The Storm on the Sea of Galilee Rembrandt's only seascape 1633, stolen from Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum of Boston, Massachusetts in 1990 |
Dr. Zogby
Invisible Victims
Monday August 26, 2013
There are many reasons for this lack of attention to the
situation of Arab Christians, with one principal factor being
ignorance. Most Americans have so little knowledge of the Arab World,
its history and people that they are unaware that these Christian
communities even exist. This must be remedied, since without an
understanding of the role played by Christians in the Arab societies of
the Middle East, there can be no reasoned discussion about the past,
present, and future of this region.
One striking example of this ignorance comes to mind. I
once hosted a press breakfast in Washington for a visiting Palestinian
priest from the Galilee. Since I had invited only reporters who covered
religion issues, I hoped for an informed and thoughtful exchange.
A set of initial questions from the AP's religion
reporter established, early on, that the conversation would not be as
productive as I had assumed. His questions made it all too clear that he
was simply unaware of the existence of a Palestinian Christian
community. He began by asking, "You say that you are an Arab Christian.
But how can that be - aren't they two different groups?". He followed up
by asking "When exactly did you and your family convert to
Christianity?".
The clergyman from the Galilee, without missing a beat
or cracking a smile, replied quite simply "My relatives converted about
2000 years ago." He went on to describe the continuous Christian
presence in the Holy Land since the time of Jesus, the role they have
played in the region's history, and their shared struggle with their
Palestinian Muslim brethren.
I have found that not only reporters were ignorant or
dismissive about Christians in the Arab World. About two decades back, a
high ranking State Department official told me that he was off to Syria
and high on his agenda was his intention to challenge "Assad's and the
Ba'ath's persecution of Christians". I cautioned him to drop that issue
from his "to-do list" informing him that, in fact, Christians had been
among the founders of the Ba'ath party and, for better or worse, saw the
Assad regime as supportive of their rights—a history that had to be
known if one was to understand Syria's political culture and society.
Just a few years ago, I had another disturbing
conversation about Syria's Christians with a senior official—this time
from the White House. We were in agreement about the brutality of the
Assad regime and the need for fundamental change in Syria. But when I
raised concern about the vulnerability of Syria's Christians, his
dismissive response was "Maybe it's time for them to just pack their
bags and leave". He said this without any sense of concern for this
community or for what Syria's future might be like were it to lose its
Christian population.
Even when their presence is known, the Christian's
plight is ignored in our political discourse and press commentary either
because acknowledging their situation might muddy up a simplistic
story-line or conflict with what has been identified as a larger policy
objective.
And so, for example, the West has been silent about the
precipitous decline in the Christian population of the Palestinian West
Bank and Jerusalem out of deference to Israeli sensitivities. Pro-Israel
right-wing Christian groups from the US frequently make pilgrimages to
the Holy Land to show their support for Israel, while completely
ignoring the existence of an indigenous community of Christians and the
hardships they are forced to endure with the rest of their Palestinian
brethren living under occupation. "They come", a Palestinian cleric told
me, "to look at the places where Jesus walked and don't even see that
we are here. We are invisible to them"...READ MORE
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