"Israel ... Ensures That Jews Will Never Find Themselves in the Same Boat as the Abandoned & Hapless Christians"

Image credit: http://www.catholicherald.co.uk

Entitled " Jews Condemned Whilst Christians Are Decimated & Dispersed",  this is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:


As the war between Israel and Hamas enters its fourth week [a 72-hour ceasfire has of course just come into being] , the frenzied condemnation of Israel for exercising its inherent right of self-defence continues to dominate the media coverage of the conflict.

Ishaan Tharoor writing in the Washington Post wonders why:

 “The world is transfixed by the conflict in Gaza, as the death tolls of both Palestinians and Israelis killed in the fighting continue to rise. It has animated global public opinion and sparked protests in myriad far-flung cities.

But as the rockets and bombs fall, a deadlier war next door rolls on. The Syrian civil war has claimed 170,000 lives in three years; this past weekend’s death toll in Syria was greater than what took place in Gaza. By some accounts, the past week may have been the deadliest in the conflict’s grim history. Meanwhile, the extremist insurgents of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), have continued their ravages over a swath of territory stretching from eastern Syria to the environs of Baghdad, Iraq’s capital; the spike in violence in Iraq has led to more than 5,500 civilian deaths in the first six months of this year."

 M. D. Harmon writing in the Portland Herald criticises this media blockout:

“Why should it matter if a nearly 2,000-year-old way of life practiced by millions is being exterminated and no one will do anything to halt it?Perhaps because it teaches a wider lesson about what the civilized world faces when it confronts rampant Islamic extremism.

In much of Iraq and Syria today, millions of Christians, whose ancestral presence there predates current Muslim majorities by centuries, are being scrubbed out of their homes.

But, while some in the wider church and the media are paying attention, getting war-weary Western nations to take effective action seems impossible. Even humanitarian aid isn’t being widely discussed.”

 The newly-declared Islamic State (IS) – which includes Mosul – Iraq’s second largest city – already exceeds the area of Great Britain.

Sharia law has been imposed in Mosul – where Christians have lived since shortly after the death of Christ.

Christians were given 24 hours to leave Mosul or convert to Islam and pay a tax – or die.

The letter “N” (for “Nazarene”) has been daubed on Christian homes to denote they are available for looting or destruction.

BBC News reported on 28 July:

 “A senior Christian cleric in Iraq, Patriarch Louis Sako, estimated that before the advance of IS, Mosul had a Christian community of 35,000 – compared with 60,000 prior to 2003.

According to the UN, just 20 families from the ancient Christian minority now remain in the city, which Isis has taken as the capital of its Islamic state.”

 Harmon poses this question:

 “Across the Middle East, a long history of hard-won co-existence faces extinction from a belief system devoted to domination, and this time in control of an “Islamic state.” Will it again strike us directly, as it did 13 years ago this Sept. 11?”

 Nuri Kino – reporting on Fox News – confirms the tragic situation in Syria and identifies those engaged in persecuting these ancient Christian communities:

 “Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, also has been nearly emptied of Assyrians, Armenians and other non-Muslims…

… The prideful tone in which the perpetrators speak whenever I have interviewed them –both Al Qaeda and IS —- is equally shocking. These are mostly disgruntled young men who were teetering on the edges of society in their own homelands, often in European suburbs, and now believe they have the power to do whatever they want in the name of Islam. They can claim any house in IS-controlled areas of Iraq and Syria as their own, and tell the owners to either leave or risk being killed. They can take any woman as their wife…

… At least 700, 000 non-Muslims — Christians, Mandeans, Yezidis and others — have left Iraq by now. No one knows how many have left Syria.”

 Nina Shea reports in the Christian Post:

 “ISIS has set out to erase every Christian trace. All 30 churches were seized and their crosses stripped away. Some have been permanently turned into mosques. One is the Mar (Saint) Ephraim Syriac Orthodox Cathedral, newly outfitted with loudspeakers that now call Muslims to prayer. The 4th century Mar Behnam, a Syriac Catholic monastery outside Mosul, was captured and its monks expelled, leaving behind a library of early Christian manuscripts and wall inscriptions by 13th-century Mongol pilgrims.

Christian and Shiite gravesites, deemed idolatrous by ISIS, are being deliberately blown up and destroyed, including on July 24, the tomb of the 8th-century B.C. Old Testament Prophet Jonah, and the Muslim shrine that enclosed it."

 Patrick Coburn does not mince his words in The Independent:

 “It is the greatest mass flight of Christians in the Middle East since the Armenian massacres and the expulsion of Christians from Turkey during and after the First World War.”

Yet the media shows little interest in exposing the decimation and dispersal of the Christian communities in Syria and Iraq.

Google reports on the Israel-Gaza war outnumber reports on the ISIS-Christian conflict by about 20:1.

The West is equally as disinterested at this appalling ethnic and religious cleansing and forced transfer of Christians.

An impotent United Nations shows its unwillingness to intervene.

Israel meanwhile ensures that Jews will never find themselves in the same boat as the abandoned and hapless Christians.

Slaughter of the Innocents: Iraq’s Christians face extinction

On 3 December the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV issued a video with the following chilling transcript: “Allah, O Our Lord, vanquish Your enemies, enemies of [Islam] in all places. Allah, strike the Jews and their sympathisers, the Christians and their supporters, the communists and their adherents. Allah, count them and kill them to the last one, and don’t leave even one.” (Hat tip: Christians for Zion). The refrain’s getting to be a familiar one – and will not surprise those of us who know the genocidal antisemitism of the antisemitic Hamas Charter; now, it seems, the genocidal intent's been widened to include others besides Jews.  Clearly, although we prefer to fancy otherwise, it's Jihad4Us.  Yet the plight of the Christians in the Middle East is still largely overlooked by the western media –  and especially that part of it that is preoccupied with undermining Israel.

In Egypt and in Pakistan Christians are being brutally persecuted. And so, too, in Iraq, as the following account (10 December) by a senior church figure working in Syria with Christian refugees from Iraq shows.

Released by the Barnabas Fund, and sent to me by reader Ian G (thank you, Ian), it reveals the desperate plight of the Christians still inside Iraq. Their situation has worsened since the major attack on a church in Baghdad in October, and in the wake of Al-Qaeda’s statement that all Christians and Christian institutions make “legitimate targets”:

Plight of Iraqi Christians; photo collage: Middle East Fellowship

"Their conditions are no longer bearable. The people are living behind locked doors, they are compelled to take long leaves of absence from work, in Mosul and other cities, as a result of the dangers they face at work.

The universities are almost empty of Christian students, as are the schools. In some of the cities even the streets are almost empty of Christians.

It is as if they are in prison: without work, without study, without Church meetings. Fear rules over all situations and in all places.

Threats and insults are daily occurrences, and offensive graffiti is daubed on the walls of the homes of these innocent people.

There is no getting around this problem nor is there a solution to it. The people are deprived of everything that could bring security to their lives; all they can do is depend on God’s mercy or leave for the north. However, travelling to the north requires great financial means for paying the very high rent of homes there, and meeting the cost of living.

If a Christian wishes to rent out his house and leave, the terrorists will force the person renting the house to pay the rent to them, because according to them this house is theirs by right. And, if he dared to sell it they would threaten the person who bought it, so in the end all the money would go to the terrorists.

Here are some examples of people's stories:

A family in the north received a knock at their door at night, and the head of the household went to the door, and found a bird, slain, nailed to the door. The message was clear: you will be slain like this bird.

Saad and Raad, two young men working in the industrial area in Mosul as blacksmiths, used to pay 300,000 Iraqi Dinars a month to the terrorists in order to be spared their lives. This however, in the end, did not prevent them from being killed in their workshop, leaving eleven people unsupported.

A 26-year-old man, who was working in a mini-market, had his shop entered by terrorists demanding some items. He was fired upon and killed, without warning. This took place in broad daylight in Mosul, at the beginning of this month (December 2010).

Many are thinking of leaving these tragic circumstances, but without any means of doing so.

This month three families have arrived from Mosul, fleeing the extremely difficult circumstances, and they are now in Hassake and Kamishly.

There are many other horrific stories of tragedy, which could fill pages and pages. They tell of terrorism, fear, unbearable living conditions and children being threatened, having their very lives coloured with deep blackness."

Dr Patrick Sookhdeo, the Barnabas Fund's international director, has called for immediate international intervention to help Iraq’s Christians, and for prayer on their behalf:

"This Christmas the Christians in Iraq face an unfolding tragedy. The past seven years of war have seen their community devastated. Now they face a wave of attacks that has reduced many of them not just to abject poverty, but also to terrible fear.

A senior Iraqi Christian leader recently asked if the time has now come to evacuate the entire Christian community from Iraq. Others have suggested that its only future lies in an independent homeland.

What is crystal clear is that the international community cannot wash its hands of this beleaguered minority. Intervention must happen urgently. Intervention should be now."

Why Do Christians Remain Silent About the Persecution of Christians in Muslim-Majority Societies?

This very pertinent question – which is crying out for an answer – is posed by Professor Barry Rubin, director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal:

Christians in Iraq have been, and not for the first time, deliberately targeted in a major terrorist attack. Indeed, from Indonesia to Pakistan to Iraq, from the Gaza Strip to Egypt to Sudan to Nigeria, Christians are being assaulted, intimidated, and murdered by militant Muslims.

Yet virtually never do Christians in any of these countries – perhaps with some occasional exceptions in India – attack Muslims. In the West, there have been no armed terrorist attacks on Muslims or the deliberate killing of Muslims. There does not exist a single group advocating such behavior.

Have you seen any of this in the Western mass media? Have any Christian church groups – some of which find ample time to criticize Israel – even mentioned this systematic assault? Indeed, on the rare occasions that the emigration of Christians is mentioned, somehow it is blamed on Israel, as one American network news show did recently.

I'm not writing this to complain about double standards, since one takes this problem for granted, but out of sheer puzzlement. Presumably, much of the Western media and intelligentsia – along with a lot of the church leadership, assumes that it is impossible for a non-Western, "non-white" group to ever be prejudiced. There is also a belief that if one dares report the news about pogroms carried about by Muslims against Christians it will trigger pogroms by Christians against Muslims.

To read the rest of Barry Rubin’s blogpost go here: http://www.gloria-center.org/gloria/2010/11/why-do-christians-remain-silent-about-the-persecution-of-christians-in-the-middle-east

I also heartily recommend Robin Shepherd's recent blogpost on this very sad subject, in which he which he highlights the utter hypocrisy of the BBC's reportage:

http://www.robinshepherdonline.com/islamist-threat-to-exterminate-christians-again%20-shows-that-their-plans-are-jews-first-the-rest-of-the-west-next/