No Christmas in Baghdad

نينا شيا في الجمعة ٠٤ - مارس - ٢٠١١ ١٢:٠٠ صباحاً

ate the U.N. has cited for years. The actual percentage of Christian refugees is likely far greater. In a reference to the fate of Iraq ’s Jewish population, which stands at eight souls, down from a third of Baghdad ’s population in the 1940s, the Times reports:

“It’s exactly what happened to the Jews,” said Nassir Sharhoom, 47, who fled last month to the Kurdish capital, Erbil, with his family from Dora, a once mixed neighborhood in Baghdad . “They want us all to go.”

The obliteration from Iraq of its ancient Christian presence — and with it the reality of religious freedom and pluralism — is an unintended consequence of the U.S. invasion but has never been factored in as a U.S. strategic concern. There is no Obama policy, not even a safe-haven or refugee policy, designed specifically to help Iraq ’s Christians as they confront religious cleansing.

— Nina Sheais director of the Hudson Institute’s Center on Religious Freedom

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