Christians in the Middle East

Lord Turnberg Excerpts

Friday 9th December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Turnberg]

My Lords, I also appreciate the opportunity given to us by the most reverend Primate to have this debate, and I appreciate how his words were taken here.

Scarcely a week goes by when we do not hear of yet another outrageous attack on one or other Christian community in the Middle East. In Egypt we hear about the Copts, in Lebanon the Christians are leaving in their droves, in northern Iraq they are terrorised and in the Horn of Africa tales of persecution and worse are so commonplace that the media have more or less stopped reporting them. Even in Palestine, the numbers of Christian Arabs are falling rapidly. In Bethlehem, the epicentre of Christianity, they feel increasingly unwelcome and now they are a marginalised minority where once they were in the majority—all this despite the commonly held view that it is not only the result of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

There are now barely 50,000 Christians in the whole of the West Bank. Of course, Christians are not alone in being chased out. The Baha’i faith has been eliminated from Iran and other Middle East countries, and the Jews have a long history of persecution in the region. No fewer than 700,000 Jews have been driven out in the past 50 or so years; were it not for the existence of Israel, they would be refugees and dispersed around the world. It is also the case that I as a Jew would be very unwelcome in many of these countries; in fact, I would find it very hard to visit Saudi Arabia as I would not be given permission.

This is troubling indeed at a time when we in the UK and the largely Christian western societies are quite rightly leaning over backwards to accommodate people of every race, creed and religion. You have only to look around your Lordships’ House to see our tolerance of diversity. At the same time, fundamentalism is increasing in the Middle East along with a dangerous anti-Christian intolerance.

There are two exceptions—possibly more—to this general pattern: Jordan and Israel. It might be instructive to examine why that might be so. In Jordan the relatively benign rule of King Abdullah has allowed the Christian community to avoid the persecution seen elsewhere. In Israel, the Christian community is actually growing. Here, I must put a slightly different slant on the issue from that of the noble Lord, Lord Wright. The community has increased fourfold in the last 50 years. This largely Christian Arab community represents about 10 per cent of the total Arab population of 1.5 million within Israel proper and has tended to cluster in the mixed towns of Haifa, Nazareth and Jerusalem. They do relatively well there: there is a Christian Arab Supreme Court judge, for example, as well as a Member of the Knesset and a winner of the Israeli prize for literature. They are well represented in academe and the professions. It is also the case that they have a lower infant mortality rate, lower even than Israeli Jews, and a higher rate of entry into higher education, especially among women.

Of course, they have their problems as a minority group. They have concerns about job opportunities, for example, but that has to be kept in some sort of perspective. As Andrew White, the vicar of Baghdad mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, said,

“the only place in the Middle East that Christians are really safe is Israel”.

That must be responsible for the fact that Sudanese are making the hazardous trek across Egypt at risk to life and limb to seek refuge in Israel. It can be no coincidence that the world centre for the Baha’i faith is to be found in Israel.

There are lessons in Jordan and Israel for the Middle East. Certainly a lack of benign rulers, democracy and the rule of law has not helped. Can we hope that the Arab spring will bring some improvements? The fall of ugly dictatorships must be a helpful first step but the rise of democracy alone, at least in the first instance, seems not to be enough, although I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that it is much to be preferred and something that we have to foster. In Egypt, the coming to power of the Muslim Brotherhood must be very worrying for the Christian population, and the grinding poverty so widespread there does not generally favour increasing feelings of tolerance towards minorities, who are often used as scapegoats.

So it would be wrong to feel much optimism for the immediate future there, although perhaps one can hope for better in the longer term. Perhaps in Tunisia there may be the possibility of better news, or perhaps in Syria or Lebanon there is some room for hope. If Assad falls—and that is a big if—there are signs that support for Hamas in Syria and for Hezbollah in Lebanon may also fall. In Lebanon, at least it is largely Hezbollah that is making life difficult for the Christian community. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope there too.

When there are such major shifts as we are now seeing across the region, there are both threats and opportunities. Let us hope and pray that the opportunities can be built up. Meanwhile, we should offer all the support that we can for these unfortunate people.