Sometimes it seems that almost all the news these days deemed fit to print has something to do with Islam and Muslims. Much of it is about internecine warfare: we receive reports of Sunnis fighting Shi’a in Iraq, of Shi’a fighting Sunnis in Syria, of Shi’a ruled fighting Sunni ruler in Bahrain, of Sunni tribesmen fighting Shi’a tribesmen in Yemen, of one city’s militia fighting another city’s militia, as in Libya with fighters from Tripoli, Misrata, Benghazi, Zintan squaring off, or Muslims of different ethnicities fighting one another–Arabs against Kurds in Iraq and Syria, Arabs against Berbers in North Africa, and so on and so confusingly forth, and don’t forget the Turkmens and the Tuareg.
But with all these permutations and combinations, two things remain constant. The first is the Muslim Arab attitude toward, and attacks on, the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East: the Chaldeans and Assyrians of Iraq, the Orthodox and Catholics in Syria, the Maronites in Lebanon, the Copts in Egypt. The Christian position depends on the regime. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein had his own reasons for protecting the Christians, whom he knew were no threat to him and, indeed, were employed by him as his household staff, but he is long gone, and Muslims have been attacking Christians and more than half of Iraq’s Christians have left the country. In Syria, the Alawite regime, a regime that amazingly treats Christmas and Good Friday as official holidays and closes government offices, teeter-totters, and Muslim attacks on Christians have led to many of them leaving that country, too. In Egypt, attacks on the Copts went way up under Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood, tens of thousands left the country, and under Al-Sisi conditions for Copts have returned to their unpleasant normal. Copts still leave, but not at the rate they did under Morsi. And the steady Maronite outflow, the relative and absolute decline in their numbers and in their power, means that Lebanon, once thought of as a Christian haven, has become another Muslim-dominated country where the Christians are just managing to hang on.
When they leave Syria or Iraq or Egypt or Lebanon, where do these Middle Eastern Christians go? They go to Europe, to Australia, Canada, America. Who can blame them? And thus the Middle East is being emptied of its Christians. Does it matter to you? If you are a Christian, or even a “post-Christian” (someone who may no longer be a Believer in Christianity, but who recognizes that he belongs to the civilization of the West, and that civilization was fashioned by Christianity) don’t you want a Living Christian Presence in the Middle East? Would you not regret what at this point seems inevitable — the disappearance of Christianity from that region?
The Western powers have not done what they might have to secure the Christians in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the last American intervention on the side of the Christians was the sending of troops in 1958 by Eisenhower. And France, which always regarded itself as the historic protector of the Maronites, did nothing to help them during the Christian-Muslim civil war. The Maronites found themselves formulaically described in the French (leftist) press as the “right-wing Christians,” though there was nothing “right-wing” about them, unless being Christian was to be taken as synonymous with “right-wing.” Eugene Ionesco wittily noted the use of that Homeric epithet in “the newspaper everyone reads” (he was referring to Le Monde, the permanent paper of the French leftist elite).
The American record of defending imperiled Christians in the Middle East has been dismal. In Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of American troops were stationed, and a gigantic military machine present for a decade, nothing was done to help the Christians. They were not given arms, they were not trained to defend themselves, and the American military has done nothing special to defend them. They seemed not to want to recognize the peculiar plight of the Christians, to pretend that the danger and misery were spread equally.
And if the Western world has offered so little military support to the Middle Eastern Christians, what about moral support? Has the Vatican, has the World Council of Churches, has any official body of Christians started to worry aloud about what Muslims have done, and are doing with a vengeance right now, to the ancient Christian communities of the Middle East? And why do we not hear of possible places, right in the Middle East, where Christians could live in security if only certain arrangements could be made?

Sam says
Christians in the Middle East and North Africa are not Arabs. People leave these countries mainly because of poverty.
Jura says
Not true. Copts, maronites, Syriacs consider themselves Arabs.
Abyssin says
This is false ! Copts, Maronites and Syriacs never have identified themselves as Arabs ! What the hell are you talking about !?
Copts, Maronites and Syriacs are the indigenous Christians who inhabited the lands before the Arabs even conquered it.
Salome says
Some are identifying themselves as Aramaeans these days, while Copts (intermarriage, etc, aside) are the indigenous people of Egypt from before the Arabs spread out from Arabia. Assyrians are probably just that, Chaldeans also. But the ethnic distinctions are not obvious, and the dominance of the Arabic language in everyday life (if not in liturgy) has further clouded the issue.
jura says
Well, I know a Syriac and a Copt in Europe. Their fathers that emigrated in 1970s consider themselves Arabs. Simply: the idea of panarabism was still live. According to what these two my friends say, also their Syrian and Egyptian families consider themselves being arabic.
Matthieu Baudin says
Yes Salome, the ethnic distinctions aren’t obvious and unpleasant attitudes have to some extent permeated these communities; of particular concern the prevalence of anti Jewish sentiment.
Jay Boo says
Muslims are as racist as Arian Nazis and might not consider Christian Arabs as true Arabs. Christians are seen as convenient scapegoats. But Muslims turn on each other when there are not enough Christians left to persecute.
Islam breeds poverty by Muslims always spying on their other Muslim neighbors in hope of bringing shame upon them which leads to conflicts. Muslims hope to escape this cycle of violence by escaping to the West but, they bring their Islamic culture and attitudes with them and the spying and violence continues.
Kepha says
I think you mean “Aryan”. “Arian” means 4th century Untiarianism or Watchtowerism.
Jerry says
Not exactly true. Many of the Christians in the Middle East were ethnically Arab, and out of the fear of Muslim intimidation and atrocities even used to align themselves with the Muslim Arabs against the West and Israel.
In view of more recent Muslim atrocities and genocidal attacks against Christians in Iraq, Syria, Egypt and also in Iran, Pakistan and Bangladesh, many Christians have become better informed about Muslim intentions towards them.
The result is, that in Israel for example, many Christians do not wish to be considered any longer as Arabs or “Palestinians”, and out of a perceived need for self preservation now wish to be considered as “Israeli Christians” and have been volunteering in ever increasing numbers to serve in the Israeli Defense Force.
At the same time, increasing number of Israeli Muslim Arabs have been joining Islamic Jihadi terrorist organisation notwithstanding enjoying better standard of living, education, employment, economic and security conditions far better than their Muslim brethren in neighbouring Muslim controlled countries
Matthew says
Most people in Egypt and the remaing countries in North Africa get along fine it’s mainly Arab tribal people who cause terrorism to Copts and Berbers in North Africa. Native Egyptian Muslims and Coptic Christians are the same as native Egyptian Muslims are descendants of Copts, but converted due to persecution centuries ago by Islamic rulers. Copts situation is improving dramatically than the past by former regimes such as the Muslim brotherhood whose supporters are mainly Arab tribal people from hijaz long time ago.
jewdog says
The Vatican has been outspoken on behalf of the Muslim refugees, but I’m not too sure about the Christian ones. Obama has furiously rejected the idea of special treatment for Christian refugees as discriminatory (that’s not who we are, etc). Sounds like the modern idea that making cultural distinctions is racist has been bad news for the Christians.
Sam says
Copts are not Arabs they are Egyptians. If they consider themselves in the west then they need a history education to say they are Arabs.
Jay Boo says
But what about the feelings of unfortunate Muslims who are a minority in the US?
Won’t they feel left out at company parties if a Frasier fir tree is decorated with festive holiday lights? Will their feelings of religious supremacy be dampened if someone says “Merry Christmas” without first praising Allah with an Akbar?
Biff H says
Allah FraudStar
mortimer says
Assyrian Christians are ‘Assyrian’ from the ancient indigenous race of Assyria. They are ‘The Martyr Church’ due to having been the most severely persecuted church in the world.
Typoist says
Thank you for this article.
Angemon says
The American record of defending imperiled Christians in the Middle East has been dismal
That’s being kind.
dlbrand says
“And if the Western world has offered so little military support to the Middle Eastern Christians, what about moral support? …. And why do we not hear of possible places, right in the Middle East, where Christians could live in security if only certain arrangements could be made?”
If we had elected “Representative,” who, in the face of Islam and its obedient, had an ounce of courage, we would have, long back, provided, to the best of our ability to do so, safe-havens for our brothers and sisters in the ME. So too for “Muslims” who wish to openly exersice and make know their apostasy to Islam.
Cowards, cowards our “Representatives” are, in the face of Islam and its obedient.
They stand, therefore, in the background of the following line-up of heroes, clearly seen as the chaff they are:
“too good for this world….”
Gene says
Muslims persecute Christians and other minorities as a matter of right in Muslim countries. Then there is violence of there own making and we are expected to accept tens of thousands of Muslim refugees (many of whom were persecuting non-believers) into our country so they can import their customs and mistreat non-Muslims here. Additionally, our government works hard to keep persecuted Christians out. This will not end well.
dlbrand says
“This will not end well.”
Well stated.
God Bless America? His Banner over us?
Best try Allah for that, given, all too often, it is Allah’s banner flying over us, his way we raise on high, his “supremacy” “we” acknowledge.
Alarmed Pig Farmer says
The Western powers have not done what they might have to secure the Christians in the Middle East.
To have protected the Christians there, the Western powers would have to have taken on the Moslems. As we know the official policy of all Western nations to placate Moslems however possible. Thus, it was, and is, necessary to let Christianity die out over there, whether by murder, forced conversion, slavery, or out-migration. This is the West showing respect for its heritage. Ironically, we should thank God that Christ is not living over there now. If he were, he would either be converted to a Moslem, murdered, or forced to emigrate to Europe, America or Down Under, where He would become an atheist.
dumbledoresarmy says
You state that if the human being known as Yehoshua of Nazareth were living today in the Middle East he would, and I quote – “… either be converted to a Moslem, murdered, or forced to emigrate to Europe, America or Down Under, where He would become an atheist.”
That’s nonsense and you know it.
The character of the man that appears in the Gospels was of much, much tougher stuff than that. You really, really think that the Incarnate Son of God would ‘become an atheist’ in the secular western world?
ROFLMAO.
Seriously!
You do realize that you just did the equivalent of spitting in the face of every single Christian who reads or posts here, and *also* spat in the faces of every Christian who, currently, all over the lands dominated by Islam, is undergoing terrible persecution at Muslim hands *rather than renounce their loyalty to said Yehoshua of Nazareth*??
You spat in the face of Asia Bibi.
I’m shocked. I’m really surprised at you.
Laura says
Thank you! Yeshua would have never succumbed to the devil’s spawn, islam, just as He did not before!
Jerry says
Actually, if you carefully read the “New Testament” you may discover that “Jesus of Nazareth” was only described by his followers as “The Son of God”, but whenever quoted directly referred to himself as “The Son of Man.
Yhoshua ben Yosef was always a Jew who was misunderstood by his fellow Jews and misquoted by his followers.
To complicated matters further there were Jewish earlier prophetic references to a “Messiah the son of Joseph” who was to be a false Messiah, to be followed by a “Messiah the son of David” – the true Messiah, still to come.
Besides, despite the devoted and honest attempts of people who genuinely believed in one version or another, conceptual and idiomatic errors crept into different versions of “scriptures” because of inaccurate translations from Hebrew and Aramaic (or Syriac) into Greek and thereafter Latin and later still other, mainly European languages.
Further problematic interpretations spread from the Jewish to the Cristian and Later the Muslim versions and explanation of the “binding of Issac” in the Jewish and Christian and the much later Islamic reference to the “binding of Ishmael”.
All incorrectly assume that it was a test of Abraham’s obedience to God, while historical evidence indicates otherwise, for reasons that sacrificing one’s first born son to one idol or other was a common occurrence during the Abrhamic and thus Abraham’s preparedness to sacrifice his son was “no big deal” at the time.
The original message must have been totally different and should be better explained that it was God’s message to Abraham that YAWEH (the one who was, is and will be) did not require human or other sacrifices, message confirmed on numerous occasion by various “Old Testament” prophets.
It is part and parcel of the Islamic ignorance of that true message that allowed Islam to develop it’s genocidal agenda towards all non-Muslims.
If in doubt, please consider why would and almighty God take the trouble to create diversity upon this plant only in order to delegate Muslims, mostly ignorant the decision and execution of who shall live and who shall die.
In order for Islam to be a “True Religion” it is necessary for God to have died, abdicated or to have never existed.
Alternatively, it could have have been Shaitan (Satan) rether than Jibrill (Angel Gabriel) to have “reveal” himself to Mohammad, or simply that Mohammad himself have invented the evil and genocidal religion as a recruitment tool and justification for his criminal pursuits as a caravan robber, plunderer, murderer, rapist, paedophile and the hunter and trader in slaves, mainly females of all ages and toddler boys to be used and sold mainly as sex slaves.
Tilly says
USA is the main supporter of attacks against Christians. USA is also one of the countries which fully supports the idea a Muslim has more rights than a non believer. It hides the facts of Muslim’s attacking on its own land. USA Government and its departments are entwined with Islam but it’s people are being stopped from suggesting Islam is a danger to all American’s. I feel USA has a lot to learn, one of which is to stop picking the wrong side all of the time. (I know of very few times in USA history when they have)