{Authored by Mario Bramnick, a pastor and attorney who is president of the Hispanic Israel Leadership Coalition (HILC), and originally posted to the JNS website}
Great suffering is occurring in Iraq and Syria. The region is ravaged by terror. Millions have been forced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands have been killed. And Christians and other ethno-religious minorities have suffered genocide at the hands of ISIS.
The decision to completely withdraw US troops from Iraq left a power vacuum that was filled by terror groups bent on destroying Western civilization.
Now, ISIS is targeting Iraqi Christians specifically because they are Christian, because they stand in the way of the terror organization’s goal of establishing a pure Islamic caliphate in the Middle East and beyond.
In March, the US House of Representatives voted unanimously to declare that the Islamic State’s slaughter of Christians in Iraq and Syria amounted to genocide, and, under extreme pressure, Secretary of State John Kerry joined Congress in this declaration.
Yet, while the State Department has brought thousands of Muslim refugees into the country, the plight of Christians had been intentionally overlooked. Out of 10,000 Syrians refugees permitted into the US, only 56 were Christian — though Christians make up 10 percent of Syria’s population.
We must protect our Christian-Arab brothers and sisters suffering from this terrible genocide in Muslim countries. As Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference (NHCLC), has said, “It’s time for the church to help create a firewall of protection against the persecution of Arab Christians.”
Solutions are already being proposed for this effort.
Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-Neb.) introduced a resolution that provides American support for the establishment of a safe haven province in the Nineveh Plains region of Northern Iraq.
“This genocide has been recognized by the full weight and moral authority of the United States and many international entities, and it provides a gateway for further policy considerations,” Fortenberry said when introducing the resolution. “One next step must be the resecuritization and revitalization of the Nineveh Plain, allowing the repatriation of those who had to flee.”
The Nineveh safe haven would provide protection for religious minorities, allowing them to rebuild their homes and restore their cultures without fear of death, torture or destruction.
Robert Nicholson, executive director of the Philos Project, which promotes positive Christian engagement in the Middle East, said, “As indigenous people, they have a right to stay. They need protection, especially in places where they were targeted for genocidal elimination. The Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government have recognized the need for the Nineveh Plain Province. It’s time for United States to do the same.”
A protected, semi-autonomous region would also help decentralize the Iraqi government, which is crucial to maintaining stability in a post-Islamic State power vacuum.
“If we don’t decentralize, the country will disintegrate,” Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abad said in April 2015. “To me, there are no limitations to decentralization.”
As Christian refugees look to return to their abandoned homes in Iraq, they need security guarantees. The province proposed in Nineveh would be a solid foothold in the preservation and restoration of Christianity in the Middle East.
As Christians, we support the Fortenberry resolution, H. Con. Res. 152, and hope all Americans will join us in doing so as well.
