Who Protects the Christians in the Middle East?

By Bruce Janigian,

International lawyer, diplomat and author

Immediately following the Iran ceasefire agreement of 7-8 April 2026, Israel stepped up its massive bombing campaign in Beirut. In addition to millions of Lebanese being displaced, Lebanese Christians continued to be killed in indiscriminate bombings that have been described as “a new massacre”.

For years, Christian Palestinians have continued to have their lands expropriated and faced torture or murder along with their Muslim cousins. Syria’s Assad was long considered to be a protector of his Christian communities, as was even Saddam in Iraq, whose well known foreign minister, Tarak Aziz, was a Chaldean Christian.

Few today seem to understand that the beating heart of Christendom was located in the Middle East and that the US-Israeli partnership has contributed massively to its extinction. This partnership continues to do so today, since Iran safeguards its Christian communities and has proven a valuable friend to its tiny neighboring Armenia, the first Christian nation in the world. That small nation has endured millennia of trials to its faithful and is once again threatened by Turkic neighbors with a history of brutal massacres. These are, of course, Turkey, but also Israel’s friend, Azerbaijan. The latter was supported in recently dismembering the ancient lands of Armenia and now threatens further disruptions by linking itself with Turkey in a corridor through Armenia, separating it from Iran, in a project fully supported by the US.

Understanding the history of this region should precede going into wars that devastate its populations. When US president Woodrow Wilson wanted to weigh in on what should become of the then collapsing Ottoman Empire, he commissioned an investigation to travel to the region, the Harbord Commission. They were to determine what nation states should emerge based on historical and demographic analysis. The conclusion presented by General Harbord was three nationalities long submerged under the Ottoman yoke that were deserving of their own independent nations: the Palestinians, Kurds, and Armenians. (Of course Iran, with its diverse minorities, was never part of the Ottoman Empire and did not participate in the World War.)

So how does one connect up the history which seems so misunderstood today in the US. I suggest two books, From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple and Persona Non Grata by Avery Mann.

The Evangelical Christian leadership in the USA seems wholly ignorant of the debt all “modern” Christians owe to those who established the religion and kept it alive under the greatest adversity the world could muster against them. Those still carrying on deserve protection.

(c) Bruce Janigian