For Christians, it is a choice between Israel and Islamic State
For Christians, it is a choice between Israel and Islamic State

A few days ago, the European Parliament held a special session on marking Israeli products from Judea and Samaria, a first step towards their total boycott. Numerous NGOs and politicians testified in favor of the anti-Semitic measure, adopted by the European Union. In favor of Israel there spoke a priest in cassock, tall and majestic, with a thick beard, named Gabriel Naddaf.

“It is anti-Semitism,” Naddaf exclaimed. “The marking of Israeli products betrays the core of Europe’s Christian heritage, and it is a further sign of the weakening of Christian values in Europe.” Then the charge of hypocrisy to Brussels: “While Europe is busy marking Israeli products, the lands in the Middle East and Africa are soaked with the blood of Christians.”

“Jesus was a Jew of Jewish family and spoke Aramaic, not Arabic” says Father Naddaf in a conversation with me
Naddaf is a unique figure in the Middle East. The charismatic leader of the Christian Orthodox community in Israel, the priest must go around with protection. His life is in danger. He has been called a “traitor” by Islamists and Christian Arabs who hate Israel and the Jews.

“Jesus was a Jew of Jewish family and spoke Aramaic, not Arabic” says Father Naddaf in a conversation with me. “Every five minutes a Christian is killed as a Christian in the Middle East. The daily massacres experienced by Christians have opened the eyes of the Christians in Israel, where instead there is a Christian community that is growing each year.”

According to the Central Bureau of Statistics in Jerusalem there were 158,000 Christians in Israel in 2012. At the end of 2014 there were 163,000. But above all, since 1948 the total number of Christians has more than quadrupled. While Islamic State uses the Churches as torture chambers, where Christians must decide between converting to Islam or dying, in Israel the Churches are protected and full of the faithful. “Our debt to the holy land passes through the protection of Israel and its democracy,” Father Naddaf tells me. “Elsewhere, the Islamic fanatics are eager to kill Christians. Only in Israel we can thrive. And this is the time of clarity. What are we waiting to tell the truth? Israel has to be strong for us as minorities. Every day we promote appeals to save the Christians of the Middle East but we get no one answers. Why?”

Apparently, the US State Department intends to designate as “genocide” the attacks perpetrated by the Islamic State against the Yazidi, thus excluding the Christians. “When the Caliph promised to eliminate Christianity, why did our leaders stand silent?” continues Nadaff. “I’m not afraid, I will go on to tell the truth, namely that as Christians we can only be on the side of the Jewish people and Israel is the only country that does not try to throw out the Christians, forcing them to seek refuge. Those who want to destroy the Jewish State are also signing the death sentence of the last free Christians in the Holy Land.”

This is the alternative for Christians in the Middle East: the wonderful and free State of Israel or the ghastly and barbaric Islamic State. It is more than shameful that the Vatican and the US liberal churches instead betray the Jewish people.