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World
Ignores Christian Exodus from Islamic World
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While the world fixates on the conflict between Israel and Hamas—and
while most mainstream media demonize Israel for trying to survive amid a
sea of Arab-Islamic hostility—similar or worse tragedies continue to go
virtually ignored.
One of the most ancient Christian communities in the world, that of
Iraq—which already had been decimated over the last decade, by Islamic
forces unleashed after the ousting of Saddam Hussein—has now been wiped
out entirely by the new "caliphate," the so-called Islamic
State, formerly known by the acronym "ISIS."
As Reuters
reported:
Islamist insurgents have issued an ultimatum to northern Iraq's
dwindling Christian population to either convert to Islam, pay a
religious levy or face death, according to a statement distributed in the
militant-controlled city of Mosul….
It said Christians who wanted to remain in the "caliphate"
that the Islamic State declared this month in parts of Iraq and Syria
must agree to abide by terms of a "dhimma" contract—a historic
practice under which non-Muslims were protected in Muslim lands in return
for a special levy known as "jizya."
"We offer them three choices: Islam; the dhimma
contract—involving payment of jizya; if they refuse this they will have
nothing but the sword," the announcement said.
The amount of jizya-money demanded was $450 a month, an
exorbitant sum for Iraq.
Hours after the demand for jizya was made, Islamists began painting
the letter "n" on Christian homes in Mosul—in Arabic,
Christians are known as "Nasara," or
"Nazarenes"—signaling them out for the slaughter to come.
Most Christians have since fled. A one-minute video in Arabic of their
exodus appears here—women
and children weeping as they flee their homes—a video that will not be
shown by any Western mainstream media outlet, busy as they are depicting
instead nonstop images of Palestinian women and children.
The Syrian Orthodox bishop of Mosul said that what is happening to the
Christians of Mosul is nothing less than "genocide…
not to mention the slaughters and rapes not being reported… Forcing more
than a thousand Christian families out of Mosul, and turning Christian
churches into Muslim mosques, is equivalent to genocide." Of course,
the word genocide means to kill or make extinct a people.
Others were not as lucky to flee. According to Iraqi human rights
activist Hena Edward, a great many older and disabled Iraqis, unable to
pay the jizya or join the exodus, have opted to convert to
Islam.
Meanwhile, the jihadis continue destroying churches and other ancient
Christian holy sites in the name of their religion, and murdering any
Christians they can find. Among other acts, they torched
an 1800 year old church in Mosul, stormed a fourth century
monastery—formerly one of Iraq's best known Christian landmarks—and expelling
its resident monks.
Most recently, in Syrian regions under the Islamic State's control, eight
Christians were reportedly crucified.
The Islamic State's call for Christians to pay jizya is not
simply about money. It is about subjugation. Most Western media reporting
on this recent call for jizya have failed to explain the
accompanying dhimma contract Christians must also abide by.
According to the Islamic State, "We offer them [Christians] three
choices: Islam; the dhimma contract—involving payment of jizya; if
they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword."
The "dhimma contract" is a reference to the Conditions of
Omar, an Islamic text attributed to the caliph of the same name that
forces Christians to live according to third class citizen status.
In fact, several months back, when the Islamic State was still called
"ISIS," it applied the Conditions of Omar on the Christian
minorities of Raqqa, Syria. The Islamic group had issued a
directive
citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", [which] requires
Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure
gold in exchange for their safety. It says Christians must not make
renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols
outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public. Christians must
not carry arms, and must follow other rules imposed by ISIS… "If
they reject, they are subject to being legitimate targets, and nothing
will remain between them and ISIS other than the sword," the
statement said [emphasis added].
The persecution and exodus of Christians is hardly limited to Iraq. In
2011, the U.S.
Commission on International Religious Freedom noted: "The flight
of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it's increasing year
by year." In our lifetime alone "Christians might disappear
altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt," all Muslim majority
nations.
Under Saddam Hussein, and before the 2003 U.S. "liberation"
of Iraq, more than a million Christians lived in Iraq; Mosul had some
60,000 Christians. Today there are reportedly none thanks to the new
Muslim "caliphate."
In Egypt, some 100,000
Christian Copts fled their homeland soon after the "Arab
Spring." But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented
the "repeated
incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes, whether by force
or threat. Displacements began in Ameriya [62 Christian families
evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120 Christian families
evicted], and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls
of our Coptic children in Sinai."
In late 2012, it was reported that the last
Christian in the city of Homs, Syria—which had a Christian
population of some 80,000 before jihadis came—was murdered. An
escaped teenage Syrian girl said: "We left because they were trying
to kill us… because we were Christians…. Those who were our neighbors
turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through
balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our
house."
In the African nation of Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as 200,000
Christians fled. According to reports, "the
church in Mali faces being eradicated," especially in the north
"where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and
drive Christians out… there have been house to house searches for
Christians who might be in hiding, church and Christian property has been
looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian
relatives." At least one pastor was beheaded.
One can go on and on:
- In Ethiopia, after
a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, thousands
of Christians were forced to flee their homes when "Muslim
extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian
homes."
- In the Ivory
Coast—where Christians have been crucified—Islamic rebels "massacred
hundreds and displaced tens of thousands" of Christians.
- In Libya, Islamic
rebels forced several
Christian nun orders serving the sick and needy since 1921 to
flee and killed several Coptic Christians, causing that community
also to flee.
- In Muslim-majority
northern Nigeria, where hardly a Sunday passes without a church
bombing, Christians are fleeing by the thousands; one region has
been emptied of 95%
of its Christian population.
- In Pakistan, after
a Christian child was falsely accused of desecrating a Koran and
Muslims went on an anti-Christian rampage, an entire Christian
village—men, women, and children—was
forced to flee into the nearby woods, where they built a church,
to permanently reside there.
Despite all these atrocities, exoduses, and even genocides, the
mainstream media seems to spend every available moment airing images of
displaced Palestinians and demonizing Israel for trying to defend itself.
Yet Israel does not kill Palestinians because of their religion or any
other personal aspects. It does so in the context of being rocketed and
trying to defend itself from terrorism.
On the other hand, all the crimes being committed by Muslims against
Christians are simply motivated by religious hate, because the Christians
are Christian.
It is to the mainstream media's great shame that those who slaughter,
behead, crucify, and displace people for no other reason than because
they are Christian, rarely if ever get media coverage, while a nation
such as Israel, which kills only in the context of self-defense, and not
out of religious bigotry, is constantly demonized.
Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again:
Exposing Islam's New War on Christians (Regnery, April, 2013) is a
Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and an Associate
Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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