The Christian Left's Humanitarian Hypocrisy

The Christian Left’s Humanitarian Hypocrisy [Excerpts]

The world’s double standards concerning which peoples qualify as oppressed and deserving of help is staggering.  Two recent stories make this clear: First, a report exposed, in the words of the Turkish Coalition of America, “Turkey’s continued interest in expanding business and cultural ties with the American Indian community” and “Turkey’s interest in building bridges to Native American communities across the U.S.” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) even introduced a bill that would give Turks special rights and privileges in Native American tribal areas, arguing that “This bill is about helping American Indians,” it is about “helping the original inhabitants of the new world, which is exactly what this legislation would do.”

The very idea that Turkey’s Islamist government is interested in “helping American Indians” is preposterous, both from a historical and contemporary point of view.  In the 15^th century, when Christian Europeans were discovering the Americas, Muslim Turks were conquering and killing Christians in Europe (which, of course, is why Europeans starting sailing west in the first place).  Early European settlers fought and killed natives [yet, realtively] recently, Turkey committed a mass genocide against Armenian Christians. And while the U.S. has made many reparations to its indigenous natives, Turkey not only denies the Armenian holocaust but still abuses and persecutes its indigenous Christians.

Yet if one can understand Turkey’s machinations, what does one make of another recent report?  Fifteen leaders from U.S. Christian denominations—mostly Protestant, including the Lutheran, Methodist, and UCC Churches—are asking Congress to reevaluate U.S. military aid to Israel, since “military aid will only serve to sustain the status quo and Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories.” These are the same church leaders who utter nary a word concerning the rampant persecution of millions of Christians from one end of the Muslim world to the other—a persecution that makes the Palestinians’ situation insignificant in comparison.

Nor is this limited to history: from Nigeria in the west to Pakistan in the east, Christians at this very moment are being imprisoned for apostasy and blasphemy; their churches are being bombed and burned down; their women and children are being kidnapped, enslaved, and raped.  [I have collated] dozens of anecdotes of persecution every month—any of which, if Palestinians experienced, would make headlines around the world; but as it is only “unfashionable” Christians who are experiencing these atrocities, they are regularly overlooked.

Nor are Palestinian Christians immune from this phenomenon: a pastor recently noted that “animosity towards the Christian minority in areas controlled by the PA [Paletinian Authority] continues to get increasingly worse. "People are always telling [Christians], 'Convert to Islam. Convert to Islam'.”

Indeed, the American Jewish Committee, which was “outraged by the Christian leaders’ call,” got it right by saying: “When religious liberty and safety of Christians across the Middle East are threatened by the repercussions of the Arab Spring, these Christian leaders have chosen to initiate a polemic against Israel, a country that protects religious freedom and expression for Christians, Muslims and others.”

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/raymond-ibrahim/the-christian-lefts-humanitarian-hypocrisy/