Two young boys ordered to take a school test that would result in their conversion to Islam wrote, "I am Christian," on the exam papers, knowing in advance that could very well spell the end of their educations. Now a U.S.-based organization is lobbying for international pressure on Egypt to quit forcing Christians into such no-win situations.

"What brought the case to the public attention is the categorical refusal of the two kids to pass the Islamic exams and convert to Islam, stating, 'they will not deny their Christianity and convert to Islam no matter what it would cost them,'" Sam Grace, a spokesman for Coptic News said. --from this news item

$60 billion from American taxpayers, to a regime and a Muslim population that has systematically discriminated against, persecuted, even violently attacked, Copts -- whose ancestors were there before the Arabs arrived with Islam -- and that has failed to meet a single one of its solemn commitments under the Camp David Accords (while Israel scrupulously handed over, as it never should have, all of the Sinai), and instead of fulfilling its promise to encourage friendly relations, at every level, public and private, with the government and people of Israel (phrases devoutly sought, eagerly welcomed, by the naive Israeli negotiators, sentimental Begin at their head, who were beaten about by Carter, Brzezinski, and Saint Sadat, so prematurely sanctified).

And now $13 billion in the most advanced arms, including aircraft with systems the Israelis have pleaded with the American government in the past never to supply to Egypt (what was it the Israelis did when we asked them to cancel their sale of aircraft to China, far less of an immediate military threat to the United States than Egypt always has been, and always will be, to Israel? Didn't Israel, at great cost to its aerospace industry, cancel the sale at once?), is supposed to go to this malevolent regime, in this distinctly unfriendly country.

Let's take a vote. Let's ask Copts in this country if they think the Muslims of Egypt, and the Mubarak Family-and-Friends Regime, deserves such aid, and such weaponry? Let's ask if that weaponry is likely to be taken as a sign of disapproval of the mistreatment of the Copts, or instead as a sign that the Egyptian Muslims can get away with anything.

And let's ask ourselves if we think that the $13 billion in advanced weaponry is about "defending themselves against the Iranian threat"? How's that? Are the Iranians going to march right over Israel and invade Egypt? Will Shi'a clerics be parachuted into Egypt and without anyone doing a thing, simply start to successfully convert tens of millions of Sunnis who are distinctly hostile to Shi'a Islam (remember the remarks of Mubarak about the "treacherous" Shi'a? Or have you, like Rice and Bush, apparently decided to pretend that we just have to give the Egyptians something for all the wonderful things they have done for us as a force of "stability" and "moderation" and really, the only way to properly express our appreciation is to supply them with rockets, planes, missiles, all the other things the Egyptian Army, which was the deadly enemy of Israel in four separate wars, will somehow employ or keep in readiness to employ against that Iranian "Shi'a crescent" that apparently waxes inexorably, and will never, for any reason, wane.