The current surge of warfare ravaging the Middle East brings fresh threats to the existence of the region’s Christian communities and compounds the suffering of human beings regardless of their religious identity. It has already expanded beyond Iran to claim the lives of civilians in Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Yemen, the Gulf States and Pakistan.
Iran’s Islamist regime is a major persecutor of Christians and Baha’is. It is also one of the world’s primary exporters of Jew-hatred and violent jihad. Tens of thousands of Iranians have been murdered or imprisoned by the Iranian regime.
The regime’s terrorist proxies have also claimed victims across the world – Jews in Argentina and Israel, Christians in Lebanon and Yemen, Palestinian dissidents in Gaza, and tens of thousands of innocent Syrians and Iraqis.
War is inevitably destructive to religious freedom and human dignity. Powers that project themselves as Christian, or that claim to act in the interests of Christian civilization, have the responsibility to wage war in accordance with Christian principles developed over the centuries for the purpose of limiting its death and destruction.
At the heart of this teaching is the Judeo-Christian concept that all human beings, whatever their race, religion or gender are made in the image of God and therefore merit respect for their human dignity and fundamental human rights.
Christians in the Middle East and the many who have already fled the region are among those who know first-hand that this truth has often not been uppermost of in the minds of policymakers.
Contempt for human life is an affront to our Creator. Might is not right.
As war in the Middle East escalates, CSI will continue to stand in solidarity in word and deed with the suffering parts of the Body of Christ and other victims of oppression.
John Eibner
President, Christian Solidarity International
