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The Plight of the Middle East's Christians

(Wall Street Journal) Walter Russell Mead - The Christian communities of Syria and Iraq have survived 2,000 years of tumult and war, but now tremble on the brink of destruction. Almost 1.5 million Christians lived in Iraq under Saddam Hussein and 3/4 are believed to have fled since 2003. Of the 300,000 Christians remaining in 2014, some 125,000 have been driven from their homes within the past year. In Syria, hundreds of thousands of desperate Christians have fled the current civil war, along with millions of their Muslim fellow citizens. Other Christian populations in the Middle East have been almost entirely wiped out or displaced. In 1900, most of Constantinople's residents were Christian; today, fewer than 150,000 of Istanbul's population identify with any faith other than Islam. The writer is professor of foreign affairs and humanities at Bard College and professor of American foreign policy at Yale University.
2015-05-19 00:00:00
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