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| A boy rides his bicycle past damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor, Syria. (CNS photo) |
[July
23, Catholic
World Report]
Now that Syria is in shambles - with
an estimated 93,000 dead, 1.5 million refugees, and 4.5 million internally
displaced; ancient churches torched, destroyed, or vandalized; Christians
targeted for murder and kidnapping and even used as human shields - now the
mainstream media is starting to admit that, yes, the rebel forces appear to
include quite a few Islamist guerrillas.
Now that even chemical warfare has made its appearance, with Carla Del Ponte, a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, confirming that “the chemical weapons are being used by the rebels, not the men faithful to Bashar al Assad”; now that clergy are being kidnapped, with still no word of kidnapped bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi and with the beheading of a cleric by Islamist rebels available on YouTube for all to see - now the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has started including some jihadist rebel atrocities in their reports.
Now that even chemical warfare has made its appearance, with Carla Del Ponte, a member of the International Commission of Inquiry on Syria, confirming that “the chemical weapons are being used by the rebels, not the men faithful to Bashar al Assad”; now that clergy are being kidnapped, with still no word of kidnapped bishops Yohanna Ibrahim and Boulos Yazigi and with the beheading of a cleric by Islamist rebels available on YouTube for all to see - now the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has started including some jihadist rebel atrocities in their reports.
Now that women are having to cover up with the abaya, or at least keep a
veil handy when they venture out, just in case (something previously
inconceivable in Syria), nowthe press is reporting the
establishment of sharia courts which, according to theWashington Post,
pass sentences “daily and indiscriminately” on Christians and anyone else who
violates precepts of Wahhabi Islam.
Now that the economy has been brought to its knees by the widespread
destruction and looting of stores and workshops; now that famine is at hand in
the city of Aleppo, and foodstuffs are to be had only at enormous prices; now
that the terrorists have reached Homs and Aleppo and the mountains above
Damascus - now at last the press seems to have stopped describing
the rebels’ fight as a high-minded struggle for “freedom.”
Syrian culture used to be distinctive among the lands of the Middle East
for a coexistence between Christians and Muslims which went beyond mere
tolerant forbearance, a reality of which Syrians were proud. Under the iron
fist of the ruling Alawite dictators, who kept fundamentalists at bay, a good
degree of religious freedom was preserved. Christians fleeing persecution
in other Middle East countries found refuge in Assad’s Syria, including Iraqi
Catholics fleeing post-Saddam persecution.
Yet today, after two years of “Arab Spring” rebellion, the
2,000-year-old community of Assyrian Christians - some of whom still pray in
Jesus’ Aramaic tongue—is facing extinction, and the international media is
complicit… [read
more at Catholic World Report]
