You Find Them.” In it, the Muslim terror group called on the “Lions of Islam” (Muslims around the world) to terrorize and kill “infidels” — including by “cut[ting] their throats with sharp knives.” It specifically named Christians and Jews, and churches and synagogues, as ideal targets.
In short, the stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari is wholly unsurprising and falls in line with the Muslim stabbings of “infidels” that occur with great regularity around the world — and increasingly so in the Western world. For instance, a Muslim migrant randomly stabbed three toddlers and their babysitter in a Catholic school in Ireland last November; or when, a few days earlier in France, a gang of machete- and knife-wielding Muslims descended on a village festival, where they murdered one 16-year-old boy and seriously wounded nearly 20 others.
A stabbing attack happened during a live stream of an Australian church service.
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) April 15, 2024
Why Are We Even Shocked?
Why the Sydney incident continues to shock people in the West, however, is being brought out in the open by an ongoing quarrel between the Australian regime and X (Twitter).
On April 19, Australian officials ordered X to remove the video evidence of the stabbing in Sydney. X complied, blocking the video within Australia. But such acquiescence was only met with a greater demand — to “globally withhold these posts or face a daily fine of $785,000 AUD (about $500,000 USD).”
In response, X’s Global Government Affairs team said:
While X respects the right of a country to enforce its laws within its jurisdiction, the eSafety Commissioner [of Australia] does not have the authority to dictate what content X’s users can see globally. … Global takedown orders go against the very principles of a free and open internet and threaten free speech everywhere.
Most recently, on April 23, an Australian judge — who thinks his jurisdiction extends to the entire world — ruled that X must block the video from all users around the globe (which includes sovereign American citizens).
“The Australian censorship commissar is demanding *global* content bans!” outraged X owner Elon Musk responded, adding that it is “absurd for any one country to attempt to censor the entire world.”
The crime victim himself, Bishop Mar Mari, has spoken up in support of Musk’s decision:
“I do acknowledge the Australian government’s desire to have the videos removed because of their graphic nature,” Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel said in audio posted on YouTube on Wednesday.
“However, noting our God-given right to freedom of speech, and freedom of religion, I’m not opposed to the videos remaining on social media,” Emmanuel added.
The Only Violence Our Media Won’t Show You
For the record, the brief video is actually quite tame. All that appears is the back of the culprit as he approaches the preaching bishop; then he lunges at and appears to punch him repeatedly —which is what the stabbing motions look like, as the switchblade is not visible (some say it never even opened) and no blood appears to be drawn.
Hollywood treats Western eyes to far more gratuitous violence — not to mention endless filth and garbage — on a daily basis, but no one seems to care about that.
Could it be that it’s not the violence the Australian and other globalists are trying to hide, but rather the sheer facts on display: a Muslim man physically assaulting a Christian while hollering Islamic slogans? Not only is this a more plausible explanation for the Australian regime’s censorship efforts, but the prime minister is giving this interpretation much more credence by condemning the video — sheer, objective fact — as “misinformation” and “disinformation.” In Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s own words:
We know, I think overwhelmingly, Australians want misinformation and disinformation to stop. This isn’t about freedom of expression. This is about the dangerous implications that can occur when things that are simply not true, that everyone knows is not true, are replicated and weaponized in order to cause division and in this case to promote negative statements and potentially to just inflame what was a very difficult situation.
Simply put, the Australian regime wants to delete the video evidence of a Muslim stabbing a Christian lest you see it and naively believe your lying eyes.
The silver lining in this fiasco between Australia and X is that, by not immediately capitulating and daring to resist these globalist demands, X has exposed the sort of censorship that routinely goes on under the radar by governmental bodies and media the world over — especially when it comes to the otherwise unknown pandemic of Muslims persecuting Christians.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West and Sword and Scimitar, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.