{In calling on Congress and the White House to act, as Auday Arabo has been doing for three months, he can explain in compelling detail how ISIS is carrying out genocide against Christians in northern Iraq and bring the crisis home for U.S. policymakers.
\n}<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know the United States is not the world\u2019s peacekeeper and shouldn\u2019t get involved in every tragedy in the world,\u201d said Arabo, the Detroit-based spokesman for St. Thomas Chaldean Catholic Diocese. \u201cBut what makes Iraq different from Rwanda and Darfur is what\u2019s happened in Iraq is a direct result of U.S. foreign policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe caused this in Iraq. Whether people say George W. Bush should not have gone in or Barack Obama should not have pulled out, we caused this genocide on the Christian community. Therefore, we have a moral obligation to act.\u201d<\/p>\n
The church\u2019s goal, he said, is to spur humanitarian, diplomatic and military action on behalf of people targeted because of their religion and because of resentment to decades of U.S. intervention in the Middle East. Toward that end, he also has carried his message to the U.N.<\/p>\n
Chaldeans have been indigenous to the region for more than 6,500 years, he said, and were converted by Thomas, a disciple of Jesus, 20 centuries ago.<\/p>\n
But the number of Christians in Iraq has fallen from 1.4 million to fewer than 400,000 since 2003 while the number of churches slid from more than 350 to fewer than 50, he said, citing church and Iraqi government figures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s happening is horrific,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have pictures of Christians who have been crucified. Households have been stamped with what we call the red death stamp \u2013 the red Arabic letter N, which stands for Nazarene.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said Sunni Muslims who lived as neighbors with Christians for decades now are pointing out Christians and Christian houses to ISIS.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very reminiscent of what happened to Jews during the Holocaust with the labeling and systematic execution of Christians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cChristianity is on the verge of extinction in the cradle of civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lansing State Journal <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{In calling on Congress and the White House to act, as Auday Arabo has been doing for three months, he can explain in compelling detail how ISIS is carrying out genocide against Christians in northern Iraq and bring the crisis home for U.S. policymakers. } \u201cWe know the United States is not the world\u2019s peacekeeper […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000054082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-16429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000054082,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton16429.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000054082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16429"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=16429"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=16429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}