Christophobia, ISIS and Christian Genocide in the Middle East

"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me." - Matthew 5:11

Ethiopian Christians purportedly executed by ISIS in Ethiopia

On March 17, 2016 John Kerry recognized that ISIS was committing genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria.  ISIS marked Christian houses with the Arabic equivalent of the letter "N" for Nazarene and targeted Christians. There has been a reduction in the number of Christians in Iraq and Syria. For example, in 2006 35,000 Christians lived in Mosul and now only 20 to 30 remain.

Nine years earlier then Senator Barack Obama wrote Secretary of State  Condoleezza  Rice on September 11, 2007 concerned "for Iraq's Christian and other non-Muslim religious minorities who appear to be targeted by Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish militants." The then Senator from Illinois and future President continued writing: "The severe violations of religious freedom faced by members of these indigenous communities, and their potential  extinction from their ancient homeland, is deeply alarming in light of our mission to bring freedom to the Iraqi people."

Things did not improve for Iraqi or Syrian Christians during the Obama Presidency and with the rise of ISIS worsened.

According to Pew Research in 2016 globally 38,901 Muslim refugees entered the United States as opposed to 37,521 Christian refugees but this is a misleading number because it does not reflect the disparity in the Middle East and that Christians there have been targeted for genocide. In fiscal year 2016 when the Secretary of State recognized that Christians in Iraq and Syria were targeted for genocide the United States admitted 12,587 Syrian Refugees out of which 12,486 were Muslims, 68 Christians, and 24 Yazidis. This is troubling since Syria had a population of 22.85 million according 2013 statistics with 10% Syrian Christians which translates to 2.2 million.  Only 0.5% of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States are Christian or 68 if the refugee flow were proportional the number of Christian Syrian refugees would be approximately 1,000.

Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations and now being considered for a top post at the State Department concluded in September 2016 that in a de facto manner the United States was barring Christians, not Muslims from the United States and went on to explain how to solve this problem with some common sense reforms that the Obama Administration failed to implement.

James Zogby of the Arab American Institute disputed Abrams line of argument and argued that Christians were being "used" citing the silence of the Bush Administration during the first three years of the Iraq war when they were being devastated in Iraq and made the argument that not as many Christians have fled as claimed by Mr. Abrams. Mr. Zogby is a critic of the Iraq war and in 2014 in an essay "A Precarious Christmas" wrote the following that seems to contradict his argument:

Caught in the middle, as one Syrian has termed it “between the anvil of the regime and the hammer of violent extremists,” the country’s Christians have paid a dear price. Scores of churches have been destroyed and two bishops have been kidnapped by shadowy extremist groups. The famed ancient Aramaic-speaking town of Maaloula has been over-run by an al Qaida affiliated group that is holding captive the nuns from that community’s monastery. In the face of this violence and destruction, almost half of Syria’s Christians have joined their Muslim compatriots as refugees. Those who remain in the country live in fear for their future.

As a human rights activist I don't agree with a religious test for refugees but am concerned Christians targeted for genocide are being underreported for political reasons. I'm also uncomfortable that when raising the issue of Christian persecution there is a hostile reaction not seen when discussing other religious minorities such as Yazidis or Shia Muslims. Has Christophobia,  the hatred, prejudice, and bigotry against Christians, become so entrenched in elite circles that with a Christian genocide underway in Iraq and Syria only 68 Christian Syrian refugees arrived in fiscal year 2016 and questioning how to save more is considered a controversial proposition. 

Republican Congressman Chris Smith is calling on the Trump Administration to provide relief for Christian genocide survivors fleeing the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). In December 2016 Congressman Smith visited the Chaldean Catholic Archdiocese of Erbil in Iraq. This is an excerpt of the report on what the Congressman found.

  The Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Mosul, Nicodemus Daoud Sharaf, who had to flee ISIS and seek refuge in Erbil, told Smith, “So often concern for Christians is minimized. I am so happy, because you are the first American who has come to just ask about the Christians. We pray that President Trump will help us. We are the last people to speak the Aramaic language. Without help, we are finished.”       

“I also saw how the Obama Administration has shortchanged organizations conducting criminal investigations and collecting, preserving and preparing evidence usable in criminal trials. Perpetrators will dodge punishment unless there is specific evidence linking them to specific atrocity crimes. My Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act legislation is a blueprint for how to assist Christians and other genocide survivors and hold perpetrators accountable. I will be working tirelessly to get this bill on the new President’s desk when we reconvene in January,” added Smith.

Syria and Iraq: Civil War and Genocide

A silent genocide in the Middle East

British Parliament and other buildings went red to protest religious repression  

There has been a civil war underway in Syria that emerged out of the 2011 Arab Spring and continues to the present day and is a humanitarian catastrophe. However at the same time religious minorities have been systematically targeted in Syria and also in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S. intervention, 

On March 17, 2016 the U.S. State Department finally recognized that religious minorities are being targeted for genocide in Iraq and Syria. Three religious minority groups: Yazidis, Shia Muslims, and Christians have suffered and continue to face systematic ethnic cleansing. The Media Research Center has criticized news media for under reporting this story.

The United Nations issued a report on June 16, 2016 stating that "Islamic State fighters are committing genocide against Yazidis in Syria and Iraq by seeking to destroy the group through murder, sexual slavery, gang rape, torture and humiliation" with the ominous objective to “erase their identity.” 

Heartbreaking destruction of ancient Mar Behnam and Mart Sarah monastery outside of Mosul #OperationReturnToNineveh pic.twitter.com/n9TLw7MddI

— Christians of Iraq (@iraqichristian) November 23, 2016

Christians are also facing genocide in the Middle East and despite the under reporting there is some coverage and CNN on November 21, 2016 reported the following:

ISIS marked Christian houses with the Arabic equivalent of the letter "N" for the derogatory term Nazarene. The militants blared ultimatums from the loudspeakers of Mosul mosques: Leave by July 19 to avoid death or forced conversion to Islam. The terror-driven exodus emptied the city of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities. A decade ago, 35,000 Christians lived in Mosul. Now maybe 20 or 30 remain.

There is a serious discussion underway that contemplates the possibility of the end of a Christian presence in the Middle East after more than 2,000 years beginning with the ministry of Jesus Christ.

In the midst of all this there is great concern that something unusual is taking place with the pattern of refugees entering the United States not reflecting the population of Syria or those most currently impacted. Judge Daniel Manion of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in mid-October of his "concern about the apparent lack of Syrian Christians as a part of immigrants from that country" and detailed it in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit appeal:

"It is well‐documented that refugees to the United States are not representative of that war‐torn area of the world. Perhaps 10 percent of the population of Syria is Christian, and yet less than one‐half of one percent of Syrian refugees admitted to the United States this year are Christian. Recognizing the crisis in Syria, the President in 2015 set a goal of resettling 10,000 refugees in the United States. And in August the government reached this laudable goal. And yet, of the nearly 11,000 refugees admitted by mid‐September, only 56 were Christian. To date, there has not been a good explanation for this perplexing discrepancy."  

Elliott Abrams of the Council on Foreign Relations provided some context to the above question in an OpEd in Newsweek:

The BBC says that 10 percent of all Syrians are Christian, which would mean 2.2 million Christians. It is quite obvious, and President Barack Obama and Secretary John Kerry have acknowledged it, that Middle Eastern Christians are an especially persecuted group.So how is it that one-half of 1 percent of the Syrian refugees we’ve admitted are Christian, or 56, instead of about 1,000 out of 10,801—or far more, given that they certainly meet the legal definition?

Abrams concludes that in a de facto manner the United States is barring Christians, not Muslims from the United States and goes on to explain how to solve this problem with some common sense reforms that the current Administration has failed to implement.

However it is not only Christians but also Yazidis, mentioned above, with only 24 granted refuge in the United States in 2016 out of an estimated population of up to 700,000.

Refugees fleeing a war zone should be granted refuge, but refugees targeted by a regime for genocidal extermination should be given priority. The fact that the United States has done the opposite is a shameful failure of historic consequence.