Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: With the liberation of Mosul underway, Iraq wants to create a new province to protect Christians & other minorities.

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With the liberation of Mosul underway, Iraq wants to create a new province to protect Christians & other minorities. I wholeheartedly agree. Here’s the latest. by joelcrosenberg Finally, the battle to liberate Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, from the bloodthirsty clutches of the Islamic State is underway. With Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minorities suffering nothing short of genocide, the Iraqi military is currently engaged in a serious, systematic, albeit long-overdue campaign to crush ISIS and restore safety and stability to northern Iraq once and for all. Baghdad is working with a coalition that includes Iraqi Kurdish paramilitary forces known as the Peshmerga, backed up by U.S. intelligence, air support, special forces and tactical advisors. This is good news, and I'm encouraged by early reports of progress, as this is a strategy to defeat ISIS that I've been advocating for some time (see here, here, and here). The big question, as I see it, is not whether this coalition will ultimately be successful in liberating northern Iraq from ISIS (I believe they will be), but what happens the day after ISIS is gone. How will order be restored? How will the Christian community begin to rebuild their lives? And how will Baghdad help, rather than harm? To this end, I wholeheartedly support an initiative by senior Iraqi government leaders to create a new province in northern Iraq -- including the Nineveh Plain -- that would specifically serve as a safe haven for Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and other minorities. There once were some 1.5 million Christians living in Iraq. Today, after so many years of war and terrorism and now a systematic effort by ISIS to annihilate the Christian community, there are today fewer than 350,000 professed followers of Jesus Christ in the country that was the birthplace of Abraham and Sarah and the home of many Biblical prophets, from Daniel and Ezekiel to Jonah and Nahum, to name just a few. To their credit, a number of current Iraqi leaders are being clear that they don't want their Christian community to have to flee to Europe or America to find protection from ISIS. They don't want ISIS to be successful in their declared mission to "break the cross" and annihilate Christ-followers in Iraq. What's more, some of them have come to recognize that the only way to build a stable, healthy, lasting republic is to help Christians there not only survive but thrive. Among other things, that means giving Iraqi Christians a real stake in governing themselves. The creation of a new province in northern Iraq has been a topic of discussion for several years within the upper echelons in Baghdad. With the liberation of northern Iraq finally underway, the discussion is now picking up tempo, as is international support for the idea. Last month when I was in the States, I had a very encouraging phone conversation with Congressman Jeff Fortenberry who has spent a great deal of time examining the issue. He recently introduced a bipartisan resolution towards this end and is urging both Congress and whomever is elected the next President of the United States to support a new Iraqi province to protect the Christians. Fortenberry has impressive street cred on the issue. Earlier this year, the Kansas Republican led the effort to persuade Members of Congress to officially define the ISIS slaughter of Christians as genocide. In March, the House passed Fortenberry's resolution by a unanimous vote of 383-0. Two days later, the Obama administration finally agreed to formally define the actions of ISIS as genocide. Working closely with Fortenberry and his colleagues on these matters is Robert Nicholson, an Evangelical Christian and public policy specialist based in Manhattan. Nicholson has written and spoken extensively on the subject of protecting and strengthening persecuted Christians in the Middle East. After talking with him at some length, and reading a good deal of his work, I believe Nicholson is making a principled and effective moral and strategic case for the U.S. fully backing the creation of such a new province. I especially commend his most recent article, "The Strategic Case For A Safe Haven In Northern Iraq," to your attention. "This province would not be an externally created construct," Nicholson wrote with several colleagues earlier this year. "It would be a political recognition of the province’s underlying ethnic and cultural makeup, building on what has already been taking place. Indeed, on January 21, 2014, Iraq’s Council of Ministers 'agreed, in principle, to turn the districts of Tuz Khurmato, Fallujah, and the Nineveh Plains into provinces,' pursuant to Articles 61 and 80 of the Iraqi Constitution. What remains is for the United States, its allies in the coalition against ISIS, and regional partners to support the Iraqis as they begin a transition toward greater federalism and greater protection for the country’s most vulnerable communities." I  agree, and I'm committed to doing everything I can to encourage more support in the House for Rep. Fortenberry's resolution, and to create a Senate version, too. Four times in recent years, I've had the opportunity to visit, preach and teach in northern Iraq. I've traveled twice across the Nineveh Plain, and had the honor of meeting with persecuted Christians there. Indeed, it has become a great passion of mine to find ways to support and encourage and even fund the pastors and Christian leaders of Iraq. I don't believe the creation of a new province and thus a safe haven will solve all their problems. But I do believe it's vital that Western Christians stand with our brothers and sisters, especially as they face genocide. We should do everything we can to help them recover from the tyranny of ISIS, and to help the Iraqi Church be a witness and blessing to their Muslim and Yazidi neighbors who have suffered so greatly under ISIS, as well. [This column is based on my personal beliefs and opinions. I share them in my personal capacity as an American citizen and an author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of The Joshua Fund, which is a non-profit organization and takes no political or legislative positions.] —————————– You can now pre-order my next novel — Without Warning — which will release on March 14, 2017. Click here for details. Order The First Hostage today — the new political thriller about genocidal ISIS leaders plotting a terrorist attacks against Israel, Jordan and the United States — available in paperback, hardcover, e-book and audio formats. Order THE THIRD TARGET today , the first in this new series — now out in paperback — the New York Times best-selling novel about ISIS capturing chemical weapons in Syria and plotting genocidal attacks on the U.S. and our Mideast allies. ———————-—- Subscribe (free) to the RSS feed (click here) and receive every new posting on this blog directly via email. joelcrosenberg | November 2, 2016 at 8:07 am | Categories: Epicenter | URL: http://wp.me/piWZ7-66t

Israel Passes Law to Protect Christians in IDF - David Lazarus ISRAEL TODAY

Israel Passes Law to Protect Christians in IDF

Friday, July 15, 2016 |  David Lazarus  ISRAEL TODAY

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The Knesset passed a bill this week designed to protect Arab Christians who enlist in the Israeli army.  The law, which includes an extended prison sentence for anyone who tries to dissuade a Christian Arab from serving in the IDF, became necessary in the face of stiff opposition and violent attacks against the Christian soldiers.

Much of the hostility towards the Christian soldiers comes from Arab members of Israeli Knesset. Knesset member Aida Touma-Suliman of the Joint Arab List attacked the bill during the debate. “They want to drag the Christian Arab population into volunteering for the army that is occupying their people,” she said. “We will try to suggest to our young people a path that is total pride and honor, and not to be part of any machine (IDF) that oppresses our people.”

There are over 130,000 Christian Arab citizens in Israel, a potential source of significant recruitment for the IDF. However, Arab Christian enlistment has been severely limited due largely to the threats and incitement against young Christians wanting to join the army. That appears to be changing as unprecedented numbers of Christians are enlisting.

Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Greek Orthodox priest who has advocated for a strong connection to Israel and IDF service for Christian Arabs, has also been threatened with violence, and even death. His 17-year-old son was attacked in Nazareth. The attacker was identified as an activist from the Arab Hadash party in Israel’s Knesset. Other Arab MKs have also condemned Naddaf, calling him “an agent of Zionism who seeks to divide Arabs.” 

Arab Knesset members present during discussions over a bill ultimately designed to end intimidation against fellow Arabs (albeit Christians) were extremely vocal in their opposition. MK Talab Abu Arar from the Joint Arab List told the plenum, “I, as a Bedouin Arab, call on all Bedouin Arab soldiers to throw away their uniforms … and to return to the struggle against racist policies (of the IDF) against Arabs in general and against Bedouin in the Negev in particular.”

It was a bold and dangerous decision by the Israeli government to encourage Arab Christians to enlist in the IDF. Now that the government has passed a bill putting into law protections for the Arab Christians who want to serve in the army, a clear message has been sent to the rabble-rousers stirring up violence between Jews and Arabs in the country;  they will be punished. 

Our prayer is that this bold message will contribute to greater integration and cooperation between the many Jews and Arabs who want to live together, and serve together, in Israel.

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