Lebanese Christians Fleeing Islamist Threat
The Daily Telegraph of the UK has been ahead of the pack in reporting on events in Lebanon. Last August, its correspondents were among the first to report on Hezbollah’s efforts to conceal its casualties in the summer conflict with Israel. Recently, on March 31, the paper carried a piece revealing the large scale emigration of Christians from Lebanon since the war last summer.
According to the article, “Rise in radical Islam last straw for Lebanon’s Christians” by Michael Hirst, 60,000 Christians have already left Lebanon in the last several months. Even more alarming, Hirst reports that half of the Maronite community, Lebanon’s main Christian denomination, are considering leaving.
Those who have left just since last summer represent about 7% of the Lebanese Christian population. If the current rate of emigration continues, Lebanon will be almost emptied of Christians in about a decade. The situation of the Christians in Lebanon mirrors the tenuous circumstances of the Christians in the West Bank whose population has continued to dwindle since the Islamist Hamas government was voted into power. While much of the news media focuses on the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians or the war in Iraq, it is clear that significant changes are occurring throughout the region in response to the rising tide of Islamism.
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