Not too many people, apparently.
It's a very odd thing, but even the pope barely seems to care about Muslim on Christian persecution. And, of course, the very last thing that anyone cares about is Muslim on Muslim violence. Even the Muslims, themselves, have virtually nothing to say about it, at least in the English language press.
According to Raymond Ibrahim of the Gatestone Institute (International Policy Council):
As Easter, one of the highest Christian holidays, comes in April, Christian persecution in Muslim nations—from sheer violence to oppressive laws—was rampant: In Nigeria, where jihadis have expressed their desire to expunge all traces of Christianity, a church was bombed during Easter Sunday, killing some 50 worshippers; in Turkey, a pastor was beaten by Muslims immediately following Easter service and threatened with death unless he converted to Islam; and in Iran, Easter Sunday saw 12 Christians stand trial as "apostates."
The persecution of Christians has come to regions not normally associated with it. As in Nigeria, Muslim militants are now also running amok in Timbuktu, Mali—beheading a Christian leader and threatening other Christians with similar treatment. Sharia law has been imposed, churches are being destroyed, and Christians are fleeing Timbuktu in mass.
It's one of the hideous ironies of today's political moment that even as the Muslim world is chasing out its Christians, and as Israel is the only country in the entire Middle East with a growing Christian presence, and as the Jews of the Middle East struggle against Muslim persecution, that the western left continues to harp on the alleged transgressions of the Jewish state of Israel.
There was a recent conference at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research entitled "Jews and the Left." Eitan Kensky, a participant, wrote, “one of the most intriguing aspects of the conference was the extent to which the participants who self-identify with the left agreed with the view that it had indeed betrayed the Jewish state.”
That's what I've been saying for years, now.
In any case, I am very much looking forward to reading these conference papers and will report back here when I do.
Too many ridicule Christians without fear, in ways they would never regarding Muslims. They see Christians as born again fundamentalist freaks that only care about Israel for their own salvation. They do not understand that Christians support Israel for what it actually represents, a diverse, open and tolerant place, based on Western values, where Christians are free from persecution.
ReplyDeleteThey absolutely malign those people.
DeleteAside from "right-wing Zionists" there are few groups more despised on the progressive-left than Evangelical Christians.
We are in the profoundly screwed up situation in which many, many Jewish people look at their friends as their enemies. The Jewish state of Israel, and thus the Jewish people as a whole, have no greater friends on this planet than Evangelical Christians and it is long past time that we acknowledge that fact in the spirit of friendship that it demands.
We have been absolutely rotten friends to our Christian supporters and we need to change that. We need to reach out to those folk. We need not agree with all of their stances on social issues, but we have a far better chance of helping to reform them from a position of sympathy than from a position of hostility.
The point, for me, is that Christians are seen through one lens, and less deserving of protection, whether in Iraq, Nigeria, Indonesia, or elsewhere. That is why there is virtual silence over the atrocities directed against Christians, most of whom do not resemble the Jerry Falwell stereotype that has been adopted, or engage in aggression against nonbelievers.
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