GREGORY KATZ, Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Middle East Bureau
Published 06:30 a.m., Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christians reach for a cross at an Assyrian church. Lebanese Christians are more likely to emigrate to another country than Lebanese Muslims. Photo: For The Chronicle, NORBERT SCHILLER / HC
AIN EBEL, LEBANON — This Christian village near the Israeli border looks tranquil, but the undulating hills and silver-tinted olive groves mask a beehive of Hezbollahmilitary activity that brought the town under Israeli attack this past summer.
Brahim Barakat, a gas station owner, said the 34-day conflict convinced him and the town's other Christians that they have no future in Lebanon, where policy is increasingly set by the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, which is trying to destabilize the elected national government. They are ready to abandon their fig trees and move out. "Our church is older than Hezbollah," said Barakat, sounding beaten down at 56. "Our history is here. Jesus Christ walked here. But we are caught between Hezbollah and Israel. We are lost here. If 80 percent of the Christians in Lebanon are trying to leave, here the figure is 100 percent because of the war." The vicious battle between Hezbollah and Israel this summer has joined the long list of religion-based conflicts and feuds ripping the peoples of the Middle East apart. Most of the Christians who lived in Ain Ebel already have gone, scattered like seeds tossed by a tempest. Some have resettled in other parts of Lebanon, trying to eke out a living, but many have abandoned their country altogether, adding to the huge number of Lebanese Christians who have gone to the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries for a fresh start. The flight of Lebanese Christians is one symptom of a larger malady: the wholesale departure of Christians from the Middle East. This silent exodus is reshaping the region's cultural mosaic, eating away at its diversity by slowly removing Christians from the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Their voice is being muted as Islam becomes more strident. The Islamic holy book, the Quran, preaches respect for other religions, but the growing popularity of radical Islam, which casts Christians and Jews as infidels, has convinced many Christians they will soon be unwelcome, said Anthony O'Mahony, a London professor who has written several books on Christianity in the Middle East. "We may be seeing the end of a historic Christian presence," he said. "Islam has profoundly displaced the indigenous religions, Christianity and Judaism. We're seeing another stage of the Islamicization of the region. You start to see the Middle East purely in Muslim terms, dominating the whole region." Precise figures are elusive, in part because governments in the region do not carry out sensitive surveys listing religious affiliation, but historians believe that at least 2 million of the region's Christians have left the Middle East in the past 30 years. Sharp declines have been observed in Lebanon and the West Bank over the past three decades. Read the rest on: 
GREGORY KATZ, Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Middle East Bureau
Published 06:30 a.m., Sunday, December 24, 2006
- Christians reach for a cross at an Assyrian church. Lebanese Christians are more likely to emigrate to another country than Lebanese Muslims. Photo: For The Chronicle, NORBERT SCHILLER / HC
AIN EBEL, LEBANON — This Christian village near the Israeli border looks tranquil, but the undulating hills and silver-tinted olive groves mask a beehive of Hezbollahmilitary activity that brought the town under Israeli attack this past summer.
Brahim Barakat, a gas station owner, said the 34-day conflict convinced him and the town's other Christians that they have no future in Lebanon, where policy is increasingly set by the militant Islamic group Hezbollah, which is trying to destabilize the elected national government. They are ready to abandon their fig trees and move out. "Our church is older than Hezbollah," said Barakat, sounding beaten down at 56. "Our history is here. Jesus Christ walked here. But we are caught between Hezbollah and Israel. We are lost here. If 80 percent of the Christians in Lebanon are trying to leave, here the figure is 100 percent because of the war." The vicious battle between Hezbollah and Israel this summer has joined the long list of religion-based conflicts and feuds ripping the peoples of the Middle East apart. Most of the Christians who lived in Ain Ebel already have gone, scattered like seeds tossed by a tempest. Some have resettled in other parts of Lebanon, trying to eke out a living, but many have abandoned their country altogether, adding to the huge number of Lebanese Christians who have gone to the United States, Canada, Australia and other countries for a fresh start. The flight of Lebanese Christians is one symptom of a larger malady: the wholesale departure of Christians from the Middle East. This silent exodus is reshaping the region's cultural mosaic, eating away at its diversity by slowly removing Christians from the birthplace of Jesus Christ. Their voice is being muted as Islam becomes more strident. The Islamic holy book, the Quran, preaches respect for other religions, but the growing popularity of radical Islam, which casts Christians and Jews as infidels, has convinced many Christians they will soon be unwelcome, said Anthony O'Mahony, a London professor who has written several books on Christianity in the Middle East. "We may be seeing the end of a historic Christian presence," he said. "Islam has profoundly displaced the indigenous religions, Christianity and Judaism. We're seeing another stage of the Islamicization of the region. You start to see the Middle East purely in Muslim terms, dominating the whole region." Precise figures are elusive, in part because governments in the region do not carry out sensitive surveys listing religious affiliation, but historians believe that at least 2 million of the region's Christians have left the Middle East in the past 30 years. Sharp declines have been observed in Lebanon and the West Bank over the past three decades. Read the rest on:
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