ISLAM-CHRISTIAN DIALOGUE

89 THE FORGOTTEN MARTYRS Ambrosian Church 12-20 To know each other to co-exist and build peace. The text on the systematic persecution and progressive marginalization of Christians in areas of Muslim domination was sent by Joseph Samir Eid. It is an impressive statistic of a "hidden tragedy" with data in progressive development in the various geographical areas. The forgotten martyrs Christians in theMiddle East, Copts in Egypt, Maronites in Lebanon, Chaldeans in Iraq, Armenians in Turkey, Melkites or Orthodox in Syria, or Palestinians in Bethlehem, have been in a silent exodus for more than half a century. They are hunted from their native lands because of the war and the flow of Islam. Return to a hidden tragedy. The main refugee population in the Middle East is not the Muslim Palestinians, victims of the first Arab-Israeli war of 1948, nor the Jews of the Arab countries and Iran, forced to a symmetrical exodus between 1945 and 1979, but the Christians of Arab, Aramaic, Armenian or Greek culture. Almost ten million of the latter were in- duced to abandon their homes or emi- grate, since World War I: the ratio, with the Muslim refugees from Palestine (half a million people at the origin) is therefo- re approximately 20 to 1; with the Jews from Islamic countries (almost a million expelled), the ratio would be approxima- tely 10 to 1. Even more surprisingly, the exodus of Christians takes place before our eyes at the dawn of the 21st century, without rai- sing much compassion or even media cu- riosity. The most striking case is that of the West Bank Christian Palestinians: twenty years ago they made up 15% of the local population; since the construction of an autonomous Palestinian power in 1994, they are no more than 2 or 3%. A simi- lar situation emerges in Egypt, where the Coptic Christian minority, which was flou- rishing yesterday, has gradually reduced itself to emigration. The American journalist Joseph Farah, of Arab-Christian origin, estimates that at this rate, in the Middle East, we can go from a current Christian population of 15 million to just 6 million in 2020. This would be the last act of the erasing of Christianity in the very region where it was originated, where it has established its doctrine, and where it has equipped itself with structures that still today regu- late its community life in the rest of the world: episcopate, ecumenical councils, clergy, and monasticism. Why this situation? In an article publi- shed last October, in a newspaper close to the Holy See, Civiltà Cattolica, the Ita- lian analyst Giuseppe de Rosa, recalls that Islam is above all "the religion of Jihad", "an interminable enterprise of war with the aim of conquering territories" that does not yet belong to it. Therefore, he does not think that in binary terms: members of the group against foreigners, friends against enemies, useful auxiliaries or useless po- pulations, faithful or infidels. Immense dif- ference with most other religions, starting with Judaism and Christianity, which even when they resort to war, give priority to non-warlike considerations, such as natu- ral law or civil society. Christians have been able to be tolerated by Muslim powers in certain times and places. When circumstances change, this tolerance disappears. Until the seventh century the Middle East