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(IsraelNN.com) Dr. Uri Davis, who has often termed Israel an "apartheid state" and refused to serve in the IDF, converted to Islam about a week ago and married a Fatah activist in Ramallah. The conversion ceremony involved two oaths in which Davis recognized Allah and the Muslim prophet Mohammed. Davis said he plans to follow the laws of Islam, but not devoutly. The conversion took place in a Moslem religious court in Baka el-Garbiye, an Israeli-Arab town just outside northwestern Samaria (Shomron). Davis's lawyer explained that the Arabs of the Palestinian Authority know him for his great sacrifices on behalf...

“Send regards to Israel, I miss it. I respect Israel and admire it as a country,” - these words are not something you would expect to hear from a Palestinian, let alone someone who grew up in the family that has led the radical and terrorist Islamic ideology of Hamas. But these are the words coming from non other than Masab Yousef - son of one of the leaders of Hamas in the West Bank, Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Masab Yousef - a Christian convert now living in California - in an interview with Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz talks about the “bottom...

A growing number of Christians in Britain from a Muslim background are facing harassment and persecution, warns Release International. They include ‘Yasmin’, whose ex-husband planned to kill her. She’s been attacked in the street, driven from her home and was taken under police protection. Yasmin became a Christian after receiving a vision of Jesus during the difficult birth of her son. She tried to keep her faith a secret from her family, but eventually told her mother. “When my mother found out I had become a Christian she went to the local mosque and told them that I had gone...

Al-Jazeerah Website Synopsis from The American Thinker by James M. Arlandson. This translation of a televised conversation reveals a rare glimpse into the outlook of Muslim scholars who are concerned about Christianity’s growth. The invited guest is Sheikh Ahmad Al Katani; the president of The Companions Lighthouse for the Science of Islamic Law in Libya, which is an institution specializing in graduating imams and Islamic preachers. Katani starts off describing the overall problem: Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa’s main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The...

Pope Benedict XVI said Saturday that the Roman Catholic Church has the indisputable right and duty to convert anyone to Christianity. The Church’s central mission is evangelism, the pope firmly told a Vatican body responsible for encouraging Catholic missionary activity, according to Agence France-Presse. Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospels, called on the conversion of “all nations,” Benedict said,” and this commission remains “an obligatory mandate for the entire Church and for every believer in Christ.” "This apostolic commitment is both a duty and an inalienable right, the very expression of religious freedom with its moral, social and political...

Converts from Islam to Christianity are increasingly concerned about a number of reports in recent months which have cited astounding statistics on conversion. It is true - and a matter for thankfulness to God - that more Muslims are now coming to Christ than at any other time in history. However, they are not converting on the vast scale alleged in some reports. These false reports, often initiated by non-Christians and then circulated by Christians, are a matter of grave concern, not just for those who love truth and accuracy, but also for the many individuals whose lives are being...

There's a widespread belief that the penalty for leaving Islam is death - hence, perhaps, the killing of a British teacher last week. But Shiraz Maher believes attitudes may be softening. Ziya Meral's parents disowned him when he converted from Islam to Christianity. "They said 'go away, you're not our son.' They told people I died in an accident rather than having the shame of their son leaving Islam." Born and raised in Turkey, he decided to convert to Christianity after moving to university. He knew telling his parents would be a difficult moment even though they're not particularly observant...

Cradle Catholics preparing for Easter might not be familiar with one Holy Week celebration: the preparation rites on Saturday morning for those who will be received into the church that evening. Those who will receive sacraments at the Easter Vigil, and the Catholic community that supports them, gather to share stories of their faith journeys. The bishop touches their ears and their lips, symbolizing they hear God’s call and proclaim the Gospel with their lives. Some 700 candidates and catechumens – candidates are Christians baptized in other denominations and catechumens have never been baptized – were received into full communion...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - A former Navy sailor was convicted Wednesday of leaking details about ship movements to suspected terrorism supporters, an act that could have endangered his own crewmates. Jurors convicted Hassan Abu-Jihaad, 32, of Phoenix of providing material support to terrorists and disclosing classified national defense information on the second day of deliberations. The American-born Muslim convert formerly known as Paul R. Hall faces up to 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced in May. His attorney, Dan LaBelle, said an appeal was likely. "We're disappointed with the verdict, but we respect the process. It was...

Author Ed Decker, a former Mormon who has been one of the religion's staunchest critics for decades, says a vast majority of people who convert to Mormonism leave the religion within a year because they realize it's not Christian. Decker's latest book is called My Kingdom Come: A Mormon Quest for Godhood. He says the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sends out about 60,000 volunteer missionaries around the world -- but most of the 300,000 annual converts, he notes, do not stick around. "Eighty percent [of converts] actually leave the Mormon church within the first year," states Decker....

A convert to Islam stands an election victory away from becoming the second Muslim elected to Congress and a role model for a faith community seeking to make its mark in national politics. Political newcomer Andre Carson is the Democratic nominee in a March 11 special election to succeed his late grandmother, Julia Carson, representing Indiana's 7th District. She died in December of lung cancer, and her grandson is seeking to fill out the rest of her sixth term, which expires at year's end. If Andre Carson wins the Democratic-leaning Indianapolis district over a freshman Republican legislator and a long...

Two women who grew up in country New South Wales and converted to Islam decades ago have defended their beliefs in an extraordinary interview to be aired tonight on ABC television. The women, neither of whom have ever faced terrorism-related charges, are speaking on camera for the first time, offering an insight into their lives and their dedication to their religion. They both subscribe to Wahhabism, the strand of Islam followed by Osama bin Laden. The two women defend their religion in the interviews, but know their beliefs make them suspect to non-Muslims. Their movements have also been closely watched...

Terror watch over Muslim prisoners NEWS.com.au, Australia - February 03, 2008 By Paula Doneman Life behind bars for some Muslim prisoners, and those who have converted to Islam after their incarceration, has been monitored...

LONDON -- Former Prime Minister Tony Blair has converted to Catholicism, a long-rumored move, British media reported Saturday. Blair converted during a Mass held on Friday night at a chapel in London, Sky News, the British Broadcasting Corp. and the British news agency Press Association reported, quoting an unidentified spokesman. There had long been rumors that Blair, a member of the Church of England who stepped down as prime minister earlier this year, planned to convert. Blair's wife, Cherie, is Roman Catholic, the couple's children have attended Catholic schools and Blair had habitually attended Catholic rather than Anglican services.

Christian converts risk Muslim attack The issue of apostasy from Islam is beginning to receive mainstream media attention in Britain UK Times Online From The Sunday Times September 16, 2007 By Abul Taher Christian converts risk Muslim attack ONE of Britain’s most senior bishops has warned that a sustained campaign by Muslim extremists to intimidate and attack converts to Christianity risks ending in a murder. Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, says that the persecution of Christian converts from Islam is so widespread that it may be only a matter of time before there is an “honour killing” of a...

BERLIN -- Religious converts are playing an increasingly influential role in Islamic militant networks, having transformed themselves in recent years from curiosities to key players in terrorist cells in Europe, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts... ...The number of converts, it seems, is definitely on the rise," said Michael Taarnby, a terrorism researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies. "We've reached a point where I think al-Qaeda and other groups recognize the value of converts, not just from an operational viewpoint but from a cultural one as well." Religious converts are sometimes more prone to radicalization because of their...

Much as this June's failed terrorist attacks in London and Glasgow focused attention on the participation of doctors and other professionals in jihadist terror, the plot disrupted in Germany this week seems certain to put the spotlight on another key group within violent Islamism: converts. We don't know much thus far about Fritz Gelowicz or Daniel Martin Schneider, the two German converts who were apprehended earlier this week along with Adem Yilmaz, who has been identified as a Turk. Another seven conspirators, about whom very little has been released, are also being hunted. But the hundreds of gallons of concentrated...

Three men have been arrested for planning attacks on Frankfurt's international airport and the U.S. military base in Ramstein, the German Defense Minister said Wednesday. "There was an imminent threat," Franz Josef Jung told Germany's ARD broadcaster. He declined to elaborate. Two of the suspects had German citizenship while the third was Pakistani, Germany's Sudwestrundfunk public broadcaster said. German federal prosecutors said they had arrested three suspected members of "an Islamic motivated terrorist organization." It was not immediately clear whether the three were suspected of having links to al Qaeda. Sudwestrundfunk said the men were arrested Tuesday evening and were...

Three people have been arrested in Germany on suspicion of planning terror attacks. Two of the suspects were Germans who had converted to Islam while the third held Turkish and German passports. The sources said the three all had links to Pakistan and that they had been experimenting with explosives and trying to build car bombs. They were arrested during a series of raids carried out overnight. A German radio station said the suspects had been planning to bomb Frankfurt airport and the US military base at Ramstein in western Germany.

Ferry plots and Filipino Muslim converts By Michelle Malkin  •  August 30, 2007 02:46 PM  The FBI is still sifting through hundreds of tips on the two suspicious men in Seattle whom ferry employees witnessed photographing restricted areas and pacing several ferry routes, “as if trying to measure distances,” over the past several weeks.I have learned that these men have been the subject of much investigative energy within homeland security bureaucracies for quite some time. Indeed, one source told me that until the FBI released the photos of the men, the snapshots had been handled as classified material.Arab-American and Muslim groups...