Orthodox Reflections

By Nicholas – member of the Western Rite Vicariate, a part of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese in America

The Use of Jihadist Proxies and the Effects

In Fall of 1990, a guest speaker named Ahmed was brought in to address my Arab politics class. He had been an Arab volunteer in Afghanistan fighting the Soviets. At some point, he had changed his mind about the war, and had managed to get out of Afghanistan. After making his way through multiple countries, he had converted to Roman Catholicism and ended up at our university. His entire lecture was riveting, but one thing he said especially stood out. Paraphrasing, the message was, “I grew up Muslim, but the first time I was really introduced to the the concept of jihad was in a CIA-run training camp using a CIA-written training manual.”

The idea that the U.S. was using jihad as a recruiting and training tool absolutely floored me, and much of the rest of the class. We had heard Mujahadeen talk before, but they had been well-briefed on how to appeal to their American audiences. Those speakers had emphasized Afghan nationalism, a desire for independence from foreign control, protection of religious freedom against atheistic tyranny, protecting themselves from the brutality of Soviet military tactics, and building democracy (of course) in a post-Soviet era. Mujahadeen representatives had sounded like Thomas Jefferson in a turbin. Now here was this turncoat, this deserter from the war on Communism, suddenly talking about how the genocidal, anti-Christian Islamic teaching of jihad was being used by Americans to recruit, train, inspire, and control anti-Soviet Muslim forces. It was absolutely shocking, and I really doubted at the time if he was actually telling the truth.

In the same lecture, he said something else that has stuck with me for decades, “The Soviet aligned government of Afghanistan was the best government that country ever had. It might be the best government that country will ever have.” Now that was really too far! At the time (pre-Global War on Terror), American right-wingers often wrote, and spoke, of religious Muslims as natural allies against atheistic communists abroad, and anti-religious liberals at home. The idea that a secular, socialist, Soviet-aligned government could be infinitely superior to one based on a monotheistic religion (even one such as Islam) was practically heresy. Nothing could be worse than godless communism. I projected our own Western, Christian struggle against secularism into a totally foreign space (of which I understood nothing), and came to the conclusion that Ahmed had to be full of crap.

The lecture disquieted me some at the time, but I quickly put any doubts aside and continued to follow the Approved Right-Wing Narrative of the 90’s. I did so, right up until the Global War on Terror shocked me into the conclusion that Ahmed had been correct all along. About everything. In the 80’s and 90’s, I had fully accepted the idea that using Muslims as a proxy against the Soviets was an ad-hoc reaction to a surprise invasion. We were there to “help” the locals against the Evil Empire. I wish I had known at the time that proxy wars, including those making use of jihadists, had been a U.S. strategy since the early 70’s. Unfortunately, it took decades for me, and most of my conservative compatriots of that era, to learn the truth about American foreign policy.

Economist and former U.S. government insider, Michael Hudson, fills in the backstory none of us knew during the Reagan / Bush I Era (emphasis added):

For a century, the United States has focused on control of the oil as the basis of its international trade balance — it’s the largest contributor to the trade balance — and of its ability to sanction the rest of the world, by turning off the oil supply, and thereby turning off the electricity, turning off the gas, turning off the home heating, of countries that break away from US policy.

When I worked for the Hudson Institute in the early 1970s, Herman Kahn brought me to a meeting with some generals, and they were discussing what to do with Iran in case, under the shah, Iran should ever once again try to assert its autonomy and go its own way.

Iran has always been the strongest power in the entire Near East, and the capstone to controlling the Near East. You cannot fully control the Near Eastern oil — Syria, Iraq, the rest of the countries there — without controlling Iran too, because of the size of its population and the strength of its economy.

It was a very interesting meeting. Herman Kahn, the model for Dr. Strangelove, discussed how to break up Iran into its various ethnicities, five or six ethnicities, in the case that it should, take a policy independent from the United States.

The United States’ concern already in the 1970s, 50 years ago, was, “What do we do if other countries do not follow the kind of international world order that we are, organizing?”

Herman said that he thought the crisis point that was going to break up in international news was going to be Baluchistan, at Iran’s border with Pakistan. The Balochis are a distinct population, just as the Azerbaijanis, Azeris, the Kurds.

Iran is a composite of many ethnic groups, including a very large Jewish group there. It is a multi-ethnic society, and the United States’ strategy, in case there was a war against Iran, was to play on these ethnicities — just as similar plans were drawn up for Russia, how to break it into separate ethnic parts; and China, how to break China into ethnic parts, at such point as America wants to take them on.

And the reason this ethnic division was developed was, as a democracy, especially in the 1970s, it became very apparent that the United States never again could field an army for invasion, as it was doing in Vietnam.

At the time I sat in on this meeting, late 1974 I think, or early ’75, there were demonstrations. It was obvious that there could never be a military draft again.

How was the United States to exert its international power without military power? It had military bases all over the world; it spent more on military than any other country.

The entire US balance of payments deficit was military spending abroad, and yet it couldn’t go to war. It had to use proxies.

This was the time when, in addition to the discussions that I sat in on how to use ethnicities in countries that we declared war on, as opponents; America decided to create the largest military base in the Near East, and that was Israel.

Henry Jackson, the pro-war, Military-Industrial Complex’s senator, met with Herman Kahn — I actually was in Herman’s office, listening to the phone call, when it came through — and the agreement was that the Military-Industrial Complex and Jackson would back Israel, if Israel agreed to act as America’s landed aircraft carrier in the Near East, as it was put at the time.

Herman very gladly made that arrangement, because the Hudson Institute at that time was a Zionist organization, and it was a training ground for Mossad.

One of my colleagues was Uzi Arad. We made a number of trips together to Asia. And Uzi became Netanyahu’s advisor and head of Mossad in subsequent years.

So I sort of sat in at the time when the American strategy was being outlined.

Israel was going to be America’s face, and indeed has been coordinating America’s backing of Al-Qaeda and the Wahhabi butchers who have taken over Syria, and are now busy killing the Christians, killing the Shiites, killing the Alawites.

And you will never see any criticism of Israel by Al-Qaeda, or the group [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)] in Syria, whatever you want to call it there now. And vice versa, there has always been a working relationship.

So this gives some background as to how long the United States has anticipated the day when it would try to finally capstone its invasion of Iraq, its attack on Syria, its destruction of Libya, its backing of the destruction of Lebanon, and other countries, in North Africa, etc.

What we have seen in the last month — or I should say the last two years actually — is the culmination of the long strategy that America has had ever since World War II, to take complete control of the Near Eastern oil lands and make them proxies of the United States, under client rulers, such as Saudi Arabia and the king of Jordan.

Long quote, so let’s break this analysis down. Since WWII, the United States has sought global dominance, primarily through an attempt to control oil. Though not mentioned in the above quote, control of oil was made all the more important after the Nixon Administration took the U.S. Dollar off the Gold Standard in 1971. Oil replaced Gold as the collateral for the U.S. Dollar under the Kissinger “Petrodollar” scheme, necessitating a major U.S. commitment both to the security of Saudi Arabia, and to the domination of the entire Middle East.

After Vietnam, U.S. policy makers had realized that both a draft and major foreign wars were intolerable to the American public. U.S. military presence in Vietnam peaked in April 1969 at approximately 543,000 personnel, drafted from a population of a little over 200 million. We all remember what the anti-draft (not really anti-war) movement looked like in the States, even if only from movies about the period. American strategists needed to learn how to exert control over key oil producing areas on the cheap.

That meant the U.S. needed proxies to do the dirty work, especially in the Middle East. These proxies could be ethnic minorities (fighting wars that possibly resulted in small, controllable statelets), could be jihadists dedicated to overthrowing secular regimes (who are often based in nationalism, a threat to foreign dominance), or movements that were both ethnic and jihadist. Preferably proxies would create controllable puppet regimes, but exploitable chaos worked for American purposes just as well. A failed state could not very well be trusted to mind important strategic assets such as oil, right? Further, the U.S. was already seeking to carry chaos and conflict into both Russia and China by triggering ethnic / religious minorities to rise up. Direct war against either Russia or China would go nuclear. A proxy war, however, would not.

Israel was seen as central to this effort – a “landed U.S. aircraft carrier” to provide a “front man” for handling regional proxies in the oil-rich Middle East. Israel’s presence creates a constant source of regional instability that can be manipulated. Further, Israel provides a base for regional operations, and a cover for what all the conflicts in the area are really about – the desire for global hegemony in the interests of American Global Capital. Israel being at the center of these regional conflicts provides cover for the truth in multiple ways: the post-WWII Open Society Consensus (“Never Again”) with its perpetual fear of a new Hitler / Holocaust, Western religious sentiments (Zionist Jews, Christian Dispensationalists), and a narrative of “Western Civilization” (as represented by Israel) versus Islamic barbarism. The civilizational clash narrative is made all the more convincing by deploying paid jihadists to do horrible things, while simultaneously importing Islamists by the millions into Western countries to create a sense of, “We’re under attack just like Israel! We must stand together!”

As an aside, Americans often argue over whether the U.S. controls Israel as a proxy state, or if Israel controls the U.S. as occupied territory.

That entire discussion is fundamentally erroneous. Neither country “runs” the other. Rather, the U.S. and Israel are both controlled by the same rapacious, demonic Globalist oligarchy which cares not one whit for the people of either nation. Or the people of any nation, for that matter. The purposes to which Israeli and American blood and treasure are being expended date back decades, if not centuries. Religion is used as a cover to fool the rubes, but has nothing to do with the real reasons for modern Middle Eastern wars.

Even in the early 70’s, when Iran was ruled by a secular Shah (an American vassal), the U.S. National Security state was already drafting contingency plans for what to do in case Iran ever tried to assert national independence. (Which would include control of its own oil reserves, a move that had gotten the democratically-elected, secular Iranian government overthrown by a joint U.S. / UK operation in 1953.) The current Iranian government has a Shia religious character, which is usually blamed as the source of the ongoing conflict with the U.S. and Israel. Shia Islam is said to be dangerous because it is an Apocalyptic cult seeking global domination by bringing about the reign of the Mahdi.

The irony is that the U.S. and Israel both rely on extremist, Apocalyptic religions (Messianic Zionism, Christian Dispensationalism) to shore up support for their Middle Eastern policies, while simultaneously criticizing Shia Islam for its end of days teaching. The double standard here should not be lost on any logically thinking person. Don’t go too far, however, in the religious direction. The religious nutcases in America and Israel are not driving policy. Their job is to provide cover for the globalist empire builders who are. A Christian nation in the Middle East, that asserted national independence, would be in for exactly the same treatment as Iran or Syria. Which is a major reason that such a Christian state must be prevented from emerging at all costs. 

The truth, as shown in the previous quote from Benson, is that Islam, including Shiaism, is irrelevant to  Middle Eastern conflicts. The character of the government of Iran, religious or secular, is of no real consequence. All that matters to the Western Global Elite is whether or not Iran’s government, or any regional government, is controllable. The Iranian religious regime could fall tomorrow, but the conflict would continue if it were replaced by a secular, nationalist regime that insisted on continuing to chart an independent course. Only the narrative justifying the conflict would change, not the conflict itself.

The truth of this can easily be seen when looking at the previous wars the U.S. and Israel have fought to overthrow secular regimes in the region, including Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Muammar Gaddafi, deceased former ruler of Libya, was widely regarded as a Muslim heretic due to his controversial religious views and socialist policies. He was accused of diminishing the status of the Prophet Muhammad, rejecting the invocation of blessings upon the Prophet, and negating the Islamic belief in the doctrine of intercession. He also reportedly criticized practices like polygamy and veiling, while denying the historical split between Sunnis and Shias. His views contrasted sharply with mainstream Sunni Islam. Post “liberation” at Western hands, Libya is now marked by the presence of numerous armed groups and militias, many of which are composed of Sunni Muslims we would consider “radical”. These groups wield de facto control over territory and resources, making a stable central government impossible. Ancient Islamic maladies such as slavery have returned to Libya, with estimates of enslaved people exceeding 47,000 out of a population of less than 7 million. Such absolute anarchic misery, however, is the mother of Globalist opportunity.

Wanna buy a slave? You can in Libya, after Western “liberation”. Slavery is also returning to Syria.

Saddam Hussein was a secular dictator ruling a majority Shia population. Saddam was head of the Iraqi Ba’ath Party. This political party was based on the ideology of Ba’athism, created by Syrians Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Din al-Bitar in the mid-20th Century. Ba’athism advocated for Arab nationalism, socialism, and unity. Aflaq was a Christian who believed in the separation of state and religion, and was a strong believer in secularization. Saddam went from enjoying U.S. support as a secular dictator in the 70’s and 80’s, to being branded an “Islamofascist” Hitler out to conqueror the world. The Globalists are often more dangerous to their friends than they are to their enemies.

Saddam’s overthrow led to the absolute slaughter of the indigenous Iraqi Christian community, and to more regional instability. That was not an accident on either count. One constant of U.S. Middle Eastern policy is that, no matter what else happens, Christians always die. We’ll explain more on why later. Another result is that U.S. and Israeli actions always lead to more regional chaos.

Syria, under the Assad Regime (Hafez and later his son Bashar), was also dominated by Ba’athism. The Assad family are Alawites, who are considered by Sunni Muslims to be heretics. The Assad Regime maintained its grip on power by suppressing Sunni Islam and by drawing support from Syrian minorities, including Christians. When fighting in Lebanon and Iraq drove Christians out of those benighted countries, many found refuge in Syria. Unfortunately, a successful, independent, nationalist regime in Damascus was a threat to American, Israeli, Turkish, and Gulf Arab interests in the region. America wanted to control the oil. Israel wanted land and to put down a potential regional rival. Turkey wanted enhanced regional power, land, and a free hand to suppress the Kurds. The religiously-based monarchies of the Gulf wanted an end to any talk of Arab nationalism, the growth of which directly threatens their religiously-based, kleptocratic rule.

So Assad had to go. His replacement in Damascus is a white-washed jihadi terrorist named Jolani. This is a man that once had a $10 million dollar bounty on his head for his role in attacking U.S. military personnel.

Many Westerners, enthralled with the notion of a new “crusade” against an Islam bent on global domination, were completely taken aback with how rapidly a former “head chopper” was converted to a perfectly respectable head of state. Suddenly, gone were the Islamist militant trappings and the extreme rhetoric. Jolani was now a man in a designer suit with whom the West and Israel are eager to do business.

Donald Trump, a man many “right-wing” Americans believe is trying to save “Western Civilization”, has not only ended sanctions against Syria, but he has been effusive in his praise for the former terrorist. Trump has referred to Jolani as a “good and attractive” guy, among other compliments.

Whether or not Jolani is a “good guy” is highly debatable, to say the least. What is crystal clear, however, is that he is very much “our” guy. That is easily understood from his willingness to cooperate with Israel and the U.S., even when that cooperation is directly detrimental to the interests of the Syrian nation. This cooperation even extends to ceding valuable land to Israel, something no prior Syrian regime had ever considered. Here is effusive praise for the new Syrian government from an X user named Ron M whose handle is “Jewtastic”:

Israel and Syria are openly discussing a permanent peace deal. For the 1st time in modern history Syria will end its claim to the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel after the 1967 war.

No US President and Israeli Prime Minister Minister ever managed to achieve this cementing of Israeli security and rights. This would be a historic development, and will lead to a peace deal with Lebanon as well.

Israeli left-wing Prime Ministers all wanted to give up this crucial territory to Syria. Itzhak Shamir, and Benjamin Netanyahu insisted the Golan is Israel.

All US modern Presidents wanted to give up this crucial territory to Syria, President Trump insisted the Golan is Israel.

These are historic wins, historic leaders, after fifty plus years of dispute and conflict.

Of course, independent observers of the situation, such as British journalist Richard Medhurst, see the situation for what it is – the complete reduction of the nation of Syria to Western vassal status.

Saudi Arabia, and the other Gulf monarchies, are thrilled to have a Sunni former “head chopper” in charge of Syria. Bye, bye rule by a heretical minority pushing Arab nationalism as a governing justification. Hello rule by a Sunni regime headed by a cooperative, compliant dictator.  In fact, to widespread acclaim, the U.S. government has also now removed the terrorist designation from Jolani’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organization.

Jolani once worked directly under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the now deceased ISIS “caliph.” Why is that interesting? Because while the U.S. and Israel are busy slathering love on Jolani’s merry band of terrorists, Trump is actively bombing northern Somalia to “combat ISIS”. You see, the official Somali government is an American puppet. An American puppet believed to hold substantial oil and gas reserves, estimated above 30 billion barrels. So Somali government, “good”. Armed opposition to the Somali government, “bad Islamofascist ISIS jihadis.”

You get it, right? An Islamic terrorist is only an Islamic terrorist when he isn’t on your payroll. When he is your terrorist, then he is a pro-Democracy freedom fighter. Jolani is practically the Syrian George Washington. Just ask Trump. He’ll be happy to vouch for his good friend.

As in Iraq, the results of regime change in Syria have been an ongoing carnage. Islamists like Jolani kill and oppress fellow Muslims, of course, if they are deemed insufficiently dedicated to Sunni Islam. But, they have a particular interest in killing and persecuting Christians. There have been many attacks, with the most recent being a suicide bomb attack at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in Damascus. This murderous act of terrorism killed at least 25 people and wounded 63 others. It was reported that the attacker was affiliated with the jihadist group Islamic State (IS) – a terrorist organization that, as we noted previously, is known to have received Western funding during its war against the Assad regime. An organization against which, as previously noted, the U.S. is still officially fighting elsewhere in the world. Just not in Syria, where they are now part of the “good guys.”

The blood stained walls the Greek Orthodox Church of the Prophet Elias in Damascus following a suicide attack carried out during a service

Orthodox clergy and hierarchs have not been shy about calling out the wave of terror being visited upon Christians in Syria. Further, while the Mainstream Media is busy celebrating the downfall of the evil Assad Regime, alternative media sources are telling the truth that Christians in Syria are being “hunted”.

It’s not just Christians, however, that are bearing the brunt of Islamist persecution. Syria’s Alawite communities are suffering violence, murder, and the abduction of women and girls. There are multiple reports of the kidnap of Alawite females (of all ages) for sex slavery, forced marriage, and ransom. After the Assad regime fell in March, Sunni militias rounded up Alawite men and boys to be shot in the streets, with some made to crawl to their deaths howling like dogs. Even so, the fact that the jihadis are reviving the Islamic practice of taking sex slaves holds a special terror for Alawites. Christian women and girls have been subjected to the same sexual violence in previous times in the Islamic world. Anyone doubt they are next?

What will the U.S. do about these atrocities? It will continue to back its fully-owned and controlled regime in Damascus. What’s a little religious persecution, after all, among friends? In a perverse way, the more chaotic Syria is, the easier it is for the U.S. to keep control of Syrian oil. For Israel, the lack of Syrian national unity means no effective military force with which to contend. It’s a win for everyone. Except Syrians, particularly Christians and Alawites, who want to live in peace.

There are many more examples of the U.S. and Israel recruiting, training, funding, and using jihadis, even ones that are ostensibly enemies of both regimes. The Israeli Government has admitted that it built up Hamas in Gaza as an Islamic counterweight to the secular PLO which rules the West Bank:

For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group.

 

The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state.

 

Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.

First you build up Hamas, which denies consolidated power to its secular rival and makes a realistic peace deal almost impossible. Then you use the threat of Islamofascist Hamas as the justification for: ethnically cleansing valuable real estate in Gaza (Which, did we mention, has claim to extensive offshore natural gas deposits?), going to war against other countries (as Hamas is a “proxy” or “ally” of other regional powers), and reinforcing the narrative of the “clash of civilizations” (West versus Islam). A narrative that is legitimately helped along by the absolutely horrific teachings of authentic Islam concerning everything from the rights of non-Muslims, to the Heavenly rewards for violent “martyrs” (especially suicide bombers), to the permissibility of slavery, to the treatment of women. Focusing on such things gives the impression that regional conflicts, such as over Palestine, can never be peacefully resolved as Muslim radicals can’t be negotiated with. They can only be destroyed, before they destroy all of us.

Such a perspective, constantly reinforced by “faithful” Muslims who are given online platforms, completely obfuscates extremely important facts to the contrary:

1. Secularized Muslims, and secular movements, do exist in the Middle East and have gained power multiple times in different places. Often, these governments only lost power thanks to Western military intervention. Among the secularists is the Palestine Liberation Organization, which runs the West Bank and includes Christians in its government. In fact, secularism is increasing in the area, as evidenced by over 50,000 mosques closing in Iran alone due to poor attendance. Only 32% of Iranians explicitly identify as Shia. Over 1 million Iranians are now Christians. Albania, not in the Middle East but still indicative of the problems Islam is suffering, no longer has a Muslim majority for the first time since the 17th Century. Orthodoxy in Albania is surging. There are people out there to negotiate with.
2. Many religious Muslims are sick of the death and destruction, and would welcome being able to live peacefully in their cities and villages.
3. Many Muslim governments (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, and more) have been more than willing to make lasting deals with the West, to take money from the West, to invest money in the West, to accept military protection from the West, and to even assist Western in military actions against other Muslims. 
4. The worst jihadis, as has been noted repeatedly in this article, happily work for the U.S. and Israel. They take orders from Tel Aviv and Washington. How serious is the religious problem in the Middle East, when “rent-a-jihadi army” is a thing? Who cares what aggrieved Muslim moms, Islamic scholars, and angry teenagers have to say – when the men who do the actual fighting are so obviously for sale?

So no, the conflict in Palestine, and the other conflicts around the Middle East, are not intractable, existential religious wars. That is the bloody wool the U.S. and Israel have pulled over everyone’s eyes. Peace is possible.

Israel and the U.S., however, don’t just use jihadis as proxies to spread chaos and seize land. Zionist Jewish settlers do an outstanding job of that as well. Israeli settlers in the West Bank recently set on fire the village of Taybeh, the last fully Christian village in occupied Palestine. This wasn’t an attack by jihadis against Christians, but one carried out brazenly by Zionist Jews. From the settler perspective, all non-Rabbinic Jews are pretty much the same – Muslim, Christian, whatever. By the way, there is no Hamas on the West Bank, whose government, the Palestinian Authority, is run by secular nationalists. There is also no Hamas hiding in a Christian village.

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The use of Muslim jihadist proxies is not confined to only the Middle East. Destabilizing the Caucus region, especially the soft underbelly of Russia, is a long standing goal of the Global Western Elite. Especially now that the proxy war in Ukraine has failed, Western strategy appears to be shifting towards using Muslim Azeris to strategically “weaken” and “extend” Russia. Such a conflict might even draw in Iran. Of course, another jihadi war fought by the Azeris, whose hands are already covered in Christian Armenian blood, will prove just as murderous to indigenous Christians as every other such previous Western-funded conflict.

To close out this section, next is a summary of some of what has happened, and continues to happen, to Middle Eastern Christians as a direct result of U.S. and Israeli policies:

The devastation of Christian communities in the Middle East as a result of American policy is undeniable. Since America’s invasion of Iraq, the Christian population of Iraq plunged from 1.5 million to 150,000, according to a State Department report. The brutal Syrian civil war, in which the United States was involved indirectly, has decimated Christians there, causing nearly two-thirds to flee. Israel’s recent war, and American support for it, has continued this pattern. It has harmed and destroyed Christian communities in Palestine and Lebanon, some of the remaining places Middle Eastern Christians—the oldest Christian communities in the world—practice their religion in relative peace and security.

It is hard to know exactly how many Christians Israel, America’s closest ally in the region and a recipient of tens of billions of dollars in American military aid, has killed. But from the beginning of its war in response to Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, Israel’s own attacks on Christians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon have been well-documented. A selection of illustrative examples: Early in the war, an Israeli sniper killed a mother and her daughter and shot seven others inside Holy Family Parish. IDF tanks destroyed its convent, which housed over fifty disabled people. Pope Francis was an advocate for this church, calling its priest and parishioners nightly, no doubt contributing to its protection. In October 2023, Israel bombed the Church of Saint Porphyrius, killing eighteen. Prior to this war, Gaza Baptist Church, the only Protestant church in Gaza, was destroyed by Israeli bombs in 2008, and its pastor and congregation fled. Earlier this month, the Israeli military bombed the last fully functional hospital in the Gaza Strip, the historic al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, damaging a genetics laboratory, the emergency department, and the adjoining St. Philip’s Chapel. Once run by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the hospital is now administered by the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem. It is the only Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip.

In its war in Lebanon last year, Israel bombed St. George Melkite Catholic Church, killing eight, and launched a separate airstrike destroying the home of its priest. This marks the third time in fifty years that Israel has bombed St. George. This past fall, Israel bombed the majority-Christian town of Aitou, killing twenty-one. By December of last year, Israel had razed the Maronite village of al-Qaouzah. In November 2024, Israeli soldiers broke into a church in the village of Deir Mimas and filmed themselves mocking Christian marriage liturgies.

Why Don’t Christian Lives Matter?

Above we explored the use of jihadist proxies, and what that has meant for the Christians in the Middle East. But the how and the what, do not tell you the why. Why do majority Christian populations in the West never even try to do anything meaningful to stop the horrific persecution of Middle Eastern Christians? Especially when that persecution is caused by their own governments’ foreign policies? There are multiple reasons for this, which we will briefly now cover some of the most important.

1) The Elites don’t care about any lives: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, American, Russian, Ukrainian….

The Western, oligarchic elite cares absolutely nothing for any human life, save their own. They have objectives. If some number of inconvenient people have to die to realize those objectives, then who cares? The people in power certainly don’t.

Israel suffered massive damage during its 12 day war with Iran. Billions of dollars no doubt. Thousands of Israelis were killed, wounded, and displaced. A generation of Israelis have lost their sense of invincibility, leading thousands to flee to safety elsewhere. More are actively considering it. Cyprus is receiving so many Israeli refugees that politicians there are quite alarmed.

Good luck running a settler colony with no settlers. However, even if Israel goes extinct, no problem. The Global Elite will simply find a new base of power, or expand an existing one. The 12 Day War is not the first time that Jews have suffered, or even been outright targeted, because of the goals of the Global Elite. Mossad underground agents were involved in bombings in Baghdad during 1950-1951. The goal of the bombings, which targeted Jews, was to pressure Iraqi Jews to emigrate to Israel. This was just one operation. There were many more such operations all over the Arab world, always targeting Jews. On 10/7, most of the Jewish casualties were caused by IDF fire, primarily intended to prevent hostages from being successfully taken. Jewish lives do not matter.

Muslim lives do not matter, of course. What matters is if a given population of Muslims is useful to Globalist Elite goals, or a hinderance to them. Palestinian Muslims are slaughtered in Gaza, while other Muslims, even radical ones, are backed to the hilt in Syria and Azerbaijan. It’s not about religion or ethnicity or political beliefs. It’s about who is useful, and who is not.

Christians populations in the Middle East, from the standpoint of the Global Elite, are at best irrelevant, and at worst highly inconvenient. Therefore, their lives have absolutely no value. Who cares if they are slaughtered?

2) Islam versus the West – Middle Eastern Christians undermine the narrative.

The elite narrative is that Israel is an outpost of “Western Civilization” fighting the Islamic barbarians. In 2024, then-Archbishop of Anglican Church in North America (the “conservative” version of Anglicanism), Foley Beach, characterized the war between Israel and its enemies as a “battle of good versus evil that has been waged against Israel and its supporters in the West.” The language of civilizational conflict is even more strident among Evangelicals, despite the calls of Evangelical communities in Egypt, Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon for assistance from their co-religionists in the West. The need to bolster this “clash of civilizations” narrative explains the importation of millions of Muslims to Western nations. First we destroy their homes. Then our elites import millions of angry, unassimilable Muslims to sponge off our welfare states and cause cultural chaos. Next, the powers-that-be demand we destroy even more places, import even more refugees, all to “fight” the great civilizational threat of Islam.

The bizarre thing is that so few Westerners ever bother to notice that they are being called to “fight” people they could just deport. Tens of thousands of so-called “Islamic extremists”, despite sowing chaos and committing horrific crimes (particularly against women and girls), are allowed to remain in Western countries. Most of their victims are, and will be, white Christians who still constitute the majority populations of Western countries. That fact is of no consequence to anyone important. A troublesome Muslim presence in Western countries is absolutely critical to convincing enough gullible voters, that opposing grooming gangs in the UK is absolutely part of the same struggle as Israel bombing Palestinian children.

Ever wonder why Western governments are so tolerant towards Muslim radicals, while simultaneously suppressing Christian conservatives as dangerous? The “Next Wave” is a new EU-backed report that warns that conservative and religious movements are “regaining power” in Europe. The report accuses the Vatican, Russian actors, and American Evangelicals of funding a “global backlash” against abortion, gender ideology, and sexual politics. These groups don’t use violence for political ends, like the jihadists the EU imports do. They don’t rape women, or abuse children. Much more ominously, from the official standpoint, they offer viable, traditional alternatives to the status quo including alternative healthcare (FEMM, HeartBeat), pro-family education, and lobbying for laws that affirm sex-based rights.

According to the EU, conservative Christians are about to take over everything

Bomb throwing extremists, rape gangs, and street criminals help the desired official narrative. Their mayhem strengthens Elite power. Effective traditional Christian groups, however, represent a very real, very worrying, threat to the power of Western Global Elites. Therefore, Muslims gets coddled, and Christians get clobbered. In the Middle East, the Christians are among the most traditionally conservative of any in the world. They are, therefore, just as much “Hitler” in the eyes of the EU as European conservative Christians. Any thinking person can easily see the official “clash of civilizations” narrative for the staged psyops it really is. The solution is to reclaim our Christian heritage, deport Islamists, and preach Christ to the Muslims we don’t deport. The solution is not more war.

Another ironic fact often missed in contentious debates over the “Islamization” of the West? Many of the “Muslim radicals” causing so much turmoil are inspired by, taught by, and supported by jihadist movements funded by the West as proxies.

Zionist violence against Middle Eastern Christians dramatically undermines the “clash” narrative. Remember the burning of Taybeh by Israeli settlers? You can’t spin that as a fight against radical Islam. The victims are not Muslim, yet the Israeli settlers have targeted them for the land. That is only one example among thousands (just check out all the Christian neighborhoods, villages, and churches bombed in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza). All these Zionist attacks on Christians point to the same conclusion – the source of modern day conflicts in the Middle East is not religion. The source is a Globalist desire for resource control, for land, for power, for complete domination.

Middle Eastern Christians are not Muslim, yet they are visibly suffering as a direct result of our wars in the Middle East. This is incredibly inconvenient for the narrative. When covering up Christian suffering does not work, elites often fall back on a double standard. When Middle Eastern Christians endure Islamic terrorism, Western Christians (even some Evangelicals) quietly acknowledge their historic “Christian witness”. But when Middle Eastern Christians complain about Israel (or the U.S.) bombing their holy sites, and/or oppressing them with apartheid laws – they are said to be “brainwashed” or Muslim “fellow travelers” or even just outright traitors to their Christian heritage. 

How can Western Christians demand protection for traitors?

The best conclusion to draw, in support of the “clash” narrative, is that unlike Southern Baptists in Central Texas, these Middle Eastern Christians are not really Christians at all. Therefore, their lives do not matter.

All hail the official narrative.

3) Christian Dispensationalism worships Israel.

Christian Dispensationalism is an Apocalyptic cult that worships Israel as a kind of Golden Calf. The realization of prophecies concerning Israel are absolutely central to bringing about the so-called “Rapture”. The “Rapture” is a secret coming of Christ that will snatch the “saved” from the face of the Earth and take them to Heaven, where Evangelical Christians will be safe from the coming reign of the anti-Christ. Prophecies connected to Israel must also be fulfilled to bring about the Second Coming (the public one, not the private one that only Evangelicals participate in) of Christ that will usher in the Millennial Kingdom. Evangelicals believe that they understand Biblical prophecy so well, that they have a veritable roadmap to the end of the world. The significance of all current events is interpreted based on their prophetic paradigm.

At the heart of their Biblical system, of course, is the concept that not only are Jews God’s Chosen people, but that our number one task as Christians is to support the modern state of Israel in any way necessary. If you don’t believe those two things, then Dispensationalists believe you are some kind of heretic. Maybe not even a Christian at all.

Middle Eastern Christians, which does include some native-born Evangelical communities, really mess with those assumptions. Evangelicals, coming face-to-face with Christian persecution by God’s Chosen people who can do no wrong, have had a hard time figuring out how to fit such inconvenient facts within their religious framework.

One Roman Catholic priest, based in East Jerusalem, bitterly recalled meeting an Evangelical pastor on a tour of the Holy Land. They fell to talking, and the priest gave the pastor an earful about what it was like to live under Zionist occupation. The pastor responded to it all by informing the priest that Jewish lives were more valuable than Christian lives. Jewish freedom was more valuable than Christian freedom. The priest needed to shut up, accept his inferior status, and support Israel. How can Middle Eastern Christians expect support from a nation populated by people who believe that Christian lives are worth less than those of Israeli Jews?

Our politicians, of course, have totally bought into the same Zionist / Dispensationalist belief system. Giving them, also, a tendency to lecture Middle Eastern Christians on their need to support Israel. Even when being bombed by it. One example is Ted Cruz, Senator from Texas, who can be seen in the video below being booed by Middle Eastern Christian after giving them a talk in support of Zionism.

When eternal life is all about serving Zionist Jews, tens of millions of Dispensationalists in the West will have little to no concern about the plight of Middle Eastern Christians. Now, as noted before, these people are not actually in charge of American foreign policy. However, their indifference to Christian suffering is quite useful to those that are. 

4) Jihadis need a target, and it can’t be Israel or the United States.

Jihadists become jihadists because they want to kill the enemies of Islam and win favor with Allah. That can be a problem when the jihadists are funded by the West. You can’t have them just going off and suicide bombing Israeli or American targets in the Middle East. Unless, of course, that is part of some plan or other (usually a false flag). Regardless, jihadis are going to want to kill some infidels. How can they satisfy the desire to earn some virgins through acts of extreme violence, in a way that doesn’t inconvenience their Western benefactors? Why – let them have at the indigenous Christians! Finally, something these people are actually good for. They make excellent victims. They never fight back. They have practically no support among Western Christians. If necessary, toss in some other religious minorities as raw meat for the wolves. Nothing could be more perfect. Western paid jihadis get to win favor with Allah, inconvenient people are eliminated, and best of all – no one who matters even cares!

What’s not to love?

A Final Thought

Islam is a horrible religion that worships demons. We Orthodox Christians know that better than anyone. However, Islam is not the root of the modern day Middle Eastern wars. Throughout this article, we’ve tried to make that clear. Muslims do need to be deported from Western societies. However, Muslim nations should be treated as sovereign entities and left in peace, but with the expectation they treat religious / ethnic minorities with respect. Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike, deserve decent, safe lives in a state that offers them full citizenship. The U.S. should cease funding and exploiting religious extremism, both Muslim and Jewish, as a way of advancing globalist policy objectives.

There is no grand strategy for bringing all that about. Not one that I can think of in any case. All that I can advocate is to tell the absolute truth as often as possible. The U.S. and Israel are not fighting a war to save Western Civilization. That task can’t be accomplished on a Middle Eastern battlefield. They are fighting a series of wars whose outcomes will be more dead and displaced Middle Eastern Christians. May God have mercy on them, and on us.