The US administration continues to be more concerned with offending islamic nations then they are defending religious freedom. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) has emptied Mosul of Christians, Christian leaders lamented earlier this week, after the Islamist group issued them an ultimatum: convert to Islam, pay non-Muslim jhizya taxes - or die. “We offer [Christians] three choices: Islam; the dhimma contract - involving payment... if they refuse this they will have nothing but the sword,” an announcement blared from the city's mosques on Friday afternoon. Under the strict Islamic Sharia doctrine, non-Muslims living under their sovereignty must pay a special tax -- known as the "Jizyah" -- in return for the ruler's protection, or “Thima.” Hundreds of Iraqis, the last of Iraq's shrinking Christian community, were forced to flee for their lives. “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians,” Patriarch Louis Sako lamented to the British Telegraph, as hundreds of families fled ahead of a noon deadline. Hundreds were walking on foot; a bishop in the neighboring city of Tel Keif told the daily that many of them were bereft of all money or possessions - and that ISIS had robbed them of all of their belongings before setting off for refugee camps.
Arabic-speaking Israeli Christians are growing increasingly frustrated by the Western “Christian” world’s exaggerated focus on Gaza, while it all but ignores the forced conversion, execution and exile of Iraq’s ancient Christian community. A group of some 200 Christians from across northern Israel on Sunday gathered in Haifa in solidarity with the Christians of Iraq, and in support of Israel’s military operation against Hamas in Gaza. Most of these Christians belong to a group advocating local Christian enlistment in the Israeli army. The Israeli Christian Recruitment Forum has for years been encouraging young local Christians, particularly in the Nazareth area, to integrate with Israeli Jewish society, and to volunteer for IDF service as the first step toward achieving that goal. Finally, after centuries of living under Muslim intimidation, the Christians of the Holy Land are free to fully identify and worship as Christians, and in so doing have increasingly realized their ancient connection to the Jews and Israel, the leaders of the Forum often argue. Sadly, the vast majority of Christians in the Middle East still live in fear and as second-class citizens to their Muslim overlords. “Israeli citizens - Christians and Jews - stand shoulder-to-shoulder and scream to a world that sees fit to ignore the genocide carried out against Christians in the Arab world,” wrote one of the Forum members following Sunday’s demonstration. “Israel is on the front line against a terrorist threat that could drown the whole world,” the statement continu
