{"id":1310,"date":"2017-06-19T15:13:50","date_gmt":"2017-06-19T15:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/new\/?p=1310"},"modified":"2017-07-13T18:11:02","modified_gmt":"2017-07-13T18:11:02","slug":"mideast-christian-suffering-u-s-denial-by-raymond-ibrahim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/2017\/06\/19\/mideast-christian-suffering-u-s-denial-by-raymond-ibrahim\/","title":{"rendered":"Mideast Christian Suffering, U.S. Denial by Raymond Ibrahim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"\/images\/Church.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<li style=\"line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Escaped eyewitnesses have reported that ISIS places Iraqi and Syrian Christians in cages or coffins and sets them on fire.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">ISIS persecution of Christians &#8220;fits the definition of ethnic cleansing.&#8221; \u2014 Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">When a 1,400-year-old Iraqi Christian monastery was destroyed by the Islamic State (ISIS) most of the world condemned the demolition &#8212; except for spokesman for the U.S. military&#8217;s Operation Inherent Resolve, Col. Steve Warren.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">&#8220;Thousands [of Iraqi Christians] have been killed, hundreds of thousands have been forced to flee,&#8221; said CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer in an interview with Col. Warren the other week. &#8220;There is legitimate fear &#8212; you&#8217;re there in Baghdad &#8212; that the long history of Christians living peacefully, productively in Iraq, is coming to an end. How worried should we be about the Christian community in Iraq?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Col. Warren&#8217;s response: &#8220;Wolf, ISIL doesn&#8217;t care if you&#8217;re a Christian &#8230; We&#8217;ve seen no specific evidence of a specific targeting towards Christians.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Except that roughly <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/12\/25\/world\/isis-refugees-christmas\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">two-thirds<\/span><\/a> of Iraq&#8217;s 1.5 million Christian citizens have been killed or forced to flee the country by ISIS and its jihadi predecessors over the past decade. This has nothing to do with their religious identity?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">In Iraq and everywhere else it has conquered, ISIS has, at a minimum, rigorously enforced on pain of death Islam&#8217;s <i>dhimmi<\/i> laws, which require Christians to pay extortion money (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/2015\/05\/28\/islamic-jizya-fact-and-fiction\/\"><i><span style=\"color: blue;\">jizya<\/span><\/i><\/a>) for &#8220;protection,&#8221; and agree to live by a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/2014\/03\/24\/western-ignorance-of-the-conditions-of-omar\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">set of degrading rules<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Often, ISIS fighters skip these formalities and simply torture to death Christians who refuse to convert to Islam. ISIS then releases the footage online for propaganda purposes. Most notable are two videotaped <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2015\/04\/19\/africa\/libya-isis-executions-ethiopian-christians\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">mass executions<\/span><\/a> of 21 Egyptians and 30 Ethiopians in Libya last spring, but there have been many lesser-known instances. When, in 2014, a group of Iraqi Christian children refused to renounce Christ and said, &#8220;No, we love Jesus,&#8221; ISIS <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-2871508\/Four-young-Christians-brutally-beheaded-ISIS-Iraq-refusing-convert-Islam-says-Vicar-Baghdad-Canon-Andrew-White.html\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">decapitated<\/span><\/a> [them] and mangled their bodies.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Also, last summer in Aleppo, Syria, ISIS <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/2015\/10\/11\/u-s-leadership-ushers-in-new-age-of-christian-martyrdom\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">tortured, mutilated, publicly raped, beheaded and crucified 12 Christians<\/span><\/a> for refusing to convert. Escaped eyewitnesses have reported that ISIS places Iraqi and Syrian Christians in <a href=\"http:\/\/famvin.org\/en\/2015\/03\/02\/vincentians-among-syrian-hostage-victims\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">cages<\/span><\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.copticsolidarity.org\/cs-releases\/4420-isis-trapped-and-burned-christians-alive-in-coffins\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">coffins<\/span><\/a> and sets them on fire.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">ISIS kidnaps Christians and demands ransom payments for their release. It forces female captives into sexual slavery. A 12-year-old girl, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/08\/14\/world\/middleeast\/isis-enshrines-a-theology-of-rape.html?_r=0\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">raped<\/span><\/a> by an Islamic State fighter, was told that &#8220;what he was about to do was not a sin&#8221; because she &#8220;practiced a religion other than Islam.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">ISIS has sent <a href=\"http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/news\/world\/614249\/ISIS-sends-ASSASSINS-UN-refugee-camps-could-come-Britain\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">operatives<\/span><\/a> disguised as refugees into U.N. refugee camps in Jordan to kidnap young Christian girls to sell or use as slaves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">The Islamic State seems committed to expunging all physical traces of Christianity in areas it conquers. It has demolished dozens of ancient churches &#8212; up to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/2015\/04\/17\/400-syrian-churches-destroyed-christianity-nearing-extinction-in-mideast-russian-orthodox-patriarch\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">400 churches have been destroyed<\/span><\/a> during the war in Syria alone &#8212; not to mention <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twimovies.news\/videos\/110731-isis-destroys-christian-churches-and-crosses-in-iraq-and-syria.html\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">countless<\/span><\/a> crucifixes, statues, graves, and other relics. The Islamic State has ordered the University of Mosul to <a href=\"#.Vd4kW_lVikp\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">burn all books written by Christians<\/span><\/a>, and decreed that the names be changed of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fides.org\/en\/news\/36336-ASIA_IRAQ_The_school_year_in_the_Islamic_Caliphate_the_teaching_of_Syriac_and_Christian_names_of_schools_have_been_abolished\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">all Christian schools<\/span><\/a> in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain. Some schools have been there since the 1700s.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">ISIS&#8217;s destruction of a 1,400-year-old monastery is nothing new. Last summer, ISIS <a href=\"http:\/\/english.alarabiya.net\/en\/News\/middle-east\/2014\/07\/20\/ISIS-burns-1-800-year-old-church-in-Mosul.html\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">set fire<\/span><\/a> to a 1,800 year-old church in Mosul and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.co.uk\/isis-syria-1500-year-old-mar-elian-monastery-bulldozed-by-islamic-state-qaryatain-1516424\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">bulldozed<\/span><\/a> a 1,600-year-old monastery in Homs as a response to &#8220;worshipping a God other than Allah.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: justify;\" align=\"center\">\n<table class=\"mceItemTable\" border=\"0\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"border: 1pt solid black; padding: 0in;\">\n<p style=\"margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">http:\/\/www.gatestoneinstitute.org\/pics\/1181.jpg&#8221; border=&#8221;0&#8243; height=&#8221;374&#8243; width=&#8221;600&#8243;&gt;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 3pt 4.5pt; line-height: normal;\"><span style=\"font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">The Syriac Orthodox Church of St. Ephrem in Mosul, Iraq, before if the captured by the Islamic State (left), and after.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">In short, Christians are absolutely experiencing &#8220;specific targeting&#8221; by the Islamic State. ISIS also kills Muslims who get in its way, but only non-Muslims &#8212; chief among them Christians &#8212; are enslaved, raped, and sometimes forced to convert to Islam on pain of death. Although Islamic law, or Sharia, legitimizes the killing, enslavement, and rape of non-Muslims, it prohibits treating fellow Muslims that way, unless they are deemed <i>takfir<\/i> [excommunicated] or apostates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">Few informed observers dispute that the Iraqi Christian community is severely threatened by ISIS. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2015\/04\/07\/has-the-world-looked-the-other-way-while-christians-are-killed\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">According<\/span><\/a> to the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial, ISIS persecution of Christians &#8220;fits the definition of ethnic cleansing.&#8221; David Saperstein, the United States ambassador at large for religious freedom, also <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2015\/04\/07\/has-the-world-looked-the-other-way-while-christians-are-killed\/\"><span style=\"color: blue;\">acknowledges<\/span><\/a> that it is &#8220;primarily Christians&#8221; being persecuted for their faith in Iraq.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\">For the official spokesman of the U.S. military&#8217;s fight against ISIS to make such remark is deeply disconcerting. But what if Col. Warren is not to blame &#8212; what if he is just a military man doing his best to comply with demands from politicians up at the top not to acknowledge the suffering of Middle East Christians?<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"line-height: normal; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif';\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raymondibrahim.com\/\"><i><span style=\"color: blue;\">Raymond Ibrahim<\/span><\/i><\/a><i>, author of<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Crucified-Again-Exposing-Islam%C2%92s-Christians\/dp\/1621570258\/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=300065-20&amp;linkCode=w01&amp;linkId=HOWSX74T2MWQ5RHE&amp;creativeASIN=1621570258\"><i><span style=\"color: blue;\">Crucified Again: Exposing Islam&#8217;s New War on Christians<\/span><\/i><\/a><i> (a Gatestone publication published by Regnery, 2013), is Shillman fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Judith Friedman Rosen fellow at the Middle East Forum.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 Escaped eyewitnesses have reported that ISIS places Iraqi and Syrian Christians in cages or coffins and sets them on fire. ISIS persecution of Christians &#8220;fits the definition of ethnic cleansing.&#8221; \u2014 Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial. When a 1,400-year-old Iraqi Christian monastery was destroyed by the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1310"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1311,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1310\/revisions\/1311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/egretnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}