Thursday, December 17, 2015

CHRISTIANS DIE, LEADERS LIE

Originally published by the Gatestone Institute.
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Throughout September, as more Christians were slaughtered and persecuted for their religion—not just by the Islamic State but by “every day” Muslims from all around the world—increasing numbers of people and organizations called for action, while those best placed to respond—chief among them U.S. President Obama and Pope Francis—did nothing.
“Why, we ask the western world, why not raise one’s voice over so much ferocity and injustice?” asked Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, the head of the Italian Bishops Conference. 
Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch Gregory III also said: “I do not understand why the world does not raise its voice against such acts of brutality.”
As one report put it: “Human rights activists see it. Foreign leaders see it. And more than 80 members of the U.S. Congress see it. Together, they are pressuring the leader of the free world [U.S. President Obama] to declare there is a Christian genocide going on in the Middle East.”
In response, the White House said it was preparing to release a statement accusing the Islamic State of committing genocide against religious minorities, naming and recognizing various groups, such as the Yazidis, as victims.  However, Christians are apparently not going to be included as victims, as Obama officials argue that Christians “do not appear to meet the high bar set out in the genocide treaty.”
Meanwhile, Father Behnam Benoka, an Iraqi priest, explained in a detailed letter to Pope Francis the horrors Mideast Christians are experiencing.  To his joy, the pope called the Middle Eastern priest and told him that “I will never leave you.”  As Benoka put it, “He called me. He told me certainly, sure I am with you, I will [not] forget you, I will [do] all possible to help you.”
However, later in September, when Pope Francis stood before the world at the United Nations, his energy was,once again, spent on defending the environment.  In his entire speech, which lasted nearly 50 minutes, only once did Francis make reference to persecuted Christians—and even then they did not receive special attention but, in the same breath, their sufferings were merged in the same sentence with the supposedly equal sufferings of “members of the majority religion,” that is, Sunni Muslims (the only group not to be attacked by the Islamic State, a Sunni organization):

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