UNRWA condemns the terrible terrorist attack on the church in Hmoud. We mourn those killed and wish the injured a swift recovery. We stand with our host nation Jordan. Places of worship must be sanctuaries of peace and safety. Attacks on civilians and religious sites are indefensible. The international community must do everything to support peace, tolerance, and respect for the rights and faiths of all.

 Dr. Omar Suleiman

@omarsuleiman

Muslims and Christians in Jordan have shared neighborhoods, friendships, joys, and sorrows for generations. This horrific attack violates that shared history and the sanctity of innocent life. May Allah comfort the grieving and heal the wounded. 

 

No innocent civilian should ever feel unsafe in a mosque, church, synagogue, or any place of worship, anywhere. Period. 

 

But I can’t help but question how “ISIS” repeatedly emerges at the worst moments with its savagery to tear our societies apart and feed the worst narratives that get turned into perpetual cycles of crimes against humanity.   https://x.com/omarsuleiman/status/2113691837458464820

 

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UNRWA

 

@UNRWA

UNRWA condemns the terrible terrorist attack on the church in Hmoud. We mourn those killed and wish the injured a swift recovery. We stand with our host nation Jordan. 

 

Places of worship must be sanctuaries of peace and safety. Attacks on civilians and religious sites are indefensible. 

 

The international community must do everything to support peace, tolerance, and respect for the rights and faiths of all.  https://x.com/UNRWA/status/2113959186925076503

 

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Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem

 

@LPJerusalem

بيان استنكاري وتعزية صادر عن البطريركية اللاتينية الأورشليمية بشأن الاعتداء الإرهابي على الكنيسة في بلدة حمود – الكرك. 

 

Statement of Condemnation and Condolences issued by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem regarding the terrorist attack on the church in the town of Hamoud – Al-Karak  https://x.com/LPJerusalem/status/2113689194828644731

 

Statement of Condemnation and Condolences issued by the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem,
regarding the terrorist attack on the church in the town of Hamoud – Al-Karak

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His faithful ones." (Psalm 116:15)

It is with profound sadness and heavy hearts that we received news this afternoon of the merciless terrorist attack targeting the Greek Orthodox Church in the town of Hammoud, Karak. This crime has resulted in fatalities and injuries, violating the sanctity of a place of worship and infringing upon the fundamental human right to life, security, and the freedom to worship with dignity. We condemn this cowardly terrorist act in the strongest possible terms. We extend our deepest condolences and heartfelt sympathy to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, to the residents of Hammoud, and to all our brothers and sisters affected by this grave tragedy. We also offer our prayers to God for the swift recovery of the injured, for patience and solace to be granted to the families of the victims, and for Jordan and its people to be protected from all evil and harm.

In this context, we affirm our profound pride in the historical and national role played by the Hashemite family—led by His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Al Hussein ibn Abdullah II—in consolidating the values ​​of moderation and tolerance, upholding human dignity, and safeguarding the freedom to practice religious rites.

We further emphasize that the national cohesion of the Jordanian people serves as a vital safeguard against terrorism, extremism, and any attempts to sow division or discord. Jordanians—both Muslims and Christians—form a single national family, united by a shared history and a common destiny, bound together by ties of affection, belonging, and loyalty to their land and their leadership. Moreover, we express our full support for the security services and all those tasked with pursuing the perpetrators who sought to undermine the social peace—a peace in which we have always taken great pride.

In concluding this statement, we offer our prayers to God Almighty, asking Him to enfold the martyrs in His boundless mercy, grant their families solace and patience, and bring healing to the wounded. We pray that He may protect His Majesty King Abdullah II ibn Al-Hussein and his loyal Crown Prince, preserve the blessings of security and stability in Jordan, and safeguard its people from all harm. May this ordeal serve as an occasion to renew our commitment to national unity and coexistence—standing united as one against any who would seek to undermine the security of our homeland or compromise its unity.

May God protect Jordan—its leadership and its people—sustain the blessings of peace and harmony, and ensure that love and brotherhood remain stronger than terrorism and hatred.  https://www.lpj.org/en/news/statement-of-condemnation-and-condolences-regarding-the-terrorist

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☧ Milad ܝܠܕܐ

@PalCatholic

 

Translated from Arabic

Churches in Ramallah, Jerusalem, and Bethlehem ring their bells for the souls of the victims of the terrorist operation at Karak Church in Jordan 🇯🇴🇵🇸☦️✝️.

 

☧ Milad ܝܠܕܐ

@PalCatholic

 

Translated from Arabic

The King of Jordan, who went down to visit the injured and who took the terrorist incident with utmost seriousness and resolve, dealing with it swiftly without any sugarcoating of reality and refusing to let it pass as if it were nothing, deserves all respect and appreciation. In the hope that the rest of the rulers of Arab countries learn what it means to uphold the dignity of a citizen.

عبدالله بن الحسين

@KingAbdullahII

·

22h

Translated from Arabic

We will confront the terrorist act that targeted Karak with the harshest penalties. And whoever imagines that the bullets of treachery can divide the ranks of Jordanians will fail in his endeavor before our steadfastness and unity. All Jordanians, from the north of the homeland

 

 

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"There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism."

Zohran Mamdani after the ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary of the September 11 2001 attacks in New York, 11 September 2026. Photograph: Adam Gray/Reuters

 

The US right still paints Muslims as the ‘enemy’. But they are fighting for a brighter future for Americans

Progressive politicians such as Zohran Mamdani offer answers to the bitter post-9/11 legacy of failures at home and abroad 

Nesrine Malik

Mon 14 Sep 2026

Twenty-five years after 9/11, two pieces of journalism, describing two different phenomena in contemporary New York, tell us a great deal about a city, and indeed a world, caught between two eras. In one, New York Magazine dives into “Habibi City”, a New York where a “cultural shift is underway, led by a generation of New Yorkers coming into its own”. This new generation is labelled as originating in “SWANA” – south-west Asia and north Africa, a region that “includes countries from Palestine to Iran to Sudan”. In the other, Vanity Fair describes calls for Zohran Mamdani to not attend the 9/11 memorial ceremony as partly founded in “inchoate, emotional” impulses, that see “the city’s first Muslim mayor as a stand-in for the 19 Muslims who hijacked four planes and turned them into deadly weapons, part of the ‘them’ who attacked ‘us’.”

Together they capture what has changed over a generation, and what remains stubbornly the same. Members of a diaspora of Muslim background are indeed breaking through and accumulating, as New York Magazine says, “clout”. They are no longer simply a fixture of bodegas and halal carts, but of Saturday Night Live, upmarket dining, entertainment and politics too. Mamdani is both the expression of that cohort and the catalyst of its recognition as an emerging force. They care deeply for their local communities but also for those in Gaza and beyond.

I use the descriptor “of Muslim background” rather than “Muslim” because this diasporic identity is a diverse one that is rooted in a religion but expands to encompass everyone from the practising to those for whom Islam is a cultural totem.The capaciousness of this heritage is demonstrable in its integration – without compromise – into mainstream American society. Mamdani and the Democratic Senate nominee for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed, recuse themselves from the rote fealty to American glory and dare to point out both US support for Israel and the calamitous outcomes of the “war on terror” in the Middle East.

This is the result of this new generation of Americans coming from an immigrant background that has cultivated a less parochial and supremacist view of the US. There is something historically inevitable in this. Immigration from countries and backgrounds against which the US has waged military and ideological war eventually yields not a cowed assimilation, but a sort of political cosmopolitanism – kryptonite for American exceptionalism.... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/14/9-11-anniversary-islamophobia-us-politics-zohran-mamdani

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"Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed are probably today’s most visible Muslim American politicians. What makes them noteworthy is not just their obvious communication skills, but their deliberate attention to policies that enhance the public good for all."

‘What makes Mamdani and El-Sayed noteworthy is not just their obvious communication skills but their deliberate attention to policies that enhance the public good for all.’ Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

9/11 entrenched Islamophobia in US politics. But it doesn’t work the way you think

Anti-Muslim sentiment is used as a political weapon. Meanwhile, Muslim American leaders are making a difference for all 

 Moustafa Bayoumi in The Guardian 

Fri 11 Sep 2026 

It’s been 25 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11, and during this time Muslim Americans have learned how to live in that dangerous space between other Americans’ fears and their ignorance.

The fear was clear from the beginning. Immediately following 9/11, Muslim Americans faced what Human Rights Watch called “a severe wave of backlash violence”. A tide of hate rose up against ordinary Muslims and those who appeared to be Muslim, including at least three murders in the immediate backlash after the attacks. The federal government, for its part, began targeting Muslim immigrants in a massive surge of repression that legal experts soon compared to the Palmer Raids of the 1920s.

The ignorance was just as evident. Even Oprah Winfrey did her part to allay it, dedicating an episode of her show in October 2001 to “Islam 101”. The Qur’an leapt on to the New York Times bestseller list that fall. Yet despite these early efforts at education, most Americans still learned little about Islam and Muslims. One 2006 study found that only a third of those polled realized that Muslims worship the same God as Christians and Jews do. Close to 10% of respondents thought Muslims worship a “moon god”.

Much of this fear and ignorance has continued unevenly over the last quarter century, with negative attitudes towards Muslim Americans softening at times and hardening, sometimes into deadly violence, at other times. What’s interesting is when expressions of these attitudes happen. It turns out that predicting when animosity to Muslims will rise and fall may not be quite what you think.

Researchers who study Islamophobia discovered several years ago that anti-Muslim outbreaks in the United States don’t follow highly publicized acts of terrorism. Rather, Islamophobic incidents tend to cluster more routinely around our election cycles.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/sep/11/9-11-islamophobia-us-politics

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"The headline is incredibly misleading. It completely reverses the point I was making. Rather than highlighting my explicit distinction between Zionist organizations and Jewish partners in justice, it collapses that distinction and leaves readers with the false impression that I accused British Jews collectively of complicity in Israel’s crimes. This is precisely the kind of framing that has made speaking about Palestine so difficult for so many years. It is not only manipulative; it fuels the false narrative that criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews." Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac - Jul 23, 2026

 When Headlines Distort the Truth

What The Telegraph Got Wrong About My Response

Munther Isaac

Jul 23, 2026

“Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac is Director of the Bethlehem of Institute for Peace and Justice and co-author of Kairos Palestine II.

I was recently approached by The Telegraph, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, to comment on the Church of England’s recent decision to receive and engage with Kairos Palestine II, among other Palestinian Christian documents. I was also asked to respond to the criticism directed at the Church by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. 

 

READ THE LETTER 

Now notice something important. I clearly distinguished between those promoting Zionism and the many Jewish voices working for justice. In fact, I explicitly called on churches to listen to and amplify those Jewish voices. That distinction was not incidental—it was central to my response.

So what did The Telegraph do with it? It published the following headline: “British Jews complicit in Israel crimes, say Palestinian Christians.”

That is simply not what I said. It is not what Kairos Palestine II says. It is not what Palestinian Christians are saying.

The headline is incredibly misleading. It completely reverses the point I was making. Rather than highlighting my explicit distinction between Zionist organizations and Jewish partners in justice, it collapses that distinction and leaves readers with the false impression that I accused British Jews collectively of complicity in Israel’s crimes.

This is precisely the kind of framing that has made speaking about Palestine so difficult for so many years. It is not only manipulative; it fuels the false narrative that criticism of Israel is criticism of Jews.

Our position has been clear and consistent. The problem is not Jews. The problem is not Judaism. The problem is support for oppression, occupation, apartheid, and now genocide—whether that support comes from Jews, Christians, Muslims, or anyone else.

Likewise, those standing for justice include Jews, Christians, Muslims, and people of no faith. As I said in my response, and as Kairos Palestine II explicitly affirms, we welcome and encourage partnership with Jewish voices committed to truth and justice.

Perhaps most troubling of all, this kind of reporting distracts attention from the real issue. Instead of engaging with the catastrophe unfolding in Gaza, or with the overwhelming evidence presented by international legal, human rights, and medical bodies, the conversation is redirected toward a manufactured controversy... READ MORE https://bipj.substack.com/p/when-headlines-distort-the-truth?r=62vmcy&triedRedirect=true

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In a political wasteland dominated by billionaires, war criminals and mega-corporations, the head of the Catholic church is a rare figure of moral leadership

Pope Leo presides over mass at Vatican City, 29 June 2026. Photograph: Maria Grazia Picciarella/Shutterstock

Simon Tisdall: "Leo is not just talk. He has a plan. Presiding over a “consistory” – a rare gathering of all the Catholic church’s cardinals – in Rome last weekend, he sought to tighten up the just-war theory of St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas that is frequently hijacked to legitimise so-called preventive wars of choice. Leo argues war is only morally justified for “proportional self-defence”, and only after all peaceful options are exhausted. “War is never worthy of humanity, and it is never blessed by God,” he told the cardinals. “War is not merely a conflict between states”, but originates in “a culture of power”. The world must “rebuild a culture of cooperation”.

This struggle for the soul of today’s newly adversarial world order has drawn in Islamic and Jewish religious leaders and thinkers as well as other Christian denominations. Sarah Mullally, the newly enthroned archbishop of Canterbury, defiantly urged “faithful resistance” to Israel’s expanding occupation when meeting Palestinian Christians in the West Bank last month. The international community had a “moral responsibility” to relieve profound suffering there and in Gaza, she wrote in a pastoral letter – and the time to act was now. Middle East conflicts were “symptomatic of a deeper political and spiritual crisis – an abandonment of international law and an increasing recurrence of military force”.

It’s not necessary to be a person of faith to value truth, justice and human decency" .... READ MORE   https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/05/world-leaders-immorality-pope-leo-war-criminals-corporations-catholic-church

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The immorality of world leaders is contagious. Thank heavens for the pope