Mar 1, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Living in Israel during the present American election cycle definitely has its pros and cons.

The pros have to do with intelligent conversations with thinking Israelis who aren’t addicted to sensationalist TV and never-ending social media.

The cons? It’s a little awkward trying to explain to Israelis how the so-called presidential debates have, in any way, offered serious opportunities to evaluate America’s presidential candidates.

This becomes especially difficult when both Israelis and Americans look at the record of the White House’s present occupant – once the darling of the campaign circuit and the media’s golden boy.

Will the next president be wise and strong enough to steady the Ship of State’s wavering course? Or to push the global “reset button?” Or, in non-metaphorical terms, to undo the enormous damage that has been done by the present administration’s feckless policies both at home and abroad?

Have the debates helped or hindered us in making wise choices?

My Facebook friend Clarice Feldman described it well:

The trigger for this week’s madness was what was absurdly called a “debate,” a format designed specifically to encourage the candidates to attack each other instead of explaining their views on significant issues. A Jerry Springer-type gladiatorial contest to up the network’s rating. Did you watch it? I didn’t. I like to get my information from the written word. I could get whatever meat was in it by spending a few minutes online and spared myself the discomfort of watching this disaster. I no longer consider watching these farcical entertainments a civic duty.

I couldn’t agree more. The lack of dignity, the mocking and the loss of courtesy have been appalling.

But beside the unpleasant shouting matches that the TV format demanded, I’ve been reminded how I deeply I dislike politics to begin with. Years ago, I edited a book called “Just Politics,” written by my friend and colleague Paul Marshall, whose Ph.D. is in political theory.

When I expressed to him my personal aversion to all things political, he wisely counseled me that although politics are indeed a dirty business, they really are very important. And nowhere are they more significant than in nations where decent and just politics are a matter of life and death.

Of course, Marshall was correct. And that’s precisely the case in Israel. One has to only look at the politics of the Oslo Accords and the “disengagement” from Gaza to see that destruction and bloodshed have followed in their wake – violence that continues to destroy and debase Israeli/Arab relations. Shortsighted, foolish and even well intentioned political choices can have devastating results.

Maybe that’s why most of my Israel friends are cringing (to put it mildly) at the “reality show,” “hate fest” or, probably most damning of all, “clown car” descriptions that have been laughingly applied to this year’s American presidential contest.

GOP Presidential Candidates Debate In Milwaukee

This has, no doubt, been exacerbated by the disagreeable price Israel continues to pay for America’s last presidential elections. The current United States administration has not only spurned Israel and her prime minister, but has turned its back on America’s other longtime allies in the Middle East.

To make matters worse, America’s Middle East policy has elevated the terror-supporting Islamic Republic of Iran to heights of glory that even its founder, “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, could never have envisioned in his wildest megalomaniacal dreams.

The Middle East is in the midst of a dangerous meltdown, thanks at least in part to our U.S. leadership’s seeming disinterest in massive death tolls, bloodthirsty dictators, bloodstained minorities, dispossession of innocents and, of course, that controversial little word: genocide.

But now we look to the future. The election. The inauguration. The newly anointed president of the United States who will have the unique challenge of trying to repair what has been broken.

In Israel, politics may be hair-raising, accusatory and personal, but people do like to get to the point. What do the various political parties bring to the table? What do they believe in? What do the representatives of those parties offer, both in military and political experience? What can they do and what will they do?

Around here, the picture isn’t so pretty at the moment. There is blood on the cobblestones of the Old City. A Tel Aviv café has been ripped apart by Arab gunfire. Communities in Judea and Samaria are losing fathers, mothers, sons and daughters to ongoing terrorism.

But that’s not the only problem. Along every border prowls a genuine threat to Israel’s security. The Islamic State in the Sinai. Hamas in Gaza. Instability in Jordan. Hezbollah in Lebanon. And Iran’s forces in a tug-of-war with Sunni radicals in Syria.

Yes, it gets emotional. Debates rage and op-eds rant. But no matter how much deliberation ensues, recent electoral results reflected Israeli voters’ desire for focused, experienced and tough-minded governance. Hence, Benjamin Netanyahu.

And then there’s America.

Some Americans are indeed concerned about the encroachment of Islamist terrorism that has persisted in recent years and which is often underplayed by media reports. But to many others, terrorism seems like a faraway problem. Economic troubles tend to eclipse dangers that threaten from abroad. Affordable healthcare is a worry, as is future financial security.

Meanwhile, one of the most alarming symptoms of all this is the tyranny of feelings vs. facts.

In popular culture, the question “How do you feel?” trumps (pardon the word) “What do you think?” Or even more offputtingly, “What do you believe?”

Many of the American candidates in question – and part of this was due to the “debate” format – seemed to be focused on stirring up anger, resentment, fear and hatred. And social media has magnified those impulses to a shocking degree. This almost entirely eclipses a call to sane thoughts, powerful ideas and foundational beliefs.

It’s long been my observation that Israelis – emotional though they may be – by and large tend to seek out the rational, the specific facts and the provable ideas. This is probably why America’s 2016 election process seems alien and even frightening to some. And infuriating to others.

Here’s how my friend Ruthie Blum illustrated the point, writing for The Algemeiner, a New York-based Jewish newspaper:

During Thursday night’s CNN-hosted Republican debate in Houston, Texas, candidate Marco Rubio finally took on leading contender Donald Trump, face-to-face, about Israel. Referring to Trump’s statements that he would be a “neutral broker” between Israel and the Palestinians, Rubio argued, “The Palestinians are not a real estate deal, Donald.”

“A deal is a deal,” Trump replied.

“A deal is not a deal when you’re dealing with terrorists,” Rubio said.

Rubio concluded: “No people on earth want peace more than Israel. No people have suffered more at the hands of terrorism than the people of Israel. If America doesn’t stand with Israel, who would we stand with?”

….

If the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians were a real-estate problem, even the Democrats would have been able to solve it. In fact, if it were an issue of dividing up plots of land, the Arabs of Palestine would have had a state starting in 1947. Indeed, if killing or kicking the Jews out had not been the true bone of contention all along, the Palestinians today could and would be leading the kind of normal lives that Israelis take for granted.

One of the challenges the United States faces amidst today’s battered “global village” is that whatever dangers threaten Israel, and indeed, threaten the Middle East’s millions of people, are not isolated. They are existential threats to the West as well. And despite many Americans’ longing to isolate – to leave the rest of the world behind and hunker down – that tempting option simply doesn’t work in today’s real world.

The Islamist terrorism that is ripping the Middle East apart has recently devastated Paris, and has put Britain’s security forces in an unprecedented state of high alert.

And setting aside 9/11, that same terrorism has also encroached on the U.S. in places such as Ft. Hood, Texas; Boston, Mass.; San Bernardino, Calif. and more.

So whether or not Americans want to be the so-called policemen of the world, there are self-evident consequences to turning a blind eye, both at home and abroad.

As one Israeli friend said very pointedly, “Americans needs to realize that when they vote for a candidate, they are not only voting for American interests – they are voting for what will happen in the rest of the world, as a result. Maybe they don’t like that fact, but it’s undeniably true.”

The abandonment of U.S. allies and the alignment with Iran – the No. 1 state supporter of global terrorism – has already led to a massive death toll in the Middle East, not to mention the largest tide of refugees since World War II, which is currently creating havoc in Europe and likely will eventually do the same in the U.S.

In light of all this, will goodhearted American citizens look beyond the shallow demagoguery spouted out by their self-serving and sometimes dishonest candidates? Will they demand a practical strategy behind every bumper-sticker promise? Will they choose to think and to assess their core beliefs, and not only rely on feelings?

By the way, what does fulfilling the slogan “Make America great again” really mean? What will it require?

My Israeli friends sometimes ask me those questions.

I wish I knew the answers.

Apr 6, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

I left Israel just two days after Easter. But though I’d been busy preparing to be abroad for a few weeks, the beauty of that holiday’s timeless miracle hadn’t left me. It’s a unique privilege to live in Jerusalem, where Christians believe the resurrection of Jesus took place more than 2,000 years ago. Taking a deep breath this past Easter morning, I had a sense that the holy city’s air still somehow carries a trace of glory.

But something else was also on my mind as my flight taxied and soared across the Mediterranean: the enormous terror attack that had taken place in Lahore, Pakistan on Easter Sunday. A suicide bomber killed at least 73 people – many of them children – targeting Christians who were celebrating the resurrection of Jesus in a crowded public park.

More than 300 people were injured; many were viciously assaulted by shrapnel – losing eyes or limbs – or were otherwise gravely wounded. The death toll will surely continue to rise.

The besieged park was packed; it was intentionally chosen because poverty-stricken Christian families traditionally gather there to enjoy the Easter holiday. Although it’s all they can afford to do, they commemorate the occasion with great joy.

At first glance, the attack appeared to be an Islamic State operation, and in fact, the Afghanistan-based Taliban terrorist group that carried it out – Jamaat-ul-Ahrar – has applauded ISIS in the past. Meanwhile, the group’s spokesman, Ehsanullah Ehsan, told NBC news that the group “plans more ‘devastating’ attacks that will target Christians and other religious minorities as well as government installations.”

[Ehsan] denied that Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has any affiliation with the Islamic State, even though it has in the past expressed support for the Syria-based terror group.

Last week, NBC News reported that U.S. intelligence officials didn’t see any ISIS links to the Lahore attack, but that both Washington and Islamabad are concerned that the group has fostered informal and often clandestine ties with Pakistani militants that may be tied to unprecedented levels of violence against religious minorities and other civilian targets.

That same Sunday – a gorgeous, sunlit day in Jerusalem – also brought other troubling news. A Catholic priest, Father Tom Uzhunnalil, who was abducted during a brutal ISIS raid on a home for the elderly in Aden, Yemen, was initially reported to have been crucified on Good Friday. Today, there is some vague evidence that he is still alive. We can only pray that is so, and that God will spare him the cruelties he may well be facing.

But four nuns and numerous others who served with Uzhunnalil at that old folks’ home were not so fortunate. On March 4, they were hauled out of the building one by one and murdered in cold blood. The brutal attack on the Sisters of Charity is described in detail in a harrowing eyewitness account handwritten by a nun who was in hiding. I received a PDF of this horrifying document from a colleague and will quote only selectively from it. Its full details are almost too much to bear.

At 8:30 a.m., ISIS dressed in blue came in, killed guard and driver. Five young Ethiopian men (Christian) began running to tell the sisters ISIS was here to kill them. They were killed one by one. They tied them to trees, shot them in the head and smashed their heads …

They caught Sr. Judit and Sr. Reginet first, tied them up, shot them in the head and smashed their heads. They caught Sr. Anslem and Sr. Marguarite, tied them, shot them in the head and smashed their head in the sand…

A neighbor saw them put Fr. Tom in their car. They did not find a trace of Father anywhere…

International Business Times reported, “Rev. Thomas Uzhunnalil, a Salesian priest, was kidnapped in Yemen this month during a raid on a Catholic nursing home run by Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity. Fighters with the militant group also known as ISIL or ISIS claimed they killed him just as the Romans killed Jesus, the event that Christians remember on Good Friday each year.”

Our prayers continue for Uzhunnalil, that he may be spared. The story of his work in Yemen was barely reported; only a few random accounts about his possible crucifixion made the news. The fate of the nuns and other workers in the home were virtually unmentioned in major media outlets.

Just a couple of weeks after the attack on the Yemen Christian home for the aged, the Jewish Agency secretly airlifted approximately 20 Yemenite Jews to Israel. Islamist terrorists particularly target Jews and Christians, and the sooner these “People of the Book” can be removed from the path of ISIS, al-Qaida and radical groups, the better their chances of survival.

Islamist attacks on Jews and Christians is, in fact, one theme in my book “Saturday People, Sunday People.” Because of that publication, I was invited to participate in the Nexus Conference, which was hosted in New Haven, Conn. by Christian Union, a fellowship of believing students at Ivy League schools. I was on my way there when I left Israel on March 29.

At this impressive conference, which welcomed some 500 bright, young Christians from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, Cornell, Penn and Columbia, I also enjoyed a reunion with my friend Baroness Cox, a member of Britain’s House of Lords and an indefatigable warrior for the rights of Christians who are persecuted for their faith.

My role at the Nexus Conference was to discuss with a group of students interested in media and journalism what it is like to be a Christian truth-teller in a not-so-Christian field.

Cox was a plenary speaker who highlighted the persecution of Christians in places that are rarely – if ever – mentioned in major media reports. She spoke about the small, Christian enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh (where she and I met in 2003), which is once again under assault by Azerbaijan’s Turks.

She described the plight of Christians in Burma, where multiplied thousands have literally fled for their lives to squalid refugee camps in Thailand.

She talked about Nigeria, where Boko Haram has murdered hundreds of Christians.

And she reminded us of South Sudan, where the Islamist regime in Khartoum continues to target and murder Christians who refuse to convert to Islam.

Many of us have written at length about the savage abuses suffered by Christians in Iraq and Syria at the hands of ISIS, and about the tens of thousands of refugees who remain behind.

And we have tried to find words to describe the beheading of 20 Coptic Christians (19 of them Egyptian) in Libya. Those beheadings probably provided the best-reported persecution story in recent years.

Unfortunately, less sensational stories rarely reach the West.

As I write this, I am in touch with a friend who is working to provide food and encouragement to Iraqi and Syrian refugees in Turkey. At one point, my friend and her colleagues were taken into a private room by local authorities in a Muslim village and read to from the Quran; it was “suggested” that these Christians convert to Islam. Their refusal to do so was received with cold stares and a palpable sense of danger.

Of course, Islam isn’t the only threat. Some Hindu sects abuse Christians in India. Buddhists do likewise in Sri Lanka.

And those who follow persecution issues closely know that the world’s worst persecutor of Christians is North Korea. Open Doors International once again named North Korea’s Stalinist-style dictatorship as the No. 1 persecutor of Christians in its recently released 2016 World Watch List.

Far away from the brutalities of persecution’s front lines, I was inspired and encouraged to be among the vibrant young Christians at the Nexus Conference. The students were bright, energetic and sophisticated. But most of them were not really aware of Christian persecution’s scope and intensity. That troublesome fact reflects far more on the U.S. media’s indifference to the subject matter than on the very evident interest of those young believers.

And, like most Christians in today’s troubled world, once they heard what is happening, they were unsure about what today’s catastrophic carnage might mean to them. What should they do? What difference might they be able to make?

I usually suggest that people share the stories they hear on social media to their churches, social groups and wherever else they can pass the word, as well as write to their political representatives and financially help support trustworthy organizations.

But I suppose the most compelling answer I’ve heard in awhile was offered during Cox’s presentation. She put it this way: “You may not be able to do everything, but you can’t not do something! So pray for these suffering people, and as you pray, ask God what he wants you to do to make a difference.”

Once that becomes clear, as the Bible says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”

What better gift of gratitude can we offer, rejoicing in that glorious Easter miracle in Jerusalem? And how better can we remember those who suffer so greatly for believing in it?

May 3, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

Sunday, April 24 commemorated the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide. The day was observed by the world’s Armenian churches and remembered solemnly in many other Christian gatherings. And, in the face of today’s ongoing genocide in Iraq and Syria, it served as a grim reminder of the terrible abuses Christian communities have endured for centuries – and continue to suffer.

Less than a year after the outbreak of World War I, on April 24, 1915, Ottoman Turkish authorities arrested hundreds of Armenian professors, lawyers, doctors, clergymen and other elites in Constantinople (now Istanbul). These revered members of the community were jailed, tortured and hastily massacred.

But that was only the beginning.

As I wrote for The Philos Project just a year ago, “That mass murder marked the initiation of a death sentence on an entire religious population. When reports of the leaderships’ slaughter spread across Turkey, terror gripped Armenian cities, towns and villages, which in 1915 were home to approximately 2,100,000 souls. According to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, by 1922, only 387,800 Armenians remained alive.”

Of course, the world’s Armenian Christians can never forget the fate of their forebears in that notorious religious cleansing. And, in fact, anti-Christian forces in the Middle East will not let them forget.

Just over two years ago, in March 2014, Sunni radicals swept through the Armenian village of Kassab, Syria. Early that Friday morning, Kassab was violently attacked, its churches desecrated, its families driven out. Since then, Al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists have occupied the town’s abandoned homes and businesses.

For both historic and present-day reasons, many of Kassab’s dispossessed victims blame Turkey for turning a blind eye to the invaders as they crossed the nearby Turkish border into Syria; some claimed to have seen injured fighters carried back into Turkey along the same route.

To this day, it is nearly impossible to determine the fate of the Armenian Christians who fled Kassab in 2014. According to several reports, there were hundreds of them. Tragically, some of them were elderly sons and daughters of families that fled the Turks in 1915 and settled in Kassab.

Fast-forward to 2016, and this year brought Armenian Christians yet another bloodstained reminder. On April 26,

Speaking to AsiaNews over the phone from Aleppo, Armenian Sevag Tashdjian said, “Islamic terrorist groups supported by Turkey” who “cross Turkish-Syrian border trafficking arms, ammunition and stolen goods” are responsible.

“We woke up under the bombs; it is Turkey’s gift,” he added. “Entire neighborhoods have caught fire and we went under the bombs to bring relief to sick and elderly trapped in their homes and take them to safety, to safer underground shelters.”

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The few open shopkeepers closed their doors, and for the first time in five years of conflict, “anger has overcome fear.” It must be said that the Aleppo Armenians are the group who paid the highest price so far in the war, with the destruction of the ancient churches (including the church of the 40 martyrs, a 17th century architectural jewel). The churches were destroyed by explosives placed in underground tunnels carved from areas controlled by pro-Turkish Islamic terrorists).

According to AsiaNews, the attacks on Aleppo’s Armenian community killed 17, including three children.

A day later, a PDF file was received by my colleague Nina Shea at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, written by the Rev. Haroutune Selimian of Bethel Church in Aleppo (I quote it with permission). It contains further details about the attacks on Aleppo, along with a number of heartbreaking photos.

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The situation in Aleppo has taken a turn for the worse since 24th of April 2016. Dozens of mortar bombs have damaged of completely destroyed buildings in the predominately Christian … neighborhoods … as the opposition intensified its offensive in areas of Aleppo held by regime forces.

There has been systematic shelling of Aleppo in the past three days, with the help of artillery, mortar and other kinds of shells. Although the firing is carried out from the same positions, it is not clear which group is conducting it.

We call on all governments, especially Western nations, who are supporting the opposition forces to immediately use their leverage to halt the attacks on Armenian neighborhoods. Those governments which do not work to end the operations will be considered accomplices in the anti-Armenian attacks and all other crimes.

On that same day, other explosions in Armenian areas were also reported, including a bus bombing in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital. That is being investigated.

Another explosion took place in the war-torn Armenian Christian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. And that one caught my attention. I have a personal connection to that beautiful, mountainous location.

Many westerners are not even aware of the existence of a place called Nagorno-Karabakh (called Artsakh by the Armenian locals), much less about its recent violent history. Once a part of the ancient Armenian Kingdom – with roots reaching back to the second century – the present upheaval dates back to Stalin’s regime in the USSR, when the dictator’s divisive remapping endeavors surrounded the Artsakh Christians with Islamic Azerbaijan.

I first became acquainted with Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh and its beleaguered Christian community just a few years after Sept. 11. I was there with friends who were touring both the Armenian enclave and Yerevan, Armenia. We were guided by Baroness Cox – a heroic human rights advocate who serves in Britain’s House of Lords (I was later to write her biography).

Cox was deeply involved in assisting Nagorno-Karabakh’s Christians during the bloody war that exploded shortly after the demise of the Soviet Union. At that time, Artsakh had voted to secede from Azerbaijan and to unite with Armenia.

As with many such disputes in today’s world, there was a religious component. The Armenian Christians wanted to be independent of the Muslim, Turkish-oriented Azerbaijanis. The memory of the Armenian genocide could never be far from their minds, and they wanted to situate themselves as far away as possible from Turkey’s influence, safely within Armenia’s borders.

The dispute turned violent and deadly once the USSR collapsed, and it was a horrific clash. But somehow – rather miraculously – the ridiculously outmanned, outgunned Armenian/Karabakhi troops defeated the Azeris.

By the time the conflict ended with a shaky peace treaty in 1994, the desperate Azeris had enlisted savage Arab and Afghan jihadi warriors to fight alongside their dispirited troops.

For me, that alone was thought provoking.

Meanwhile, according to observers, the Armenians fought with passion, while the Azeris were increasingly demoralized. The New York Times reported, “In Stepanakert [the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh], it is impossible to find an able-bodied man – whether volunteer from Armenia or local resident – out of uniform. [Whereas in] Azerbaijan, draft-age men hang out in cafes.”

The death toll for the conflict in the early 1990s was some 6,000 Armenians vs. 20,000 Azeris.

Cox – who had managed to provide large shipments of medication and other essential support to the Armenians during the war – led us to various battle sites, where we spoke to Christians who had survived the fighting.

The Archbishop (Armenian Orthodox) of Stepanakert showed me his large and perfectly preserved church, which he described as the “beating heart of Arthsakh.” A number of outbuildings, including a monastery, had been utterly flattened by Azeri Grad missile fire (the topography in Nagorno-Karabakh bears a startling resemblance to the Golan Heights overlooking Galilee).

“It was as if an Invisible Hand had completely covered our church,” the amiable cleric told me with a smile, cupping one hand, shelter-like, above the palm of the other. “Only one bullet hole.”

I could see a tiny puncture in a window at the top of the sanctuary. The lack of damage seemed surreal to me. Something stirred in my soul.

A day or two later, the baroness took us to see the eternal flame, which commemorates the Armenian genocide in Yerevan.

Since 9/11, I had been increasingly conscious of the proverbial line in the sand between the western, Judeo-Christian world and the encroachment of Islamist violence. Clearly we were in a war – not only a war of ideas, but also a war that had already become matter of life and death.

As I stood there, feeling the heat of that memorial furnace nearly scorching my face, I remembered the archbishop’s words. And, more or less without meaning to, I made a quiet decision:

“I want to be on the side of the Invisible Hand.”

I think that decision ultimately led me to Jerusalem, where the same battle is being fought on a daily basis.

As for Nagorno-Karabakh, unfortunately, the conflict is not over. In recent weeks, the worst outbreak of violence since the 1994 ceasefire has erupted. And mightier powers than the locals are staking their claims: Nagorno-Karabakh is becoming a crucible in the simmering feud between Islamist Turkey and Christian Russia.

On the same Sunday morning that Armenian Christians said their prayers of remembrance for the victims of the 1915 genocide, the fighting flared up again: Explosions, howitzers and accusations blasted away on both sides.

Just days later, U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk responded to the Azeri’s aggression:

The time has come for Azerbaijan to face consequences from the United States and the international community for its blatant military aggression against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

After years of saber rattling, Azerbaijan’s four-day assault on the NKR earlier this month is its most egregious attack since it signed a ceasefire agreement with Armenia and the NKR in 1994. These recent military actions indicate the clear need for new measures to modify a cease-fire framework that is not working.

With no system to referee the cease-fire, Azerbaijan has become increasingly belligerent while facing no consequences for its violations. This must change.

The choice for [Azerbaijan’s] President Aliyev is clear: Either he subscribes to diplomatic negotiations with the Armenians under peaceful circumstances or continues with a belligerent and futile policy of attrition.

If he chooses the latter, he should know that every act of Azerbaijani aggression will only further validate the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic’s argument that it go the way of Kosovo.

And so it goes:

Yesterday’s Armenian Genocide.

Today’s genocide of Assyrian Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria.

At the same time, terrorist detonations in Paris, Brussels, Jerusalem and San Bernardino. Massacres in Nigeria and Sudan. Beheadings in Libya and the Philippines.

These are just some of the many battlegrounds in what some journalists are calling “The Long War.”

And we’re all in it. It’s quite true that we haven’t declared war on anyone. But war has been declared on us. So some of us fight with weapons. Others launch assaults with the written word. And some are prayer warriors.

But if you want to know more about what The Long War is all about, just ask the Armenians, the Assyrian Christians, or the Israelis.

And if you want to see the action more clearly yourself, step across the line. Pray for wisdom. Like me, you may unexpectedly find yourself deployed in the service of the Invisible Hand.

Jun 2, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook, Muslims and Muslim Majority States | 0 comments

Encouraging reports continue to emerge about significant improvements in Israel’s relationship with Egypt. With Cairo battling an explosive ISIS presence in the Sinai Peninsula, and destroying Hamas smuggling tunnels into Gaza, news of quiet cooperation between the two countries comes as a breath of fresh air. Overall, considering the ongoing bloodbaths elsewhere in the region, such positive accounts can’t help but spark a flicker of optimism in Israeli hearts.

But for those of us who are concerned with Christian persecution, all has not been well in recent days. On May 25, the Daily Telegraph reported a horrendous attack on a village of Coptic Christians in El-Karm, located in Egypt’s southern province of Minya.

The trouble began – as anti-Christian attacks in Muslim-majority countries often do – with a salacious rumor. The story in this case was that a Christian man, Ashraf Thabet, was having a sexual relationship with a Muslim woman. In an Islamic-oriented culture, this portends a death sentence – an honor killing – on the purported lovers.

Once the accused adulterer got wind of the local gossip, he ran for his life, with his wife and children in tow. His parents, knowing very well how vulnerable they also were, rushed to the police for protection.

That, as it turned out, was a wasted trip.

The Telegraph wrote,

The next day, around 300 Muslim men set fire to and looted [the [parents’] house…and stripped the mother naked out on the street. They also set fire to and looted six other houses, witnesses told Reuters.

“They burned the house and went in and dragged me out, threw me in front of the house and ripped my clothes. I was just as my mother gave birth to me and was screaming and crying,” the woman, who requested anonymity, told Reuters.

Later identified as Soaad Thabet, the 70-year-old mother of the accused was not only stripped naked. She was paraded around the neighborhood, humiliated beyond description and fearing for her life. It may be difficult for western readers to imagine the degree of cultural dishonor and disgrace to which this innocent woman was subjected.

This was, indeed, a sensational story. But it was nothing new to those of us who keep an eye on such incidents. Muslim attacks on Coptic Christians aren’t exactly a novelty in Egypt. As I wrote just about a year ago,

The Copts’ historic Christian community – founded in Alexandria during the first century CE by the Apostle Mark – comprises between 8 and 10 percent of Egypt’s 83 million citizens.

The Copts’ bloodlines are even more ancient than their Christian faith; they date back to the pharaohs, centuries before the Arab invasions in the seventh century CE. The Coptic language, still used in liturgy, is the closest existing language to that of ancient Egypt.

However, despite their historical heritage, as a religious minority in a Muslim-majority state, the Copts have lived for centuries under the dhimmi status spelled out in Islamic Sharia law. Simply put, that means that they are treated as inferior citizens. Meanwhile, in recent years, Copts have suffered escalating attacks, as Islamist extremists have specifically targeted them.

Christians in Egypt suffered exceptional abuse during the brief regime of Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi. Then, in July 2013, in response to multiplied millions of Egyptians taking to the streets in protest against the Brotherhood, Egypt’s military removed Morsi from office.

This stunning turnaround offered some hope to Egyptians who were both wary and weary of the Brotherhood’s efforts to seize control of all branches of government. It also unleashed even greater violence upon the Copts.

After a litany of horrific incidents in 2011-2013, and after the brutal massacre of 21 Coptic Christian men on a Libyan beach in February 2015, reports of attacks on Christians have diminished somewhat, although such episodes have not ceased.

Meanwhile, since his election in May 2014, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has taken several highly visible steps toward bettering state relations with the Coptic community, including his unprecedented move in attending last winter’s Coptic Christmas Mass, celebrated by Pope Tawadros.

And following the recent Minya outrage, President Sisi issued a statement demanding that officials hold the perpetrators accountable. He also ordered that the seven Christian houses, which had been burned and looted, be rebuilt and restored by the state, at no expense to the owners.

In light of all this, I asked my Egyptian colleague and friend Samuel Tadros – senior fellow at Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the author of the critically-acclaimed book Motherland Lost: The Egyptian and Coptic Quest for Modernity – if there has been real progress in relations between the government and the Coptic community. Tadros explained,

A spike in attacks came after the 2011 revolution for two reasons; collapse of security and rise of Islamists not just on national level, but on local one, where they attempted to force their will on villages and small towns.

Following the removal of President Morsi, these two factors have been somewhat contained. Policing is a bit better, not by much – they still ignore attacks on Copts – but there is somewhat better security in the streets; and Islamists are on the run.

The result is that the Copts are back to a bit higher number of attacks than during the Mubarak era, which of course is not something to look up to. But we have to remember, the president has changed, but the local security officer who won’t protect the Copts is the same man, the local mayor or governor who will hold the reconciliation session is the same official, and most importantly the neighbors who hate the Copts are the same neighbors.

Sam Tadros’ reference to “reconciliation sessions” is of great importance. These sessions amount to a disgraceful tactic, which is used again and again following incidents of Christian persecution. Such events essentially release violent perpetrators from all responsibility.

The idea of reconciliation may sound good on the surface: why not bring together the village’s Christians and Muslims so they can work out their differences and get along with one another?

What really happens, instead, is that an attitude of moral equivalency prevails. “Everyone” is responsible for the problem. Therefore, the Muslim radicals, who may already have been arrested and even indicted for their criminal behavior, are for all practical purposes “forgiven.”

The mob attack in El-Karm, Minya, was no exception to this scheme.

Bishop Macarius of Minya and Abu Qirqas, who was delegated by Pope Tawadros II to speak on behalf of the Coptic Orthodox Church on the Minya case, denounced the subsequent reconciliation meeting, stating that it would prevent the perpetrators from being held accountable. “I refused to attend the meeting so as to deliver a message that enforcing the law should come before any meeting,” he said in an official statement.

Sam Tadros goes on to say,

There are several problems with the reconciliation programs that take place after every attack on Copts. First they are non-judicial practices that replace the courts. As such, no punishment is ever handed down to the attackers. By not punishing the attackers, the sessions create a culture of impunity. You can attack Copts and get away with it.

Secondly, the sessions end up giving the attackers what they want: If they were objecting to a church being built, no church is built; if they were angry after a rumor about a Christian man insulting Islam or having a relationship with a Muslim woman, then he and his extended family are forced out of the village.

As such, the sessions create a culture of encouragement. If you are unhappy with something the Copts did, attack their homes, burn some houses, loot a few shops and not only will you get away with it, but your actions will be rewarded by giving you what you want.

Lastly, the sessions create a false impression that the problem has been solved or that there is no problem between Copts and Muslims in the first place. This, in turn, provides no incentive for the state to take the issue seriously and attempt to solve it.

Of course it’s true that Christians are meant to forgive. We are also called to be peacemakers. But at the same time, while being gentle as doves, we are equally advised to be “Wise as serpents.” With that in mind, there seems to be much wisdom in the Coptic leaders’ resistance to the phony peace and forgiveness promoted in Egypt’s reconciliation sessions.

Jul 3, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Independence Day is the most joyful summer holiday in America. The Fourth of July is fêted with barbecues, outdoor gatherings of families, friends and spectacular fireworks displays.

Forty years ago, July 4, 1976, was a festival of special significance as America celebrated 200 years as a nation. Massive events were scheduled, historic tall ships graced waterways, and the Stars and Stripes fluttered in towns and cities across the land.

Unexpectedly, on that holiday morning, a different news story nearly upstaged the USA’s party. But as they read the bold face headlines, the American people quickly saw that they had one more reason to rejoice:

“Israeli Airborne Troops Rescue Hijacked Hostages”

On June 27, 254 passengers had been kidnapped during the hijacking of an Air France plane; 148 of these captives were later released, and only 94 Israelis and Jews and the 12-person flight crew remained as hostages. And now they languished in a scorching, filthy airport terminal in Entebbe, Uganda. Would they be shot? Or ransomed? They had faint hopes of rescue.

On July 4, Israeli soldiers secretly flew to Entebbe in four Hercules cargo planes. The task force included the elite Sayeret Matkal unit (the “Unit”), led by Lt. Col. Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu, along with Air Force pilots, Golani infantrymen and other forces.

The rescue was a deadly gamble. Up until the last minute, the Israeli government vacillated about whether it should be approved; the planes were already in the air before the go-ahead was given.

Yet against all odds, all but three hostages were safely rescued. And only one Israeli soldier was killed in the operation – the commander of the elite special forces unit, Yoni Netanyahu. Following his death, the Israeli government decided to rename the mission “Operation Jonathan.”

Iddo Netanyahu, Yoni’s brother, himself a member of the same Unit, researched and wrote about the raid, publishing two books about it, one of which, “Yoni’s Last Battle,” appeared in English.

On this 40th anniversary of the raid, another book has appeared, in Hebrew, titled “Operation Jonathan First Hand.” This is a collection of testimonies written by 35 men of Sayeret Matkal who participated in the raid and its preparation. Israel’s Ynet News received pre-publication exclusivity to the material and has released a three-part series based on the accounts.

It seems that the men of the Unit decided to publish their accounts, for the very first time, as a response to numerous erroneous and misleading reports that have appeared over the years about the raid and about their commander Yoni.

The author of the Ynet series, Ronen Berman, writes, “Yoni Netanyahu’s memory has suffered several blows since the operation because of ego and politics. That was the case when the most comprehensive and thorough investigation of the operation, written by his brother Iddo, was unjustifiably presented as a biased version of events. That was also the case when some tried to minimize (Yoni) Netanyahu’s part in the planning of the operation and in leading it.”

With all this in mind, I asked Iddo Netanyahu to tell me more about Entebbe, his brother Yoni’s legacy as the commander of the operation, and what Iddo has learned in the process of documenting the story.

* * *

First of all why have you devoted some much time to research and writing about the Entebbe Operation?

“Because I believe in the need to document history correctly. I am the son of a historian, and maybe this view of mine is in my genes. But I think that for anyone really, truth is important. Ten years after Entebbe, I saw things being written and said about the raid and about Yoni that were patently false. And so I wanted to document the facts.

“At that time, I was the first person to interview the Unit’s participants in the raid. Strangely enough, the army did not do so, being satisfied with interviewing only one officer of the Unit. Thus, the military documentation was erroneous and slipshod, and a false account took hold in the army, which in large measure served as the basis for nearly all the subsequent literature about it.”

The raid has been described as a textbook hostage rescue operation. Yet it had to be accomplished in just a matter of days. What were the biggest risks the rescuers faced?

“There were several risks. One of them was the fact that if the Hercules cargo planes would be shot and incapacitated by missiles or even gunfire, there would be no way for the men to come back. This was due to the simple reason that Israel did not have the capability of rescuing them.

“The second, more immediate risk was to 33 men of the Sayaret Matkal unit, who were the first to land and who carried out the heart of the operation. Their task was to storm the terminal, kill the terrorists, fight the Ugandan army, and free the hostages. Just six people were to enter the large hall in the first seconds, where all 10 terrorists might be. The Unit wasn’t used to those kinds of odds.

“In a rescue operation like this, you don’t enter spraying fire, because you’ll be killing the very people you’re trying to rescue. You have to enter the hall and first determine where are the terrorists – who might be aiming their weapons on you – and only then shoot them. It’s very dangerous. As it turned out, there were only four terrorists watching over the hostages in the hall. The rest were elsewhere.

“The soldiers would also be facing an unknown number of Ugandan troops. Again, there were only 33 Sayeret Matkal members confronting numerous Ugandan soldiers in the building and around it.

“These seemingly poor odds were brought up by the Unit’s soldiers in discussion with Yoni, and he had to address them. Yoni believed that the men could overcome these odds because they were far better soldiers than the terrorists or the Ugandans, and he tried to calm their fears. He stressed the same thing in his last briefing to his men, before they took off for Entebbe, ‘You’re better soldiers than anyone there and you will succeed.’

“The men have said that he was able to give them tremendous confidence in their ability. So yes, it was an operation with great risks, but it succeeded – because of good planning, good execution, and the courage of the soldiers.”

How did Yoni help convince the powers-that-be that the operation should move forward?

“Well, not only he. But Yoni himself met with the Defense Minister, Shimon Peres, who called him in for a one-on-one meeting – something unheard of, that is, a defense minister meeting in this way with a lieutenant colonel. But Peres wanted to know firsthand from the man would lead the rescue party whether he thought the plan would succeed.

“Yoni explained to him why he thought the odds were very favorable and told him that the number of casualties among the hostages would be minimal. Peres was convinced.

“But Yoni wasn’t the only one making the case for the raid. In large measure, it was the officers in the army, who felt that the operation should be done, that caused the government to change heart. This was the same government that voted two days before the raid to agree to the terrorists’ demands.

The pressure upwards came from various men, whether the Deputy Chief of Staff Yekutiel Adam, who moved the preparations forward. Or from the head of the Israeli Air Force, Beni Peled. Or from many officers besides Yoni, including Brig. Gen. Dan Shomron who headed the ground operation. All this, in turn, influenced the Chief of Staff, Motta Gur, and finally the government and Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin.

“But Yoni’s meeting with the Defense Minister was without a doubt of crucial importance.”

Describe some of the intelligence that made the raid possible.

“The operation couldn’t have been undertaken if the hijackers hadn’t released the non-Israeli hostages. These were flown to Paris, and less than two days before the planes took off, an Israeli officer interviewed a few of them. They described where the hostages were located, how many there were, the floor plan of the building, and other details. The operation couldn’t be put together until the planners, both Yoni and his staff officers in the Unit, and commanders above the Unit, had that information.

“Another uncertainty was how many Ugandan soldiers surrounded the building.

“To answer that question, a member of the Mossad flew to Entebbe Airport in a small plane. He pretended that his aircraft was in trouble, managed to land there and took pictures both while he was hovering above the airport and while he was taking off afterwards. Those photographs proved that there was no huge Ugandan cordon surrounding the terminal.

“This agent phoned in his report, then sent his photos, which were given to the Israeli soldiers just as they were about to leave on the mission. The information allowed the Chief of Staff to recommend to the cabinet that the operation be approved.”

Were the Entebbe runway lights turned off at night?

“That was a major consideration, whether the planes could land in a darkened airfield. But the head of the Hercules squadron, Joshua Shani, assured the Chief of Staff that, yes, he would be able to do so. They had developed a mechanism for landing by radar, but it was not perfected. In fact, they had never yet actually done it on a darkened airfield. But Shani said, “We can do it.” The Chief of Staff didn’t quite buy it. “Show me,” he said. So Shani flew him all the way to Sinai, to an airport we had there, to demonstrate that he could land in the dark. But before the demonstration, unknown to the Chief of Staff, he practiced landing on that very runway during daylight. So he cheated a little.

“Once again, this shows the resolve of the officers from below. He was just a Lt. Col., like Yoni, and the same age. But the attitude of those officers was that this operation needed to be done.”

Things didn’t go as planned as the commandos raided the terminal building. Describe what happened.

“No operation ever goes exactly as planned, but like my brother’s deputy, Yiftah Reicher, said, the operation went more according to plan than any other operation he’d participated in.

“As the Mercedes – painted black to mimic Idi Amin’s limo – and two jeeps approached the terminal, they encountered two Ugandan guards, exactly at the spot where Yoni had placed in rehearsal such ‘Ugandan’ guards. They ordered the convoy to stop. The Israelis, who were wearing Ugandan uniforms, were able to get to within a few feet of them without problem, then shot at them with silenced weapons, but finally had to neutralize them with open gunfire.

“At that point the convoy rushed forward, and in seconds they arrived near the Old Terminal. Yoni stopped the vehicles at a spot that would give them cover. The got out quickly and moved toward the terminal. All went more or less according to plan up until then.

“But then the officer who was assigned to lead the force decided, for reasons unknown, to stop the charge. He took cover at the corner of the terminal and shot forward. That halted the entire assault. Nobody could pass him because he was shooting forward.

“This was a critical moment, because the terrorists would very soon realize that there was an invading force, and start mowing down the hostages.

“The officer did not move, despite Yoni’s shouts at him. But once he stopped shooting, Yoni himself moved forward and shouted to the men to follow him.

“At that point, they remembered what Yoni had told them before they left for Entebbe. ‘Things will go wrong,’ he said. ‘Thing will not go exactly according to plan. All you have to remember this: you have to reach the hostages as quickly as possible and kill the terrorists. Just do whatever is necessary to achieve that goal.’

“And that’s what they did, even as Yoni was hit by gunfire in those very seconds, while they moved forward.

“They entered the hall and succeeded in killing the terrorists before the terrorists could kill the hostages. Only three hostages died in the process. The Entebbe raid was a success.”

* * *

In the morning following the raid, around 100 weary but grateful hostages disembarked in Tel Aviv from the cargo hold of an IAF Hercules aircraft, welcomed ecstatically by thousands of Israelis. Only the death of one Israeli soldier, Lt. Col. Yoni Netanyahu, cast a shadow of sorrow over the celebration.

Hours later, in the midst of the July 4 bicentennial festivities in America, then-President Gerald Ford made a proclamation:

“Our own Bicentennial Independence Day was enhanced by an event at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. That action of liberation freed our own hearts to fuller understanding of the universal meaning of independence – and the courageous action sometimes required to preserve it.”

Aug 1, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Jerusalem Notebook

It’s a surprisingly short drive from West Jerusalem to Bethlehem – 10 or 15 minutes, at the most. But on a hot summer night a couple of weeks ago, it felt like I had traveled light-years, setting out from a bustling city-center Jerusalem neighborhood and arriving at a modest home in a quiet Bethlehem village.

In my mind, the leafy, well-lit street from which I departed was quickly juxtaposed with my gloomy destination. I flashed back to a journey I had made from West to East Berlin in the late 1980s. Back then, the Stasi (East German secret police) were the threat.

Today in Bethlehem, it’s the Islamists.

After the guards glanced at our United States passports, my American friends and I were waved through the checkpoint that separates Israel from King David’s ancient hometown.

Upon our arrival, the wariness of our hosts also felt eerily familiar to me. I could almost read their minds: “Who saw them come into our house? Who might be listening? Can we trust these friends-of-friends?”

For me, having visited Berlin before its infamous wall came down, the mood was reminiscent of the bad old days: Life behind the Iron Curtain.

My friends and I spent time with, among others, a Christian woman and her small family. I wish I could tell you her name. And I would like very much to describe her circumstances – her needs, her struggle to keep financially afloat and her family’s specific fears.

I also wish I could use real names when I write about other Bethlehem Christians – those I’ve met and those I’ve heard about through trustworthy friends.

Why can’t I name names or cite locations? Because the slightest hint that Bethlehem’s Christians are “informing outsiders” about the troubles they face might very well endanger them, not to mention their friends and family members.

Today, much of the tension in Bethlehem and elsewhere in the West Bank is blamed on the “Israeli occupation” and the security fence.

In some places, including Bethlehem, there is indeed a formidable military wall – also reminiscent of Berlin – officially called the “West Bank Barrier.” It divides Arab communities from the Israeli population.

Christian
The West Bank Barrier

It is true that the wall is an encumbrance on the people who live behind it. It is an eyesore and, in some places, has taken a heavy toll on business and commerce.

The checkpoints into Israel can be a nuisance. This is particularly so since Arabs and Israelis alike were able to come and go without restrictions until the ill-starred Oslo Peace Accords robbed them of their freedom of movement.

But the security wall has also saved Israeli lives. It was erected during the Second Intifada, during which a seemingly endless barrage of exploding buses, pizza shops, cafes and other public venues devastated Israel for well over three years, costing more than 1,000 lives.

It is widely reported that after the West Bank Barrier was constructed, the number of suicide bombings decreased by more than 90 percent.

Today, terrorism continues in Israel, but it wears a different face. Palestinians primarily target soldiers and religious Jews who live in settlements. These attacks are sporadic and unpredictable, involving stabbing with knives or machetes, vehicles ramming groups at bus stops or the stoning and firebombing of cars and buses. One recent attack on a chic Tel Aviv café involved firearms.

Since September 2015, 40 people have been killed in these terrorist attacks and 517 people have been injured.

As for the security barrier, when the Palestinian cry of “Tear down this wall!” is heard in Israel, the response is defiant: “Stop the terrorism or forget about it.”

In the meantime, it is quite clear that the West Bank’s Christian population is diminishing. In 2013, Rosanna Rafel reported that “in British-mandated Palestine, before the establishment of Israel in 1948, the percentage of the Christian population stood at 18 percent. This figure has now dwindled to under 1.5 percent.”

This plummeting Christian population is invariably blamed on the “Israeli occupation.” But if this is so, why isn’t the Muslim population diminishing too?

Christians are escaping the West Bank because of anti-Christian persecution.

In Bethlehem, Christians are not just a minority population in an overwhelmingly Muslim community. They aren’t simply marginalized; they don’t just suffer discrimination. Too often, they are threatened and intimidated; injured or even killed. They are cautious. They are uneasy. Many of them live in fear.

In the March 2016 issue of Providence Magazine, The Philos Project Executive Director Robert Nicholson wrote a persuasive article, “Why are Palestinian Christians Fleeing?”

He explained that “the Palestinian Authority – the government created by the PLO to manage the West Bank and Gaza – is, by its own constitution, an Islamic state that embodies the principles of sharia.”

Christians living under the PA are “accorded sanctity and respect,” but, as is the case under all sharia-based systems, Christians are relegated to the status of second-class citizens. Of course, it is illegal to convert from Islam to Christianity. Let’s not even mention the fact that sale of land to Jews is a crime punishable by death.

Discrimination against Christians under the Palestinian Authority isn’t just legal – it’s also social. Living as a Christian, one is constantly reminded that he or she is not a member of the majority culture.

Bethlehem’s Christians are at risk of being detained by authorities based on vague accusations. An “interview” with local officials may lead to stern threats or, even more frightening, to an arrest on trumped-up charges.

Justus Weiner, a scholar at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, has written extensively about the condition of Christians under the Palestinian Authority.

“Under that regime,” Weiner explained to me, “Christian Arabs have been victims of frequent human rights abuses by Muslims. There are many examples of intimidation, beatings, land theft, firebombing of churches and other Christian institutions, denial of employment, economic boycotts, torture, kidnapping, forced marriage, sexual harassment, and extortion. PA officials are directly responsible for many of the human rights violations.”

Weiner told me that Muslims who have converted to Christianity are in the greatest danger. They are defenseless against abuse by Muslim fundamentalists. Some have been murdered.

Many Christians are subject to various fees and fines, which amount to bureaucratic extortion or protection money – a thinly disguised “jizya” tax.

Chuck Kopp has been a pastor in Jerusalem for nearly half a century; he and his wife lived for several years in Bethlehem. “We can no longer remain complacent regarding the plight of the Christian minority in the Palestinian Authority,” he recently told me. “Something significant needs to be done to rectify this current imbalance.”

Meanwhile, story after story confirm that Christian women are sexually harassed, threatened and even raped for not following Islamic dress codes.

In my book “Saturday People, Sunday People,” I wrote about a young Christian woman from a village near Bethlehem who was walking home from school. She was not “covered,” meaning she did not wear an Arab-style headscarf or a long skirt.

When a gang of local Muslim males cruised past her, made obscene remarks and tried to force her into their car, she escaped and ran home, where she tearfully poured out her terrifying experience to her brother “Habib.”

It didn’t take Habib long to figure out who the Arabs were.

He knocked on the door where the ringleader and his friends hung out. When Habib demanded that they leave his sister alone, they laughed at him.

They were, however, not amused. In the days that followed, they began to track Habib.

One afternoon, Habib and his cousin went to a nearby forest to walk and talk and relax. Suddenly 13 young men, who had arrived in cars and on motorbikes, surrounded them. At first, they seemed only to be armed with sticks and a billy club. Then the knives appeared.

While his cousin was beaten and held back from interfering, Habib was stabbed 28 times. He was knifed on the head, neck, hands and the inner thighs (the attackers were trying to sever a main artery) and left for dead. Once the assailants fled and the cousin was released, he frantically drove Habib to the hospital before he bled out. Habib received massive blood transfusions; his wounds were repaired, and his life was spared. But he still requires further surgery.

During our visit in Bethlehem, my friends and I also spoke to a workman – we’ll call him George – who does outdoor maintenance near a Bethlehem school. This year, despite an intense heat wave, and notwithstanding the fact that he is not Muslim, he was angrily threatened with physical harm for publicly drinking a bottle of water during Ramadan.

Elsewhere, we heard about a Christian property owner who had rented an apartment to a Muslim family. When the rent came due, the new tenants refused to pay. This continued for months. The local authorities were alerted, but they simply shrugged. “Nothing we can do about that,” they said. “Our hands are tied.”

In recent years, several church properties in Bethlehem have been vandalized, set ablaze or invaded by violent intruders during celebrations or worship services. PA law enforcement usually arrives long after the emergency call is made – if at all.

In a recent tragedy, a young man suffering from mental retardation and who lives in a Christian village (one of his friends refers to him as “a blessed boy”) heard offensive anti-Christian statements emanating from a local mosque.

Infuriated, he shouted an insult to Muslims.

Later, he posted something equally anti-Islamic on Facebook.

A few days later, the “blessed boy” vanished. At the time of this writing, he has been missing for more than three months. His family is utterly traumatized, afraid to approach the local authorities. They fear both devastating news and deadly retaliation.

We ourselves were blessed, listening and learning from the Christians we visited. Meeting us was an act of great courage on their part. For us, it was an extraordinary opportunity.

As Nicholson wrote,

I’ve spoken to numerous Palestinian Christians who describe how Muslim terrorists would commandeer Christian homes and use them to direct sniper fire on Israeli soldiers. Others speak of systematic discrimination in hiring, housing and education. Of course, all of these conversations take place in private meetings and hushed tones.

Christians in Bethlehem rarely interact with Muslims beyond the marketplace, and are, in fact, very much afraid. But in public, Palestinian Christians equate their situation with that of their Muslim neighbors and laud the happy coexistence between the two groups.

They don’t have a choice. They are hostages inside their own city.

Oct 4, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

One of the best known and most widely admired Israeli statesmen died on Sept. 28. After suffering a massive stroke two weeks earlier, Shimon Peres – former president, prime minister and minister of defense, to name just a few of his myriad roles – died at age 93. His family was at his side.

What may have been the most extraordinary international funeral in Israel’s history was held on Sept. 30.

For two days and nights after Peres’ passing, the ministry of foreign affairs, the prime minister’s office, the Israeli Defense Forces, the public security ministry, hundreds of journalists, pundits, protocol experts and an innumerable array of various professionals worked around the clock to welcome the arrival of delegations representing some 80 countries.

Highway 1, the primary route from Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport to Jerusalem, was blocked both ways for several hours as dignitaries poured in from around the world. Barricades surrounded Jerusalem hotels. Security forces appeared on every corner. Motorcades, with sirens blaring, wended their way through town, ferrying vans full of jet-lagged diplomats.

Approximately 8,000 police officers and soldiers secured the city of Jerusalem – miraculously without incident.

On that Friday, I had a long-standing lunch appointment at the Mamilla Mall – a 20-minute walk from my apartment. The question in my mind wasn’t the usual concern about being on time. I simply wasn’t sure whether I could get past four of the heavily guarded five-star hotels in which international diplomats and media were being housed.

As it turned out, I was able to find a taxi. During my brief journey, the driver cranked up President Barack Obama’s solemn tones to full volume on the radio. I was a captive audience to the United States president’s artful fusion of adulation for Peres and thinly veiled antipathy for Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu.

From dawn till dusk, Peres was praised in glowing remembrances, penned and spoken by friends and even a few foes. As his body lay in state outside the Knesset (the Israeli Parliament) the day before the funeral, some 50,000 citizens and foreign guests formed somber queues to pay their respects.

Shimon
—— Former U.S. President Bill Clinton (center), Israeli President Reuven Rivlin (left) and Knesset Chairman Yuli Edelstein stand next to the coffin of Shimon Peres during a memorial ceremony held for the public at the Knesset.

Among the dignitaries who made their way to Israel for the funeral — including Obama, former President Bill Clinton and Britain’s Prince Charles — were President Francois Hollande, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, President of the Russian Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Brazilian Foreign Minister Jose Serra.

Even Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was granted permission to attend the funeral. He did so – and shook hands with Netanyahu – despite the biting criticism of many of his own people.

Stephen Harper, Canada’s former prime minister, accurately described Peres as a man who didn’t always enjoy the same admiration in life that he did in death. Harper wrote, “To be sure, glory was often not forthcoming. To speak of the career of Shimon Peres is to speak of a life in which defeat and setback consistently accompanied success and progress. There were lost arguments, lost battles and lost elections, but never lost hope.”

In fact, it’s very true that despite the effusive eulogies that streamed forth at Peres’ funeral, he remains a controversial figure in Israel.

As a young man, he entered the political world as a disciple of Israel’s first prime minister, David ben Gurion, who oversaw the country’s tumultuous, often violent beginnings.

Despite Peres’ reputation as a man of peace – frequently celebrated by those who promote “peace at any price” with the surrounding Muslim communities – in the nascent State’s earliest years, Peres was responsible for laying some of its most essential military foundations.

Not only did he forge indispensable arms deals, particularly with France, but he also played an essential role in the development of Israel’s own military industry. Today, the Jewish State has become a world leader in the innovation and production of cutting-edge defense technology.

Peres is also credited by many for the clandestine origins of Israel’s nuclear research projects – efforts that may (or may not) have led to a formidable array of nuclear weaponry.

While he served as minister of defense, in 1976, Peres wholeheartedly championed the daring commando raid that successfully freed more than a hundred hostages from Uganda’s Entebbe Airport.

This brilliant raid on Entebbe established Israel as a nation of innovative and relentless warriors who refused to tolerate terrorism against Israelis in particular and Jews in general.

Indeed, at Peres’ funeral, Netanyahu described his own first meeting with Peres “here, on this very hill 40 years ago.”

Two days after the bold rescue operation in Entebbe in which my brother gave his life, Yoni’s funeral was held here. As defense minister, together with Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon approved that operation.

At the funeral, he delivered a deeply stirring eulogy, which I will never forget. It was the first time I ever met him. My late parents, my brother and I were profoundly moved by what he said about Yoni, about the operation, about the bond with our forefathers and about the pride of our nation. From that point on, a special bond was formed between us.”

In Peres’ later years, the path he forged toward political success proved to be a rocky one. As one of my friends remarked, for most of his career, he was “always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Despite the many lofty titles he sought and sometime enjoyed, he experienced more than a few humiliating defeats.

The Oslo Peace Agreement – for which Peres, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO President Yasser Arafat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – has proved to be his most controversial accomplishment.

The deal was furtively initiated by Peres in secret Oslo meetings with PLO representatives before the Rabin government reluctantly recognized it. And since its enactment in 1993, The Oslo Agreement has proved to be an ongoing tragedy for Israelis and Arabs alike.

Nevertheless, Peres’ quest for peace continues to be revered by much of the world. Yet, strangely, the very nations with whom he sought reconciliation continue to reject not only his dreams, but also the Jewish State he served.

As Herb Keinon wrote in The Jerusalem Post,

Peres had a vision – a vision embraced by the world, as evidence by the number of leaders who arrived. How ironic, therefore, that the objects of this vision – the Arab world – were so noticeably absent.

For the last 30 years of his life, Peres tried to forge a new reality with Israel’s neighbors.

World leaders beat a path to Mount Herzl on Friday because they identified and supported his vision of peace with the Arab world, and because they wanted to send a message of encouragement to Israelis to keep going down that path.

But the people with whom he had hoped to make peace were, for the most part, missing from the crowd. That, too, sends a message.

If the Joint List MKs boycott the funeral of Peres, the man who preached coexistence; if Jordan’s King Abdullah II, whose father had a close relationship with Peres, can’t make the journey across the Allenby Bridge to pay last respects, then why go through the motions?

It won’t work.

In the meantime, other less-than-glowing reports have also emerged. For example, in The New York Times, Tom Segev described Peres as a Polish-born outsider who never really fit into Israeli society.

“For most of his life, he had to endure widespread hatred from his people, and, even worse, mockery,” Segev explained. “Throughout his career, he gave ample reason to associate him with petty party politics and sleazy intrigue. But in reality, he was motivated not by a lust for power or by greed, but by an outsider’s desperate quest for his people’s love.”

More recently, Israel’s YNet recounted some of the angry words spoken about Peres by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose assassination ended their lengthy political feud and elevated Rabin’s rival to his long-sought role as prime minister. “The solid base assumption upon which this insatiable underminer, Shimon Peres, has based his delusion was [the idea] that between him and the prime minister position stood no obstacle save for Yitzhak Rabin.”

Peres has been depicted as hero and hypocrite, statesman and spoiler, time-honored diplomat and treacherous competitor. However, for most observers, he remains enigmatic – a man of war and a man of peace; a patriot, a poet and above all else, a puzzle.

In such a time as this, it is perhaps best to refrain from speculation. Most will simply remember Peres for his years of service to the Jewish State, his tireless energy and his final role as a beloved elder statesman.

As for judging the man himself?

Never more appropriate than at Peres’ passing is the traditional Jewish response to news of a death – any death. In Hebrew, it is Baruch Dayan Emet.

This final declaration simply honors God:

“Blessed is the true Judge.”

Oct 12, 2016 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

I first arrived in Israel in 2006, and my move into a little Jerusalem apartment coincided very closely with the Jewish High Holy Days – and with my birthday. This provided me with an extraordinary introduction to the most sacred season of Judaism, its soul-searching observance, and its colorful festivities.

Celebrating my birthday then made it all the more significant.

I wrote about those days – which remain deeply meaningful to me – in my book “Saturday People, Sunday People: Israel through the Eyes of a Christian Sojourner.” It’s been precisely 10 years since then. And now, in 2016, I’ve celebrated Rosh Hashanah with dear friends, and Yom Kippur began at sunset yesterday.

As I look back, I hope you’ll enjoy sharing some of my memories from 2006. I’ll add a few comments about insights I’ve gained along the way.

Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is celebrated on the first and second days of the Jewish month of Tishri, which falls in September or October. It initiates a 10-day period called the Days of Repentance, or Days of Awe.

These end with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and the most sacred of all Jewish holidays. During these days, Jews reflect on their sins and moral failings, and seek forgiveness from anyone they have wronged during the past year.

Rosh Hashanah is the “Day of Judgment,” but although God’s judgment is passed on that day, it is not finalized – made absolute – until Yom Kippur, when it is sealed in the Book of Life.

Yom Kippur’s observance includes a strict 25-hour fast, during which the faithful neither eat nor drink anything, including water. In prayer, fasting and asking forgiveness, and through God’s mercy, Rosh Hashanah’s initial judgment can be altered.

One Yom Kippur greeting is hatima tova – “may you have a good seal …” in the Book of Life.

But why should a Christian be interested in Jewish holidays? St. Paul described Christians as wild olive branches engrafted into the ancient Jewish olive tree: “If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not boast over those branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you.”

If St. Paul is correct, perhaps Christianity would benefit by sitting at the feet of the Jewish faithful, listening carefully to what our “elder brothers,” as he called them, can teach us.

Maybe that is why those first High Holy Days in Jerusalem were especially meaningful to me, because I had so much to learn. I didn’t really observe them in a religious sense – I didn’t know any Jewish people well enough to be included in their family plans, and I was too unsure of cultural do’s and don’ts to venture into a synagogue alone.

Instead, like a child with her nose pressed against a window, I watched and listened and wondered – perhaps the mirror image of the Jewish child staring in curiosity at the neighbors’ Christmas tree.

Christians believe that our ultimate atonement for sin took place at Golgotha, where the Son of God died for the sins of the whole world – the final sacrifice. His redemptive work on our behalf was sealed by his resurrection and through his continual intercession for us.

The Jewish people fast and pray, year by year, on Yom Kippur, seeking atonement and believing that Yom Kippur’s observance addresses sins and trespasses against the Lord.

However, they also believe that it is up to each individual to confront personal offenses, attitudes of unforgiveness, or wrongdoing against others.

“In order to be forgiven by God for wronging another person, one is required to seek [that person’s] forgiveness,” a rabbi recently wrote on Facebook. “And one is required to seek, confront and appease anyone who we might have wronged throughout the year.”

Christians believe, in principle, in practicing ongoing forgiveness, as Scripture instructs us. Nonetheless, specifically concentrating on bruised and broken relationships during just one day of the year, and seeking to heal and mend them, seems not only wise, but prudent.

And fasting in order to focus our minds on matters of the Spirit – not only on forgiving others and being forgiven by them, but also on praying for all concerned – is hardly a bad idea.

Meanwhile, finding myself surrounded by an entire nation that stops absolutely everything – eating, drinking, driving, working, shopping – for 25 hours of reflection and repentance has become a wonderful motivation. And, as I discovered during my first Yom Kippur, it isn’t all sadness and solemnity.

Yom Kippur
Children and adults alike take to the streets on their bicycles in Tel Aviv on Yom Kippur.

In Jerusalem, Yom Kippur is not only a day of fasting and of denying oneself water and food, but it also involves ample time for contemplation. I’d read an article in The Jerusalem Post by my friend Ruthie Blum about children riding bicycles on Yom Kippur in Jerusalem. The story surprised me, but the truth of it turned out to be one of the nicest things about the day. More silent than any Sabbath, there were no cars (and hence no horns), no radios or TVs, no hammering, no drilling, no shouting – no work of any kind. A complete shutdown of the city is enforced, and the wonderful byproduct of this is almost complete silence. I say “almost” because, as Ruthie predicted, all was not solemn. The streets were full of colorfully helmeted kids on bikes, riding fearlessly and frenetically because there was no traffic.

Some people – I later learned that they were Sephardic Jews from North Africa – dress entirely in white to celebrate Yom Kippur. I walked past them as they sat in circles like huge white flowers on the park’s grass, chattering and laughing. And of course, musical chants emanated from synagogues everywhere I walked. These cheerful sights and sounds seemed like prescient glimpses: the sought-after Atonement would surely be fulfilled. The cup of redemptive blessings was spilling over into the streets, unable to contain itself until sunset – until the three stars’ appearance – and the final blast of the shofar. The children, the singers and the people in white already seemed to know – their sins would most certainly be forgiven, cast away by their Redeemer’s hand as far as the East is from the West.

It was nearly sunset when I walked to the Haas Promenade, a park with a spectacular view of the Old City, not far from my apartment. As I surveyed Abu Tor, the Kidron Valley and the Old City, yellow streetlights were beginning to illuminate the roadways. All seemed muted. Even the muezzins’ call to prayer sounded distant and less piercing than usual. The only other noise I noticed was the caw-cawing of raucous and disheveled-looking ravens that flocked around the hilltop.

Daylight faded to black and just as I was leaving the Promenade, I heard the city siren’s prolonged whine, announcing the holiday’s end. Minutes later, I found myself near the corner of Hebron Road and Yehuda Street, standing outside a synagogue where the Yom Kippur service was still going on. There were several dozen women and children talking and laughing in a crowded outside courtyard; it was packed with people of all ages, including a few men.

I stood off to the side where I could watch, unnoticed, through a window and between some leaves. The men inside, garbed in prayer shawls, chanted and davened, bowing rhythmically as they prayed. Less than a minute later, the shofar sounded and soon the men filed out of the synagogue, gathered their wives, children and friends, and went off in every direction, laughing and talking as they headed toward what, in my religious past, was usually categorized as “food, fun and fellowship.”

I walked on, noticing that the streets were quickly began to surge with families streaming out of all sorts of little shuls in the area – unmarked synagogues that I didn’t even know were there. At about the same time, cars rematerialized on the streets and, unavoidably, horns once again began to honk.

I was starving by then. I hadn’t officially fasted, since I drank water all day. But I hadn’t eaten, so I rushed home and heated up some leftover pasta in the microwave. Not the most traditional fast-breaking meal, but it was more than welcome.

Thankfully, in recent years, I’ve been invited to break the Yom Kippur fast with good friends. We gather in relief, shared joy and new beginnings for a New Year – and we very much enjoy the food!

In our American culture, “New Year’s resolutions” often involve diets, gym memberships, fulfilling bucket lists, and the breaking of bad habits and the formation of new, healthier ones. In Judaism, there is a deeper spiritual perspective – one that all believers can surely embrace.

The beloved Rabbi Jonathan Sacks put it this way: “The single most important lesson of Yom Kippur is that it’s never too late to change, start again and live differently from the way we’ve done in the past. God forgives every mistake we’ve made so long as we are honest in regretting it and doing our best to put it right. Even if there’s nothing we regret, Yom Kippur makes us think about how to use the coming year in such a way as to bring blessings into the lives of others by way of thanking God for all He has given us.”

Nov 14, 2016 | Christians and Minority Rights, Current Events

It is painful to recall the events of late summer 2014, when the Islamic State killed or expelled thousands of Christians from their historic homeland Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. Most of them fled to Erbil, Kurdistan.

Later that year, I was fortunate enough to visit the displaced survivors. By then, massive efforts had begun to provide them with basic needs – food, water, blankets, winterization of shelters and medical supplies.

Most of those Christians languished in churches, abandoned buildings and tent cities. As weeks turned to months, it became clear that fragile hopes of returning to their ISIS-occupied cities, towns and villages would not soon be fulfilled.

What would they do? Should these Christians wait in Kurdistan until they could safely return home? Or should they try to seek a new life in an adopted country?

Some, who were driven out of their homes on more than one occasion over recent years, continue to dream of starting over in distant lands, far removed from the fears that still haunt them. Unfortunately, that remains a difficult course with many obstacles.

But others yearn to return to their homes and churches in their ancestral Christian heartland. This, too, is a huge challenge. But now, at last, they are finally sensing a surge of hope.

Today a coalition of Iraqi military forces, supported by United States air power and advisors, is aggressively seeking the destruction of ISIS. Its goal is to liberate the Nineveh Plains one village and town at a time. And its No. 1 target is Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

It isn’t an easy operation, to put it mildly. The liberation of the Christian town of Bartella is illustrative of the critical challenges that lie ahead. But a lifesaving miracle in Kirkuk proves that there is hope, even when dangers seem insurmountable.

“Bartella is liberated, but not free,” Father Behnam told me during a recent FaceTime conversation. He is a Syriac Catholic priest from Bartella who is presently living in Erbil.

International media sources are widely reporting the liberation of Bartella as a positive indication of the Islamic State’s impending eviction from Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city. Videos of Bartella’s once-silenced church bells have chimed joyfully on social media across the world.

Meanwhile, hopeful news reports describe the surging anticipation of Iraq’s Christians: Will they soon be able to return to their ancestral homes and churches?

The hopes are real, but the perspective from the ground is sobering. The handful of displaced Bartella residents who have managed to reenter their town, escorted by Iraqi soldiers, are apprehensive. And this includes Behnam.

Large portions of Bartella are utterly trashed; ruined beyond repair. ISIS has savagely plundered innumerable private residences, demolishing them with explosives.

Meanwhile, the safety of those who manage to briefly visit, like Behnam, cannot be guaranteed. ISIS may have departed, but building after building has been left booby-trapped with mines, suitcase bombs and other assorted deadly devices.

“ISIS has excellent technology,” Behnam told me. “They mined everything. Even Bibles.” Behnam learned about such tactics when he was able to visit the Orthodox Church of St. George, which was the spiritual home to a sizeable portion of Bartella’s Christian community. The church’s interior is demolished. ISIS vandalized Bibles and New Testaments from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. Terrorists ripped or cut them apart, used them to fuel the flames of their arson, and otherwise desecrated them.

In several Bartella churches, statuary was beheaded and crushed. Frescoes were defaced. ISIS mottos, such as “Enduring and Expanding,” were spray-painted across sanctuary walls, along with stenciled ISIS flags.

But perhaps most disturbing at St. George’s was a noose, hanging ominously in the courtyard, just inside the entryway. It bears mute witness to the demise of a Christian welcome center, which was ruthlessly transformed into an execution site. Countless innocent ISIS victims were murdered there.

Meanwhile, who is 100 percent sure that ISIS has been driven entirely out of Bartella?

Behnam described the oldest section of town, where enormous basements are dug beneath timeworn houses. “No one has dared to enter those underground areas, “ he told me. “And ISIS may well be hiding there.”

The Los Angeles Times quoted an Iraqi soldier who was deployed in the recent battle. “’A militant comes in from one building, takes a tunnel and emerges from another several doors down. How can we clean this place up?’ he asked, the frustration in his voice evident.

That’s reason enough to cast doubt on the present situation. But Iraqi Christians also face long-range challenges.

Although the troops that liberated Bartella were uniformed as Iraqi soldiers, the flags they displayed told a somewhat different story. “There were more Shia flags than Iraqi flags,” Behnam said. “Flags honoring Hussein. Or Ali. These were clearly Shia militias.”

Charmaine Hedding of Shai Fund, a nonprofit relief organization working in Kurdistan, told me that the Christian community’s problems extend beyond ISIS. “Iraq’s Christians are caught in the crossfire of a dangerous power struggle,” she explained. “Their villages and towns are located in disputed territories.

“The Kurds hope to annex the region,” she continued. “But Christians haven’t forgotten that the Peshmerga withdrew their forces just hours before ISIS invaded in 2014. At the same time, Baghdad’s Iraqi forces also want to assert control over that same region.”

And that’s not to mention the territory-hungry Turks. Or the Sunnis who once turned a blind eye to the Islamic State’s horrors.

I asked Behnam how he’d felt when he entered Bartella a few days before. He paused. “I felt insecure,” he finally replied. “And I was so disappointed. I kept thinking, ‘What can we do?’”

I asked, “So what would make it possible for Iraq’s Christians to return to their ancestral homes?”

He thought for a moment, then shook his head. “It would require massive reconstruction. And very complicated security arrangements.”

Clearly discouraged, he shook his head again and concluded, “And who will help us?”

Behnam’s story illustrates the enormously complex efforts necessary to fully expel ISIS terrorists and to begin reconstruction.

Another story reminds us that God is an “ever-present help in time of need.” It took place in Kirkuk, Iraq – an Iraqi city that was previously thought to have been “liberated” from ISIS. Unfortunately, some ISIS fighters had remained hidden in Kirkuk after their fellow terrorists were either killed or expelled.

That made it possible – when coalition forces pushed successfully ahead toward Mosul – for the terrorist group to make a sudden comeback, staging a diversionary assault on Kirkuk.

As Newsweek reported,

The attack in Kirkuk, an oil-rich city located 100 miles southeast of Mosul, was initiated Friday by sleeper cells who joined forces with infiltrating ISIS fighters. They captured several buildings and engaged in gun battles with Iraqi forces, who eventually defeated them.

At 4 a.m. on Oct. 21, in a dormitory-style house sponsored by the Chaldean diocese of Kirkuk , seven college girls were harshly awakened by the sound of four men breaking down their door and heading toward their bedroom. The panicked young women grabbed their cell phones and blankets and hurriedly crawled under one of the beds. They froze in place, listening in dazed silence. It didn’t take them long to realize that the home invaders were ISIS terrorists.

Meanwhile, they could hear gunfire in the streets outside along with urgent shouts and explosions. Their quiet neighborhood had become a warzone. They offered up silent prayers, stifled their tears, and texted their families. They also SMS’d the three Dominican nuns who lived next door.

And they waited, barely breathing. The nuns, who were also hiding, admonished them to keep still, remain calm and pray.

All at once the bedroom door burst open, and two critically wounded ISIS fighters were carried into the room. One was hurriedly placed on a nearby bed. The other, groaning in pain, was laid out on the same bed that hid the girls.

He was bleeding profusely and his blood began to drip through the mattress and onto the girls’ trembling bodies.

They heard the terrorists in the kitchen, eating whatever food they could find, then rushing back out into the battle that raged outside.

Minutes turned to hours. The girls suppressed coughs and whispers. They ignored their need for a toilet. They texted. They listened to the gunfire just outside. And still they waited.

Sister Diana, a Dominican nun who has worked for years among displaced Iraqi Christians in Kurdistan, recounted the story to me in a recent FaceTime interview.

“It was a miracle. For eight hours, the girls were not discovered,” she recalled. “One of the ISIS guys even touched a girl’s leg with his foot while he was tending to the injured fighter. But he never noticed.”

As those long hours passed, Iraqi soldiers, local security and Peshmerga fighters successfully killed a number of ISIS terrorists in the neighborhood. The invaders seemed troubled as they moved the two injured fighters into another room, then rushed out.

“By that time the sisters next-door, priests and some of the girls’ family member were in touch with local security,” Sister Diana explained. “They texted that while the ISIS men were outside, the girls should very quietly leave the house, one by one, through a back entrance that had been left open.”

Of course the girls were terrified. But all seven of them bravely made their way out the door and into the house next-door.

Then, just minutes after the last girl escaped, a massive explosion rocked the neighborhood. A hurried investigation revealed that the two wounded terrorists had detonated suicide belts.

If the girls hadn’t left when they did, they would have died with them.

“They’re all still traumatized,” Sister Diana told me, “but everyone survived that terrible night.

“It was nothing less than a miracle.”

The hope of restoring Iraq’s Christians to their ruined homes and churches still seems an impossible dream to some. But for others, real optimism and a sense of expectation have begun to stir in their hearts.

For the past two years, The Philos Project’s Executive Director Robert Nicholson has devoted enormous time and energy developing a workable plan to provide Iraq’s Christians with a safe and secure homeland in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. He has written extensively on the subject. He has also worked with the U.S. Congress to provide legislation in support of the effort.

I asked him, in view of the enormous challenges that Iraq’s Christians face in the newly liberated Nineveh Plains, what are the next steps that need to be taken? And how can America’s Christians help?

We must support Iraq’s efforts to create a new protected province – a safe haven – that will empower minorities to finally return to their homes in safety. This should be seen as a larger U.S. effort to destroy the Islamic State once and for all, and to support the Iraqi people as they rebuild.

While this is ultimately an Iraqi proposal and not an American one, backing from the United States will prompt the international community to support the religious minorities who desire to rebuild their lives in their ancient homeland.

I encourage concerned Americans to ask their elected officials to support the creation of a safe haven in northern Iraq to protect the thousands of minorities who are still facing genocide at the hands of the Islamic State. A protected province will provide these displaced peoples with a much-needed zone of stability and influence.

Jan 1, 2017 | Jerusalem Notebook, Jews and the Jewish State

Those who have the healthy habit of working out at a gym several times a week will soon be complaining about the massive – and often annoying – “New Year’s resolution crowd” that throngs every fitness center starting on Jan. 2.

They will be equally relieved, on about Feb. 3, when the entire mass of newcomers are virtually all gone – their New Year’s resolutions broken and forgotten. Instead of working out, their time will soon be consumed with other distractions like Netflix. Or cooking classes. Or social media.

Meanwhile, much has been made – particularly on social media – of 2016 as being a year notable for its tragedies and deaths. It has often been said that 2017 can’t come soon enough. And there is some truth to this – perhaps more than meets the eye.

Of course, the loss of some beloved celebrities – most recently including the sudden deaths of film stars Carrie Fischer and her mother Debbie Reynolds – have grieved millions of fans.

Over the months, cherished music icons such as David Bowie, Leon Russell, Prince and Leonard Cohen were among other celebrities whose passings were observed with sorrow by devoted fans. Such passings seemed to arrive with increasing frequency as 2016 neared its end.

And it wasn’t just rock stars.

For example, the loss of Holocaust memorialist Elie Wiesel brought forth innumerable eulogies and remembrances. This was particularly true in Israel, where so many had been touched by his eloquent recollections and reflections on the Third Reich’s “Final Solution” and how it robbed the world of 6 million Jews.

Although Wiesel was 87 years old when he died, more than one columnist reflected that – like so many late celebrities – he was “gone too soon.”

Other 2016 losses were of a different sort.

In the months leading up to the United States presidential election, there was a nearly unprecedented political polarization that dramatically divided Americans – and not only between rival political parties. There was also radical division between identity groups and conflicting ideologies, even within the ranks of Democrats and Republicans.

The coarseness and enraged tone of some of these debates was notable not only in published commentaries, but even more starkly in a digital flood of profane and demeaning tweets and posts and comments.

These losses were personal, and some seemed to be permanent. Families were divided. Businesses were split along jagged lines of disagreement. Friendships were bruised, if not broken altogether.

Both the run-up to the election and its aftermath continued along the same divisive course, which lingers even now. Friends are no longer friends. Family members are not invited to dinner. Coworkers are avoided, if not altogether estranged.

Other losses were the bitter fruit of jihadi terrorism. A long list of 2016 attacks recounts violence in every corner of the world – the handiwork of religious fanatics. Among so many others, we read of suicide bombings in Istanbul and Baghdad, Nice and Brussels, Lahore and Quetta.

In Israel, every month of the year was marred by Palestinian assaults that involved stabbing, firearms, the stoning of cars and even a bus bombing that injured 21 in Jerusalem.

Then, perhaps eclipsing all the other violence that gripped the world in 2016, was the most horrifying bloodbath of all – the Syrian civil war. Today, estimates of that war’s fatalities are beginning to approach half a million souls. The bloodshed has been unstoppable. Most recently, this has been exposed in Aleppo, where a besieged population has been decimated by radical Sunni militias along with Syrian and Russian airstrikes.

Max Boot wrote in Commentary Magazine,

It is painful simply to read about the horrors that Aleppo is currently enduring. In its death throes, it is reminiscent of Stalingrad, Warsaw and Manila in World War II, or Srebrenica during the Yugoslav Wars of Succession – cities that endured suffering beyond human comprehension. Amid reports of razed buildings and dead bodies in the streets, it is numbing to read that some women have committed suicide rather than be raped by regime troops.

The world has been in turmoil since time began, but it isn’t an exaggeration to say that in 2016, the upheaval in the Middle East reached monumental proportions.

And then, just as 2016 seemed to be winding down to its welcome end, the little nation of Israel suffered one of the most vicious blows in its nearly 70-year history. This was not a physical blow, although it will no doubt have violent repercussions.

The assault was done in the supposed peacemaking assembly of the United Nations, in the name of international diplomacy. Just as the presidency of Barack Obama was nearing completion, it appears that he personally inspired United Nations Resolution 2334 – a declaration regarding Israeli settlements and borders. With the encouragement of Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, 14 countries voted for the resolution. The U.S. did not veto it. It simply abstained from the vote and allowed it to pass.

Former Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren summed up the resolution’s dangers:

The hazards for Israel are clear. The resolution means the Western Wall and other places sacred to Jews for 3,000 years are considered as illegally occupied. It labels 600,000 Israelis as “flagrant violators of international law.” As such, Israel could be sued in international criminal courts, boycotted and sanctioned. The goal of the initiators of the resolution was not to achieve a better two-state solution, I believe, but to deny Israel the right to defend itself and, ultimately, the right to exist as sovereign Jewish State.

I have felt the weight of this latest U.N. assault on Israel’s legitimacy bearing down on my Jerusalem friends. In fact, for many Israelis, this is a time of despair and deep weariness after more than half a century of opposition to the Jewish State’s very survival.

Most certainly, in the wake of all this, 2016 couldn’t have come at a better time, not only for America and Israel, but for much of the world. Because, as a poet once proclaimed, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.”

And so it is that despite the incomprehensible violence and destruction that infects the globe; despite the bloodthirsty killers who ravage innumerable innocents; despite America’s feckless leaders who have done virtually nothing to change the course of Mideast brutalities (the Book of Common Prayer provides words of confession “for what we have done and for what we have left undone”), yet still the world hopes, envisions and longs for a new beginning.

And so we look forward to 2017: A New Year. A fresh start. A blank slate.

Our western “New Year” is a wonderful occasion on which to pin such hopes. But during the decade in which I have lived in Jerusalem, I have been inspired by the Jewish New Year – Rosh Hashanah – in a different way. Because it involves something more substantial than “New Year’s resolutions.”

The Jewish New Year, which begins 10 solemn “Days of Awe,” requires those who observe it to move beyond their good intentions. One writer explained,

Rosh Hashanah is “a holiday that emphasizes teshuvah, turning around, becoming a better person, living a life closer to what God wants from us. How can we experience teshuvah? Teshuvah needs to include empathy, empathetic listening, paying attention, hearing beyond words to the soul and meaning of what is uttered. On Rosh Hashanah we ask God to be empathetic toward us, even though empathy was so often lacking in ourselves.”

As Christian believers, we often resolve to start another year pursuing better physical and spiritual health than the year before. But as we vow to take better care of our bodies, are we really turning our attention heavenward? We need very much to return to God in both our thoughts and our actions.

Perhaps more than ever in 2017, beginning afresh ought to include reflecting more seriously on the troubled and broken world we live in.

Can we find the time to look beyond our own shores, to broaden our horizons and encompass those who have been ravaged by terrorism, war, anti-Christian persecution and anti-Semitism?

Closer to home, can we find the courage to mend our own relationships with friends and family – particularly in the wake of such a divisive political season?

And can we commit ourselves to continue these spiritual exercises beyond a few days in January, carrying on throughout the year to come?