VIEWPOINT: BEN COHEN

There’s no grand strategy for Mid East

Posted

Strolling through Jerusalem’s historic Yemin Moshe quarter on a pleasant August morning, my ears caught a ringing, melodic sound emanating from within the walls of the Old City, perhaps half a mile from where I stood. This being a Sunday, the sound I heard was the chiming of church bells, welcoming Christian worshippers to morning services.

Normally, there is something joyous about the sound of those bells, particularly in a city that contains the key holy sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. But on this day, I felt a profound sadness upon hearing them. For Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, is one of the few places in the Middle East where—despite what malicious anti-Zionist propagandists will tell you—Christians can practice their faith freely.

In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, about one day’s drive from here, only a minuscule handful of terrified Christians remain, the vast majority having been driven out by the savage terrorists of the Islamic State jihadist group. The ethnic cleansing of Mosul’s Christians was accompanied by the destruction of numerous holy sites, including an 1,800-year-old church and the tomb of the prophet Jonah. As Mosul’s Patriarch Louis Sako mournfully observed at the end of July, “For the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians.” On any Sunday morning in that beleaguered city, you will no longer hear the sound of church bells.

The Islamic State’s onslaught has raged for several months now. Having spread from Syria into Iraq, the terrorist organization’s aim is to set up an Islamic caliphate in all the territories it conquers. It’s a mistake to believe that the national borders that we in the west recognize as sacrosanct are in any way respected by these modern day barbarians. As far as the Islamic State is concerned, there is certainly no place called Israel, and no place called Kurdistan, but there is also no Syria, no Iraq, no Lebanon, no Jordan. All these states are regarded as a contiguous territory where Islamic sharia law—as interpreted by a group of criminals, rapists, and torturers—will remain eternally supreme.

Page 1 / 4