Christians disappearing from Jerusalem
Reader comment on item: Christians Disappearing From Iraq

Submitted by Saul Kahn (Canada), Aug 24, 2004 at 22:27

As a member of the D. Pipes Mailing List I received today's article, "Christians Disappearing From Iraq". As usual I found the article informative, however, I was troubled by the following:

"In Jerusalem, the decline has been particularly steep: in 1922, Christians slightly outnumbered Muslims and today they make up less than 2% of the city's population

Based on the fact that other persecuted minorities of the Middle East/Muslim world have found sanctuary in Israel (e.g., Bahai, Ahmadi, et. al.) I can't help but think that these statistics must relate primarily if not exclusively to the "Arab quarter" of Jersusalem as opposed to areas where the population is primarily Jewish. Unfortunately, the article does not clarify the context one way or the other.

Consequently, from the way these particular statistics are presented and worded an Arab/Palestinian/Islamist apologist could potentially cite them (and purposely leave out the others in order to take them out of context) as an example of "Zionist racism".

IMHO the author should elaborate on these particular statistics on his website and/or elsewhere in order to put them in proper perspective and hopefully disarm anyone from using them to portray Israel as an intolerant/racist/apartheid state, morally equivalent to the Arab/Muslim states.

Yours truly,

Saul Kahn

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