“Today’s terror has a cultural and religious background…it’s not a political conflict,” he tells me. “It’s a religious conflict. For religion, people do believe that it’s worth it for them to die because they’ll receive good things in the world to come…and it’s not just me saying this. The killers are also saying this, that they’re going to kill ‘non-believers,’ so they’re talking about religion and culture.”
Despite the ongoing internal terrorism and regional terror threats Israel faces, the Jewish state is witnessing the parallel development of increasingly positive relations with Arab neighbors like Egypt, which in January stationed an ambassador in Israel for the first time in three years and shares Israel’s goal of defeating Islamist terrorism in Gaza as well as the Sinai Peninsula.
What does an Israeli-Arab Christian leader like Naddaf think about Israel’s ties with Arab states?
“It’s very important for Israel to have relationships with strong Arab leaders, like [Egyptian President Abdel Fattah] El-Sisi, who is behaving much better towards the Christians [than his predecessor, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohammed Morsi],” Naddaf says.
“I am also hearing voices from other leaders in the Middle East who are looking to have better relations with Israel. It’s positive and important, but we have to understand that in the Middle East, there are always ups and downs –including downs when the extremists are taking the lead, like what’s happened with Iran. But every time there is a good leader and a strong leader that looks to cooperate with Israel, it’s very good. It’s also easier if those [Arab] states will become more democratic.”
Given the Islamic State terror group’s conquering of large swaths of Iraq and Syria, I ask Naddaf what he thinks Israel can do to help persecuted Mideast Christians. He responds that Israel “can help keep and save Christians in the Middle East in their own home and place.”
“It’s not good to take people out of their homes because of any situation,” he says. “[Christians] should stay in their homeland, and that’s where Israel can help. A Middle East without Christians will be less stable.
“Without Israel, Christianity around the world would be nothing, because the Christians in the Middle East and Israel are the source of Christianity. Israel and the Middle East, it is where Christianity began. If there are no Christians in the Middle East, then what’s the significance, for example, of Christians in China? It is like if there would be Jews in Germany and France, but not in Israel. Something would be missing.”
