Disgraced Homeland Security Adviser Mohamed Elibiary Scapegoats Egypt's Christians -- Again

Disgraced Homeland Security Adviser Mohamed Elibiary Scapegoats Egypt's Christians -- Again

By Patrick Poole June 25, 2016

In September 2014, members of Congress were informed that disgraced former Homeland Security adviser Mohamed Elibiary was being relieved of his duties after a long series of controversies, including the fact that his tweets cheering the inevitability of an Islamic caliphate were used by ISIS supporters for recruiting purposes. Now Elibiary has gone after Egypt's Coptic Christian community -- again -- after a prominent Coptic businessman expressed support for Donald Trump. Elibiary ominously warned in a tweet today that such support would be "not good 4 Copts in Egypt." This is not the first time that Elibiary has attacked the persecuted Coptic Christian community. In September 2013, Elibiary went after the Coptic Christian community for nurturing anti-Islam and anti-Muslim sentiment just a month after Muslim Brotherhood cadres had burned down 70+ Coptic churches in Egypt: Remarkably, this incitement came only three days after his appointment by DHS as a Homeland Security fellow. Those comments brought condemnation from Coptic authorities, including the revered Bishop Angaelos in the UK (just recently knighted by Queen Elizabeth), who expressed his astonishment that an official from the Obama administration would promote such bigotry and invite further attacks by Muslims against Christians: Coptic Christians are not the only ones he attacks for his claims they promote "Islamophobia." Just last September he went after the embattled Chaldean Christians in Iraq and Syria who are actively persecuted by the Islamic State. Elibiary is content to scapegoat Jews, too, equating arguments in favor of the Jewish state of Israel with those by ISIS for the Islamic State caliphate. It is somewhat ironic that Elibiary, who in December 2004 spoke at a conference honoring virulently anti-American Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini (an event which the Dallas Morning News editorialized as a "disgrace"), would be throwing around terms like "Coptic Fascism," but consistency has never been one of his strong suits. And by going after the group Coptic Solidarity for the statement of Naguib Sawiris, and then warning that Sawiris' comments would be bad for the Coptic Christians in Egypt, he is engaging in the very collective guilt that he so often rails against: In a moment of perfect lack of self-awareness, Elibiary eschewed collective responsibility while simultaneously engaging in it.