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Obama Admin. Ignoring Widespread Christian Genocide in the Middle East

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A silent persecution of Christians tantamount to genocide is ongoing in the Middle East, according to experts in Washington.

Last week, at a panel organized by The Heritage Foundation to discuss modern Christian martyrs, academic, religious, and media leaders discussed the persecution—as well as the inattention being paid to the issue by developed nations including the United States.

“I am always struck by how utterly abandoned the patriarchs and church leaders [in the Middle East] whose lives are on the line every day … how utterly abandoned they feel by the West, and particularly the United States,” said Kathryn Jean Lopez, a senior fellow with the National Review Institute and one of the event’s co-hosts.

According to recent estimates, the Christian population in Iraq has dropped to roughly 260,000, down from 1.5 million a decade ago.

The shift likely reflects continuing forced expulsions of Christians from northern Iraq and Syria, as well as abductions and murders by extremist leaders who, earlier this year, declared the coexistence of Muslims with Jews and Christians impossible according to the Quran.

“Forcing a population to leave [its homeland] is one of the five tests, and they don’t all need to be met, but it’s one of the tests for genocide,” said Patrick E. Kelly, executive director of the St. John Paul II National Shrine and a member of the Knights of Columbus. Kelly was referring to the five tenets of qualifying characteristics that constitute Article II of the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention definition of genocide.

Those qualifying characteristics include murder, causing serious harm, imposing conditions of life that attempt to destroy, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children outside a specific national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

“I think we have a tendency to think governments always know what’s going on on the ground,” Kelly continued. “They don’t always have the best information. But churches often do, because of the grassroots, with-the-people nature of parishes and ministries. If governments say they don’t have the evidence, they can do more to get the evidence, but they should be listening to the faith communities as well.”

As of this week, according to sources, the State Department does not plan to include Christians in a statement to be released on the status of victims of ISIS-inflicted genocide in the region. The statement will include Yazidis, the Kurdish religious minority.

Washington experts stress that any statement or widespread response must be inclusive of all religions.

“The church and all Christians must be working for the religious freedom of all people, because that freedom is rooted in the dignity of the human person,” Timothy Samuel Shah, associate director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, said at The Heritage Foundation panel.

“What we are fighting for is not our own tribe, not our own group. We’re fighting for religious freedom for everyone,” he added.

On Monday, the Knights of Columbus announced they had written a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry urging the inclusion of Christians in any sort of State Department finding on Middle Eastern genocide.

“We write as American citizens concerned about the vulnerable Christian and Yazidi minorities of Iraq and Syria who are being targeted for eradication in their ancient homelands solely because of their religious beliefs,” the letter begins.

The letter goes on to request a meeting with a “small delegation” to debrief Kerry on the crises confronting Christians including forcible conversion, mass murder, enslavement, rape, destruction of churches, and theft of lands and wealth, adding that Pope Francis has himself used the word “genocide” to describe the aforementioned persecution.

“All faiths are under attack when one faith tries to kill others because they do not believe,” said Roger Severino, director of The Heritage Foundation’s DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, at The Heritage Foundation panel last week. “It is as simple as that.” (Read more from “Obama Admin. Ignoring Widespread Christian Genocide in the Middle East” HERE)

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A New Military Power Rises in the Mideast, Courtesy of One Man

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Martyrs’ Day is a new addition to the United Arab Emirates calendar this November, wedged between the Islamic holy days and the Dubai Shopping Festival.

Many nations commemorate their fallen soldiers, but the U.A.E. has always been different. The glittering towers of Dubai and Abu Dhabi are monuments to an alternative Middle East, standing above the fray, where investors can forget the region’s conflicts and make money. If that’s now changing, it’s largely the work of one man.

Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the crown prince of the U.A.E.’s capital Abu Dhabi and the de-facto national leader, controls 6 percent of the world’s oil and its second-richest wealth fund. At 54, young for an Arab leader, he’s trusted by Washington and feted in Moscow. And he’s spent three decades beefing up his small nation’s military, making him one of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s best customers.

Sheikh Mohamed has always been security conscious. As a young prince in the air force in 1990, when U.S. troops were massing in the Persian Gulf to fight Saddam Hussein, he drove through the sand dunes to meet an American general for lunch, stashing a rifle under the front seat, just in case he got shot at. Now, to Gulf leaders, the neighborhood looks more dangerous than ever, with Islamic State taking root and Iran rising — and the crown prince wants his country to have more weapons . . .

From the Switzerland of the Persian Gulf to its Sparta, is how one Western official describes the transformation. It’s one full of risks, because the U.A.E.’s business model has largely worked — turning it from a $50 billion economy in 1990 to the Arab world’s second-largest after Saudi Arabia, with output of $400 billion last year. (Read more from “A New Military Power Rises in the Mideast, Courtesy of One Man” HERE)

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“Apocalyptic” Dust Storm Covers Much of the Middle East

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file-08-villalobos1A massive sandstorm that enveloped much of the Middle East on Tuesday sent Jeddah into total darkness at 6 p.m.

The storm lasted for 40 minutes with sand-laden winds so ferocious that one could hear the rattling of windows in many neighborhoods. . .

“It all happened in a matter of minutes,” said Sadiya Haneef, a resident of Al-Sulaimaniya district. “I could see from my balcony a mushroom-like apparition on the horizon. I thought it was smoke billowing from a faraway district,” she said. Soon it was clear to her that it was a sandstorm. “I had to literally struggle to close the door to my balcony. The gusty winds had sent everything into darkness,” she said.

The experience in another neighborhood was equally bad. “My mother noticed dark clouds when she was seeing off my sister for evening classes,” said 13-year-old Mohammed Tareq. “Within minutes, everything was hazy in Al-Aziziyah district and there was literally no visibility. It was one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever experienced. It seemed apocalyptic”. . .

Large parts of Lebanon, Syria, Israel and Cyprus were shrouded in a thick cloud of dust from the storm that began sweeping into the region on Monday. (Read more from “”Apocalyptic” Dust Storm Covers Much of the Middle East” HERE)

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Al-Qaeda’s New Poster Boy for the Middle East

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Photo Credit: Telegraph

Photo Credit: Telegraph

THE FBI “most wanted” mugshot shows a tough, swarthy figure, his hair in a jailbird crew-cut. The $10 million price on his head, meanwhile, suggests that whoever released him from US custody four years ago may now be regretting it.

Taken during his years as a detainee at the US-run Camp Bucca in southern Iraq, this is the only known photograph of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria. But while he may lack the photogenic qualities of his hero, Osama bin Laden, he is fast becoming the new poster-boy for the global jihadist movement.

Well-organised and utterly ruthless, the ex-preacher is the driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad.

Last week, his forces fought open clashes with Iraqi army troops around the city of Fallujah – once known as the graveyard of the Americans – after brazenly attempting to seize control there the weekend before.

“They turned up in convoys waving their black flags and saying that Fallujah belongs to al-Qaeda again,” said Ayad Dulaimi, a local resident. “With God’s help, the army will destroy them.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Al Qaeda Controls More Territory Than Ever in Middle East

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

From around Aleppo in western Syria to small areas of Falluja in central Iraq, al Qaeda now controls territory that stretches more than 400 miles across the heart of the Middle East, according to English and Arab language news accounts as well as accounts on jihadist websites.

Indeed, al Qaeda appears to control more territory in the Arab world than it has done at any time in its history.

The focus of al Qaeda’s leaders has always been regime change in the Arab world in order to install Taliban-style regimes. Al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri acknowledged as much in his 2001 autobiography, “Knights Under the Banner of the Prophet,” when he explained that the most important strategic goal of al Qaeda was to seize control of a state, or part of a state, somewhere in the Muslim world, explaining that, “without achieving this goal our actions will mean nothing.”

Now al-Zawahiri is closer to his goal than he has ever been. On Friday al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Iraq seized control of parts of the city of Falluja and parts of the city of Ramadi, both of which are located in Iraq’s restive Anbar Province.

Anbar is home to predominantly Sunni Muslims, who feel that that the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki treats the Sunnis as second-class citizens.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pope Francis: ‘We Won’t Resign Ourselves to a Middle East Without Christians’

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Photo Credit: AP/ Karim KadimPope Francis expressed new concern Thursday for the situation faced by “Christians who suffer in a particularly severe way the consequences of tensions and conflicts in many parts of the Middle East.”

“Syria, Iraq, Egypt and other areas of the Holy Land sometimes overflow with tears,” he told a gathering at the Vatican of leaders from Eastern rite churches that have links with the Roman Catholic Church.

“We won’t resign ourselves to a Middle East without Christians who for two thousand years confess the name of Jesus, as full citizens in social, cultural and religious life of the nations to which they belong,” he said.

The pope appealed for “everyone’s right to a dignified life and to freely profess their faith [to] be respected.”

He also said he would “not rest as long as there are men and women, of any religion, affected in their dignity, deprived of life’s basic necessities, robbed of a future, forced to the status of refugees and asylum-seekers.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Israel Raises Temperature in Runup to Middle East Peace Talks

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Photo Credit: Reuters In highly contentious moves heralding the renewal of Middle East peace talks this week, Israel on Sunday identified 26 long-term Palestinian prisoners to be released on Tuesday after authorising 1,200 new homes to be built in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The apparently choreographed steps came three days before the first substantive negotiations for five years, aimed at reaching a historic settlement of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict by next May. The outcome of intense shuttle diplomacy by US secretary of state John Kerry, the talks will resume amid widespread scepticism on both sides.

The list of names was published late on Sunday night to allow time for last-minute legal challenges from the families of victims. The group is among a total of 104 prisoners whose crimes date back more than 20 years who will be freed in stages over the next nine months. Those convicted of the most serious crimes are expected to be the last to be released.

A statement from the office of Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, said, of the 26 initially released, 14 would be deported or moved to the Gaza Strip and 12 repatriated to the occupied West Bank. All were convicted of murder or being an accessory to murder; one has been in prison for 28 years.

For most Israelis, the prisoner release is a controversial and painful price for the renewal of the peace process. Victims’ relatives and their supporters have protested against the move over recent weeks and told of their anguish and opposition in interviews and articles in the Israel media.

Read more from this story HERE.

WHO Calls Middle Eastern Virus, MERS, ‘Threat to the Entire World’ as Death Toll Rises

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Photo Credit: AP

Calling it a “threat to the entire world,” the head of the World Health Organization sounded the alarm over the Middle Eastern virus that has so far killed 24 people.

Speaking on Monday in Geneva at the global health monitor’s annual conference, Dr. Margaret Chan did not mince words about the SARS-like novel coronavirus that researchers call MERS.

“Looking at the overall global situation, my greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus. We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat. Any new disease that is emerging faster than our understanding is never under control,” Dr Chan said. “These are alarm bells and we must respond. The novel coronavirus is not a problem that any single affected country can keep to itself or manage all by itself. The novel coronavirus is a threat to the entire world.”

One day after Chan’s speech, health officials in France announced the death of a 65-year-old man who had apparently contracted the MERS virus after traveling to Dubai.

So far, the WHO says that more than half of the people who have been diagnosed with MERS have died. The organization said that 24 of 44 confirmed MERS cases have ended in death.

Read more from this story HERE.

UN Official Blames Boston Marathon Bombings on American 'Domination'

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Photo Credit: APA United Nations official known for blaming the U.S. for unrest in the Middle East has angered critics again by blaming the Boston Marathon bombings on “American global domination.”

“The American global domination project is bound to generate all kinds of resistance in the post-colonial world,” Richard Falk, the UN Human Rights Council’s Palestine monitor, wrote in an article for Foreign Policy Journal titled, “A Commentary on the Marathon Murders.”

“It is soon to tell, and the somewhat hysterical Boston dragnet for the remaining at large and alive suspect does suggest that the wounds of 9/11 are far from healed,” he wrote. “We should be asking ourselves at this moment, ‘How many canaries will have to die before we awaken from our geopolitical fantasy of global domination?’”

Falk also blamed Israel for the unrest he believes prompted two brothers of Chechen descent to set bombs that killed three innocent people and injure nearly 200, then kill a police officer.

“The war drums are beating at this moment in relation to both North Korea and Iran, and as long as Tel Aviv has the compliant ear of the American political establishment, those who wish for peace and justice in the world should not rest easy,” he wrote.

Read more from this story HERE.

US Dependence on Middle Eastern Oil Grows

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photo credit: jonrawlinsonThe US was more reliant on the Middle East for its oil imports last year, underscoring the critical importance of the politically unstable region for the country despite the growing energy independence its shale gas revolution is bringing.

That domestic production boom has triggered intense debate over whether the US would still guard the world’s critical sea lanes, such as the Strait of Hormuz in two decades’ time – or whether China, whose dependence on Middle Eastern crude imports is rapidly rising, would replace it.

However, recent oil import trends from the Gulf region suggest why the US might continue to play a critical security role in the region. While domestic production increased the most in 150 years last year, Washington will confirm later this week that oil imports from the Gulf region continued to rise.

By the end of November the US had already imported more than 450m barrels of crude from Saudi Arabia, more than it imported from Riyadh in the whole of 2009, 2010 or 2011, according to figures from the US energy department. For the first time since 2003, Saudi imports accounted for more than 15 per cent of total US oil imports. The Gulf as a whole accounted for more than 25 per cent, a nine-year high.

Other Gulf exporters are also seeing unusually strong US demand. By the end of November, Kuwait had shipped more oil to the US than in any year since 1998. Analysts are expecting annual figures to be released later this week to confirm the trend seen up to November.

Read more from this story HERE.