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Drew ChristiansenJuly 05, 2004

In response to criticisms of the mistreatment of Palestinian Christians in Israel and the Israeli-controlled Palestinian Territories, I am often asked, “Don’t Christians also suffer persecution at the hands of Muslims in the Arab Middle East?” There is no simple answer.

Yes, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom lists Saudi Arabia as “a country of particular concern” for “egregious violations of religious freedom.” Guest workers, foreign contract workers and other internationals cannot practice their faith openly there. Worship is possible only in embassy compounds and, clandestinely, in private homes. It is illegal to carry a Bible or to wear a cross or other Christian symbol. The people affected number in the hundreds of thousands. The picture in the rest of the Middle East, especially in countries with historic Christian presence, is mixed; but the overall trends are worrisome.

It used to be that Arab Christians were better off in secular countries, even when their governments were manifest tyrannies. Baathist Syria and Iraq, for example, allowed considerable freedom for many Christians, though not for Assyrians, once termed Nestorians, who are members of the ancient Church of the East. They were persecuted on ethnic and linguistic grounds. But in postwar Iraq, despite the provisions of the interim constitution for religious freedom, all bets are off until a new political culture takes hold. As to Syria, the New York Times’s veteran Middle East correspondent Neil MacFarquhar has reported that as the government attempts to ride the wave of Islamic fervor, it has initiated worrisome support for fundamentalist Muslim madrasas.

Though Islam is the official religion of Jordan, the Hashemite kingdom has been supportive of Christians. Prince Hassan, the uncle of the king and a member of a Sufi brotherhood, has been a consistent patron of interreligious dialogue, and the government, including King Abdullah II, continues to seek ways to strengthen the Christian population. Bishop Salim Sayagh, the Latin patriarchal vicar in Amman, has said of his Jordanian flock, “We are the luckiest Christians in the East.” Jordan, however, is an exception to the adverse trends in the rest of the region.

In Egypt the government is secular, but Islam is the official religion, and Christians are far more constrained. Churches may not be built or even repaired without high-level government approval, which is very hard to obtain. Discrimination in employment is widespread, and denial of police protection is said to be common. Egyptian Christians, however, do not like outsiders to meddle in their problems, though once they emigrate Copts are among the most vociferous activists on behalf of religious liberty.

Lebanon, established by the French as a Christian foothold in the Middle East, decades ago lost its Christian majority. Though they make up a third of the native population, Lebanese Christians are an even smaller part of the total population when one adds in the more than one million Syrian guest workers and 400,000 Palestinian refugees to the Muslim total.

At the same time, native Lebanese Muslims and Christians have a common interest in the future of the Lebanese state. The Maronite patriarch, Cardinal Nazrallah Pierre Sfeir, is the country’s most vocal spokesperson for the Lebanese cause and receives support from many of the country’s Muslims. After the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who attempted to drive Christians from the south of Lebanon during the civil war, praised the patriarch for a statement a couple of years ago, a political cartoonist depicted him vested in bishop’s vestments.

In daily life, despite the Special Assembly for Lebanon of the Synod of Bishops and the initiatives of Pope John Paul II, the situation is less certain. Many Christians fear their Muslim neighbors, and some Christian political factions continue to nurture antagonism toward their Muslim compatriots. As a result of political uncertainty and economic stagnation, both Christians and Muslims emigrate, but because of their smaller numbers, the loss affects the Christians more gravely.

It is in Israel and the Palestinian Territories where the situation is most confusing. While the number of Israeli Christians quadrupled between 1948 and 1990 through natural growth, the Christian population in Israel, located mostly in Galilee, feels under threat. The five-year-long struggle over the attempted construction of the Shehab al-Din Mosque in Nazareth, in the shadow of the Basilica of the Annunciation, has left the Christians shaken and suspicious. Ostensibly a show of force by the northern arm of Israel’s Islamic Movement, the effort to build the mosque was supported at the highest levels by three successive Israeli governments. It also embroiled Israel’s security services. The head of police for the Northern District, for example, declared publicly that high-level instructions prevented him from intervening for three days in 1998 to protect Christians from rioting Muslims.

The al-Aqsa intifada has also muted the protective role the Palestinian Authority had usually shown to Christians. President Yasir Arafat sometimes seemed effective in calling off Muslim militants who used the Christian villages of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour for attacks on Israeli West Bank settlements, like Gilo, and sometimes not. Newsweek’s Joshua Hammer, in A Season in Bethlehem: Unholy War in a Holy Place, (2003) showed the pressure militants in Bethlehem placed on the Christian townspeople: a pattern of extortion, theft, kidnapping and killing. Most of the pressure came not from religious Muslim militias like Hamas, but from local brigands turned militia leaders who were incidentally Muslim. The net effect on Bethlehem’s Christian residents, however, was the same: demoralization, insecurity and a readiness to emigrate. For reasons of solidarity, Palestinian Christians, like Christians in Egypt, are reluctant to speak openly about this intra-Palestinian strife.

Future relations between Muslims and Christians in the Middle East, then, are quite uncertain. If the religious liberty provisions of the Iraqi basic law are retained and implemented under a new constitution, they could provide a new model for the region. Should there be peace between Israelis and Palestinians, that would greatly improve the general atmosphere not only in Israel and Palestine, but in neighboring countries like Syria and Lebanon. Both the Holy See and the local hierarchies work at promoting good relations, but without improvement in the general situation, their efforts are like seed cast on rocky soil. In addition, unless political leaders, in situations as different as Syria and Israel, are willing to look beyond their short-term political interests to show respect for religious minorities, Christians can expect troubled times ahead.

Michel Sabbah, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, has counseled his people that theirs is a difficult vocation that stands under the sign of the cross. His Lenten message this year recalled the advice of St. Cyril of Jerusalem, “Do not rejoice in the cross in time of peace only, but hold fast to the same faith in time of persecution.” For the foreseeable future, the suffering and anxieties of Christians throughout the Middle East will be shrouded in the mystery of the cross.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
19 years 9 months ago
I'm writing from Jerusalem at the end of a three-month stay and want to thank you for your clear analysis of the position of Christians here in the Middle East. A friend just said to me "It's so complicated." But that's not an out; we must try to understand and find creative ways to improve a muddled situation. Even if Christians are under fire from some Arab or Muslim extremists, that fact can never allow us to respond in kind. We are all brothers and sisters under one God.
19 years 8 months ago
I have read that the penalty in Saudi Arabia for possessing a Bible is beheading. I understand that the same sentence is imposed on anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity. I disagree with Drew Christiansen when he says "there is no simple answer" to the question of whether Christians suffer persecution at the hands of Muslims in the Arab Middle East.

17 years 1 month ago
I read with great interest the article by Drew Christiansen, S.J., about Christians of the Middle East, “Shrouded in Mystery” (7/5). America is to be praised for drawing the attention of readers to the plight of their Middle Eastern brethren.

I agree in general with the description given by Father Christiansen. But I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the readers and add a note of caution. I speak from a dual perspective. As a U.S. citizen, I am concerned about the American involvement in the Middle East. As a native Lebanese Christian and an alumnus of two Jesuit institutions in Lebanon, I am even more concerned about the fate of the Lebanese Christians. The overall picture drawn by Father Christiansen is of the declining numbers and presence of Christians, and nowhere is this decline more significant than in Lebanon, the only Arab country where Christians had a word to say about their destiny.

In the article we are told that Lebanon was established by the French as a Christian foothold in the Middle East. An uninformed reader might wrongly conclude that this was probably an artificial creation. Anybody who has lived for an extended period of time in the region will quickly realize that Lebanese people (Christians and Muslims) share traits with the Arab heartland but also other common features with their Mediterranean neighbors (Italians, Spaniards, Greeks, etc.). This unique blend of East and West can be preserved only if Lebanon is allowed to regain its real sovereignty and independence from neighboring Syria.

Elsewhere we read that some Christian Lebanese political factions continue to nurture antagonism toward their Muslim compatriots. I disagree with this assessment. First, I think it is more appropriate to describe the present attitude of these political factions as cautious and defensive. Second, assuming that they were indeed hostile, a reader might conclude that the Christians are probably responsible for their own demise and that a more compromising attitude would help.

But in order for compromise to work between two parties, each has to make a step in the other’s direction. It is sad to admit that this has not been the case for the Muslim community. Let us not hide behind the facade of political correctness. Islam as a religion has many strengths, but tolerance is not one of them. If the past is any teacher, skeptics are invited to visit in Lebanon the caves and humble dwellings where Maronite patriarchs had to hide from various Muslim onslaughts. For those who will consider only the present, this article provides many examples of various hardships suffered by Middle Eastern Christians today. The most glaring is that of Palestinian Christians who have been strong supporters of the Palestinian cause and yet have endured extortion, theft, kidnaping and killing at the hands of their countrymen. And what about the genocide of the Christian population in Sudan?

Now a note of caution. Yes, Christians of the Middle East face troubled times. Is the situation hopeless? No, for there is always room for hope in a Christian’s heart. Yes, Christ asks us to forgive our enemies and go the extra mile.

But Christ does not want us to be trampled by our enemies or disappear from the region, for we are “the salt of the earth.” The current defensive position of the Lebanese Christians is fully warranted. I hope it will be vindicated by history. I know from previous conversations that my point of view is shared by many who have been ministering to the Lebanese people for years.

19 years 9 months ago
I'm writing from Jerusalem at the end of a three-month stay and want to thank you for your clear analysis of the position of Christians here in the Middle East. A friend just said to me "It's so complicated." But that's not an out; we must try to understand and find creative ways to improve a muddled situation. Even if Christians are under fire from some Arab or Muslim extremists, that fact can never allow us to respond in kind. We are all brothers and sisters under one God.
19 years 8 months ago
I have read that the penalty in Saudi Arabia for possessing a Bible is beheading. I understand that the same sentence is imposed on anyone who converts from Islam to Christianity. I disagree with Drew Christiansen when he says "there is no simple answer" to the question of whether Christians suffer persecution at the hands of Muslims in the Arab Middle East.

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