Only One Safe Place in Middle East -- For Christians

                                                                                                                                       photo Armenia Information Portal

According to someone who speaks with authority on the subject, there is only one place in the Middle East that is safe for Christians. And it’s the same place that’s safe for Jews. 

Father Gabriel Nadaf, a Greek Orthodox priest who is Arab-Israeli, reported last week to the UN Human Rights Council on the situation for Christians in the Middle East and called for an end to the “witch hunt” against Israel. 

“Every year in the last decade a hundred thousand Christians were killed throughout the Middle East, meaning that every five minutes a Christian was killed because of his faith … those who could escape persecution by Muslim extremists, fled, and those that remained are second- if not third-class citizens, under Muslim rulers,” Nadaf said.

“In the societies of the Middle East, there is one country where Christianity is not persecuted,” he said, referring to Israel. “Moreover, there is freedom of speech, worship and security warmly bestowed by Israel, the Jewish State.  

"Leaders, peace activists, end this witch hunt against the only free country in the region..."

Interestingly, Father Gabriel’s statement that one million Christians, because they are Christian, have been killed in the past ten years--the official Vatican calculation--is disputed.  A BBC challenge claimed that because the war in the Congo accounts for the highest percentage of these deaths, it’s inaccurate to attribute the deaths to a religion, that these people were simply caught up in a civil war and further, that blaming Christian deaths on Muslim terrorism is “nonsense.”  

During these past ten years, little attention has been paid to the plight of Christians in the Middle East.

It seems that Middle Eastern Christians are following the Jews in a double way.  Not only are they being forced from their homes by persecution and threats of death -- nearly all the centuries old Jewish communities (2 ½ millennia in the case of Iraq) were decimated due to persecution and attacks -- like the Jews of the Middle East, the Christians’ stories are disputed and silenced.

The only country of Middle East with a growing rather than shrinking Christian population is Israel. There are four times as many Christians in Israel now as there were in 1948.  

Reasons for ASA Boycott of Israel

                                                         Ben-Gurion University of the Negev


1. Otherwise, how would most people ever hear of the Association of American Studies?
2. Words like "human rights violations" are not scary to direct toward democratic countries with academic freedom.
3. Who would boycott China, Zimbabwe, Iran or Russia?
4. The boycott is "symbolic" and symbolic is cool on so many levels.
5. Singling out Israel and no other country does not indicate bias; how could you suggest that?
6. The ASA is not aware of the diversity of Israeli universities.
7. The ASA is not impressed that even Mahmoud Abbas opposes boycotting Israel.
8. The American Association of University Professors opposes academic boycotts but who cares? (Membership of AAUP: 47,000, of ASA: under 5000; 1252 voted with two-thirds for boycott.)
9. No one at a university in the Middle East actually benefits from this resolution.
10.There is no downside to the resolution for the lives of its promoters.