Christianity—Which Originated in the Middle East—is Rapidly Disappearing in Every Country but One: Israel.
Joe King
Aug. 13, 2013
The number of Christians in the region, currently estimated at 12-million, is predicted to be sliced in half (to six-million) by the year 2020. Actually, turbulence in Egypt may hasten the demise of much of the ancient Coptic Church there.
In vivid contrast, the Christian population of Israel has increased significantly and the newspaper Maariv states that “Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups” in the Jewish state. Since Israel was re-born, in 1948, the number of Christians living in the Jewish State has grown from 34,000 to 140.000!
In further contrast, whereas about 173,000 Christians lived in the area administered by the Palestinian Authority in the 1990s, their numbers currently stand at less than 50,000—a decline of more than two thirds in some 20 years. In the Gaza Strip, dominated by Hamas, the number of Christians has dropped from 2,000-3,000 to “several hundred.”
During the period 1948-1967, the Jordanian Legion (with British officers, British weapons and British funding) violated the truce agreement and infringed on the rights of non-Muslim groups.
I was in Jerusalem shortly after the Israelis had reunited the city, in 1967, to find that the Israelis had posted signs reading: “This is a Holy Place. Respect it.” In vivid contrast, in the Old City, the Arabs had demolished ancient synagogues.
During that 19 year period, the Christian population declined by about 50%–from 25,000 to 12,646. Habib Malik, a member of the Working Group on Islam and the International Order, suggests “two of the three great religions thriving in their geographic points of origin while the third, Christianity, appears in a state of terminal regional decline.”
The Hoover Institute essay states: “The crux of the problem for these native Christians lies in the resurgence of precisely this Islamic religious fanaticism, or Islamism. This phenomenon has been given a variety of names: fundamentalism, militant extremism, Islamism, Jihadism, Political Islam, radical Islam, Salafism, and more—but essentially, they all boil down to the same thing for non-Muslims: Intolerance, hostility and violence.”
There is a sharp contrast in attitudes, and expectations, suggests Malik: “What Muslims in the West demand for themselves—and receive—by way of rights and legal protections they ought to be ready to grant to Christians living in Muslim-majority countries.”
The essayist did not venture into the fate of non-Christian communities. Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa—some ante-dating the creation of Islam itself—have been destroyed. Interestingly, when the Ba’Hai Faith was endangered in Iran, it moved to Haifa, Israel, where its Temple and magnificent Gardens sprawl across the top of the mountain overlooking the harbour.
To the Christian world, some of its holiest sites are in Bethlehem, administered by the Palestine Authority since 1995. Bethlehem has gone from being 80% Christian to about 30%.
One journalist wrote: “The Christian Community in the West Bank is close to extinction.”
For centuries, Christians in the Middle East found protection from the British, French, Russian and Greek governments but this is no longer the case. Jordanian Prince El-Hassan bin Talal, an outspoken Arab leader, declares: “There are today more Christians from Jerusalem…living in Sydney, Australia, than in Jerusalem itself.
Some Examples of Christian Population Declines: Turkey 1920 15%; Now 1% Syria 1920 33% Now 10% Jerusalem 1922 53% Now 2% Rupert Shortt, religion editor of the Times Literary Supplement warns that Christianity is “close to extinction” in the region where it originated.
The Sunday Telegraph (London), commenting on Shortt’s work, writes: “The most common threat to Christians abroad is militant Islam, claiming that oppression in Muslim countries is often ignored because of a fear that criticism will be seen as ‘racism.’”
The Telegraph story continues: “The ‘lion’s share’ of persecution faced by Christians arises in countries where Islam is the dominant faith, quoting estimates that between a half and two-thirds of Christians have left the region or been killed in the past century. There is now a serious risk that Christianity will disappear from its biblical heartlands.” Lebanon is an example of a vanishing Christian community. The Sunday Telegraph reports a poll shows that “nearly half of all Maronites (the largest Christian denomination in the country) are considering emigrating.
The largest Christian Community in the Middle East–the Copts of Egypt—are endangered. They are estimated to number six to eleven million (but claim to have 12-16-million adherents.)
Today, in an increasingly unstable and violent Egypt, they are often the targets of murderous Muslim militants. The website ReligionofPeace.com reports that its records show in the first four months of 2013, there were 40 attacks, by Muslims, targeting Christians in 12 countries—killing 196 and wounding 251. This same website records 58 Muslim attacks on Americans 1972-2013, killing 3,109 and injuring 1,412 in 58 “incidents.”
Copt Samuel Tadros, in his recently-published book Motherland Lost, estimates that more than 100,000 Christian Copts have been driven out of Egypt since the fall of the Mubarak government. Tadros concludes: “Coptic history has been an endless storey of decline and despair, but it has also been a story of survival.”