Taking shape in parts of Iraq and Syria, the Islamist caliphate known as ISIS is already a rival in lunacy and horror to North Korea. The caliph has decreed that women from puberty up to the age of the menopause — estimated to be as many as four million — must undergo compulsory genital mutilation. I am waiting to find out what feminists have to say about this.
Christianity has roots in that same territory going back to the first centuries after Jesus Christ. Raqqa in Syria is one of the cities under ISIS, and Assyrian Christians there are the oldest Christian community in the world. In a few villages Aramaic, the language of Christ, has remained current. An elderly Jesuit has been murdered, monks have been chased out of their monastery, nuns have been taken into custody, and churches burnt.
Things are worse in Mosul, the large city in northern Iraq recently captured by ISIS. Christians there are under orders to convert to Islam or face the sword. Fanatics have just blown up the mosque where the tomb of biblical Jonah had survived for centuries. The Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Emil Nona restricted himself to saying, “I’m very sorry to see this place destroyed.” Many tens of thousands have fled for their lives and will never return home. The Christian communities of Iraq and Syria re finished. There’s been no persecution of Christians on this scale since the Turkish genocide of the Armenians in 1916. I am waiting to find out what those responsible for defending Christianity have to say about this.
The worldview of Islamists and their supporters has no room in it for Israelis any more than Christians. “Every Israeli is a legitimate target,” so the rocketeers of Gaza like to boast, evidently infuriated that Israelis, unlike the Christians, have weapons and are ready to defend themselves. Ayatollah Khamenei and huge crowds of Iranians are calling for genocide. Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan considers Israelis “worse than Hitler.” Tens of thousands of Muslims in European countries mobilize around slogans such as, “Hitler was right,” and “Jews to the gas chamber.” In France Guy Millière, a rare individual scandalized by bigotry and physical violence not witnessed since the Nazi occupation, speaks of a French Kristallnacht. Guillaume Faye, an academic not afraid of controversy, is confidently predicting that France is heading for certain civil war. I am waiting to find out how those in charge of public life will respond.