‘Shadow war’ targets Christians in Syria

“I would like everyone to know that the West, in supporting the revolutionaries, is supporting religious extremists and helping to kill Christians.” —Fr. Halim Noujaim, Franciscan regional minister for Syria and Lebanon.

by John L. Allen, Jr - National Catholic Reporter via OCP Media

Christian minorities face threats in many parts of the convulsed Middle East today, but perhaps nowhere is the danger more acute than in Syria amid that nation’s bloody civil war.

An Internet video that went viral in late June, purportedly showing the beheading of three Christian clergymen by Syrian militants, was initially believed to capture the death of a Catholic priest named Fr. François Murad.

It turned out to be older footage of uncertain provenance, but that didn’t make Murad any less dead. According to officials of the Franciscan order that had given him refuge, Murad actually was shot to death on June 23 in the town of Gassanieh, in a convent where the 49-year-old monk was in hiding.

Reports suggest members of Jabhat al-Nusra, a militant Islamic group that’s part of Syria’s rebel alliance, killed Murad.

The killing represents the latest shock for Syria’s Christian community, which has become one of the primary victims of the violent standoff between rebel forces and the Assad regime.

Christians have long been an important minority in Syria, composing roughly 10 percent of the population of 22.5 million. The majority is Greek Orthodox, followed by Catholics, the Assyrian Church of the East, and vari­ous kinds of Protestants.

Syria was until recently a destination of choice for Christians fleeing the violence in Iraq, but all that changed with the eruption of civil war in 2011.

The kidnapping of two prominent Orthodox bishops in April underscored the new dangers. A group of armed men took the Syriac Orthodox bishop of Aleppo, Youhanna Ibrahim, and the Greek Orthodox metropolitan of Aleppo and Iskenderun, Boulos al-Yaziji, on the road to Aleppo. Their driver, a Syrian Orthodox deacon, was shot to death.

To date, the whereabouts of the bishops remain unknown.

Kidnapping Christians reportedly has become a growth industry. In late February, the website Ora pro Siria, operated by Italian missionaries in Syria, launched an emergency fundraising appeal called “Ransom a Christian.” The website said the going price for a kidnapped priest was in the neighborhood of $200,000.

It’s not just clergy who find themselves in harm’s way. In June, the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land reported that a cluster of Christian villages along Syria’s Orontes River had been almost totally destroyed in the fighting, forcing thousands into hiding.

“Of the 4,000 inhabitants of the village of Ghassanieh, as just one example, the local pastor reports that no more than 10 people remain,” said Fr. Pierbattista Pizzaballa, director of the custody, adding that bombs had also seriously damaged a Franciscan mon­astery in Knayeh near the border with Lebanon.

As NCR went to press, a Greek-Catholic monastery in Qara was under assault by rebel forces. Officials of the Norbertine order told Vatican Radio they had lost contact with a 74-year-old Belgian missionary, Daniel Maes, living at the monastery.

In a July 1 opinion piece on National Review Online, religious freedom activist Nina Shea charged that a “shadow war” is being waged against Syria’s Christians. Shea pointed to the death of Murad and the fact that Islamist groups have begun setting up Shariah courts in areas of Syria under their control, charging Christians with a variety of alleged offenses under Muslim law.

In that context, some Syrian Christians have issued warnings about Western policies of arming Syria’s opposition.

“I would like everyone to know that the West, in supporting the revolutionaries, is supporting religious extremists and helping to kill Christians,” Fr. Halim Noujaim, the Franciscans’ regional minister for Syria and Lebanon, said after the execution of Murad.

The Obama administration recently announced the U.S. will provide small arms and ammunition to the rebels. Critics such as Noujaim charge that Assad’s fall could pave the way for either Iraq-style chaos or the Egyptian-style rise of an Islamist regime, in either case setting up Syria’s Christian minority for special hardship.

The Catholic Near East Welfare Association has issued an emergency appeal to support Syria’s Christians.

Arab Christians in Israel form New Political Party, Serve in IDF

I have frequently encountered Arab and Lebanese Orthodox who have a very low opinion of Israel and have tended to side with the "Palestinian" cause for statehood. This news report indicates some of that may be changing as the "Arab Spring" reveals the true colors of the Islamic world.

‘ARAB SPRING’ PROMPTS ISRAELI CHRISTIANS TO BREAK FROM MUSLIM POLITICAL PARTIES AND FORM NEW MOVEMENT

by Sharona Schwartz - The Blaze

Israel’s Christian Arabs have been nervously watching the persecution of the Christian populations in neighboring Egypt and Syria in the wake of the ‘Arab Spring’ protests. Those observations have prompted a group of Christian Arabs to form a new political party in Israel, one which encourages serving side-by-side with Jewish Israelis in the Israel Defense Forces.

The new party is called Bnai Brit HaHadasha which can be translated as the Sons of the New Covenant. The name can also be translated as Sons of the New Testament or Sons of the New Alliance. (In Hebrew, the New Testament is known as the Brit HaHadasha).

Christian Arabs in Israel in the past have been allied with Muslim-run political parties as they share the same language and often live in the same cities and towns.

The Times of Israel points out, “The effort is part of a growing assertiveness on the part of Christian Arabs in the wake of the Arab Spring, as they increasingly sound calls for an identity distinct from Israel’s broader Arab society, which is around 90% Muslim.”

As Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Mohammed Morsi was being ousted from power, the new party wrote on July 3rd on its Facebook page, “What happened in Egypt…should be a lesson!…It’s not just majority rule, it’s protecting the rights of minorities by the majority.”

Bashara Shlayan, 58, a ship captain from Nazareth, founded the new party. In an interview with Israel Hayom, he says he was motivated to enter politics not only because of the rapid changes gripping the region, but also because the Arab political parties in Israel predominantly serve the interests of Muslims and have a communist platform.

“People see what is happening now in Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. They understand where we are living. I tell them, ‘For 65 years we have given to the Arab communist parties; 65 years and they have done nothing!’ Give me three years, I will manage and solve their problems,” he says.

“Look at what the Arab parties have done. Just talking nonsense about nothing but communism; [MK Dov] Khenin and [MK Mohammad] Barakeh (Hadash/Communist Party), what have they done for us? They want us to disappear and are not acting according to the integrity of their country’s citizens,” Shlayan adds.

Further distinguishing himself from his Muslim Arab neighbors, Shlayan says he is an “Arab Christian in Israel who recognizes the land of Israel as belonging to the Jews.”

“Firstly we are completely Israeli, and then comes religion,” he says.

There is fierce opposition among Muslims living in Israel to serve in the IDF, a position that in the past influenced Christian Arabs to opt out. Though there is a draft in Israel, the government does not require Christian or Muslim Arab citizens to serve, due to possible conflicts of loyalty as family members may reside in Lebanon, Syria or other Middle Eastern countries still officially in a state of war with Israel.

Shlayan says he wants to change that, and helped his nephew and son enlist in the IDF. Since they were the trailblazers, that effort was a challenge.

“When I wanted my son to join the army we decided to create a forum for Christian enlistment. We also invited priests from the church to a conference we held in Nazareth Illit. One of them is the Church patriarch, Father Gabriel Nadaf [who has drawn the ire of Arab MKs recently for encouraging Christian Arab youth to join the IDF], who preferred [our way] and said we were right.”

Today Shlayan’s nephew is a major in a combat unit.

Because he publicly backed enlistment for Israel’s 130,000 Christian Arab citizens, Father Nadaf was “banned from entering Nazareth’s Church of the Annunciation, and was threatened with being fired from his position in Yafia. The tires of his car were punctured and a rag with bloodstains was laid at his doorstep,” writes the Times of Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reported that two Arab Members of Knesset (MKs) Bassel Ghattas and Haneen Zoabi wrote to the Greek Orthodox Church’s Patriarch Theophillis III demanding that Father Nadaf stop supporting Christian Arab enlistment or be fired from serving as priest in the town of Yafia in the Galilee near Nazareth.

“It’s unacceptable that Arab MKs should think that they can be Trojan horses in the Knesset and send letters of incitement against a Christian priest who encourages young Christians to enlist in the IDF,” Member of Knesset Miri Regev said in response.

Christian party founder Shlayan draws a comparison with the United States, saying, “You need to be like any citizen. If you were in America, you wouldn’t be an American? At least in Israel, those who stayed here [after the 1948 independence war] have been given the right to be a citizen and to integrate. But Israel’s first demand, which I support – and which needs to be understood – is that Israel is the home of the Jewish people.”

He also has harsh words for the current position of Israeli Arab parties which oppose the State of Israel, instead offering public support for Palestinian political ambitions.

“It’s stupidity. You can be against something pertaining to a certain matter, but the state does a lot of things, so be a partner! Don’t always be against. They think being against Israel is Arab nationalism, that it is the manly thing. But if you oppose this way of thinking, you are a traitor. This is what needs to be changed. It’s stupidity. So I demand that we, the Christians, be recognized as loyal citizens of the state,”  he says.

According to Israel Hayom, Israel is the only country in the region where Christians are not fleeing to the West en masse.

Israel Hayom writes of the new party, “This is a historic turning point with profound and far-reaching consequences for Israeli society. If the party is successful, it will provide an alternative for that sector of Israel’s Arab population that seeks full partnership in Israeli society, and which sees a Jewish democratic Israel as its home.”

According to Maariv, 90 Christian high school graduates joined the IDF in recent months. That’s a three-fold increase compared with 2010.