Earlier tonight, researching a response to a post about Israel's supposedly one-sided war against the PLO, I came across an open letter from the head of the World Lebanese Organization to the American Congress. It is linked here and is certainly worth reading for anyone interested in the truth about the Middle East, about the fate of Christians in that part of the world and for humanitarians in general.

The letter calls attention to the plight of the Christian community in Lebanon which lives under "permanent suppression" and draws an analogy to the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.

The letter written in 1997 summarizes the situation for Christians living under Islamic authority as follows:

"130,000 Christians live under the fear of being abandoned to the Hizbollah terror group and their allies, including their sponsors the Syrian occupation army. A unilateral withdrawal by the Israelis would lead to generalized massacres against the Christian population in that area. Hizbollah has already issued fatwas (religious edict) in this sense. Over the past few weeks, Christian adolescents and children, were killed with artillery shelling and road side bombs by the Hizbollah. Little was written or reported in the Western press."

Israel entered in 1993 Lebanon, provoked by attacks from Hizbollah. The continued Israeli presence is, according to this letter, all that is stopping a massacre of the remaining Christian population.

According to PalestineFacts.Org, there are 1.5 million Christians still living in Lebanon. They live in constant fear and under religous oppression. The situation is not much better in other countries in the region.

In the West Bank, a Muslim boycott of Christian businesses has forced many to flee. A jihad against both Jews and Christians was declared in Gaza in October 2000 and resulted in acts of violence toward the Christians living there. Two years ago, in February 2002, a Muslim mob, including Palestinian Authority Special Forces, burned Christian businesses and attempted to destroy the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches in Ramallah.

Jordan has a small Christian population, mostly Greek Orthodox. At one time, however, 18% of the people living in Jordan were Christian. Now it is only 4%. Most have fled, because of persecution.

Coptic Christians have lived in Egypt for centuries. Recent estimates are as high as 10 to 12 million. They live under brutal repression, however. The London Daily Telegraph reported "... in a single month during 1998, Egyptian police detained about 1,200 Christians in Al-Kosheh, near Luxor in Upper Egypt. Seized in groups of up to 50 at a time, many were nailed to crosses or manacled to doors with their legs tied together. Then they were beaten and tortured with electric shocks to their genitals while police denounced them as "infidels."

The repression continues elsewhere in the Muslim world. In the Sudan, for example, there has been a war between the Moslem North and the Christian South since 1955. Captured Christians are forced to convert and then may be sold into slavery. Unbelievable, but true. See http://www.terravista.pt/guincho/2104/genocide/sudan.html

"According to Christian Solidarity International, the Sudanese government regularly raids African communities for slaves and cattle. The children and young women are taken to be sold as slaves, forced to provide domestic and agricultural labor. The young women and girls are forced into concubinage. The average price is between five and ten cows apiece for these slaves, who then receive only minimal sustenance."

While Christians have been forced to flee from many Islamic countries, the Christian population of Israel has grown. In 1949 there were 34,000 Christians living in Israel. Today there are over 140,000. If Israel was the repressive "Jewish only" state that Arab sympathizers, including those in the media, would have you believe, why would Christians leave Arab countries and come to Israel?