The West is turning a blind eye to the atrocities committed against Christians by Islamic extremists in the Middle East, Egyptian religious leaders Dr. Sameh Maurice and Fayez Ishak told
Newsmax TV.
"Our question … [is] why the West [is] not interested in the Christians as a minority living in the Middle East," Maurice, a senior pastor at Kasr el Dobara Evangelical Church said Tuesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show."
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Fayez Ishak, also a pastor at Kasr el Dobara, said President Barack Obama must speak out against the persecution — yet has not.
"It's becoming more and more" that persecution of Christians "is the norm in the Middle East," he said. " 'That's their suffering so what's new?' But I don't think this is the right thing to keep quiet about…"
Maurice, a former cardiologist, decried the suffering of Christians in the Middle East, with the destruction of "churches, hospitals, orphanages and schools," yet "we have little feedback from the West about what the Islamists and the radicals are doing toward the Christians…"
The leaders' condemnation comes in the wake of the announcement by the Egyptian foreign ministry Monday that 20 Egyptians had been abducted in two separate incidents in neighboring Libya, with the jihadists declaring they'd captured "Christian crusaders,"
according to The Guardian.
Maurice noted Christians have stood firm "for the sake of the unity of … Egypt," yet politicians in the West "are not that interested in us as used to be long ago."
"I hope that somebody will do something to save the lives of these people, if they are still alive," Maurice said.
Ishak added the "suffering in the Middle East" was especially sharp in Libya, where a large number of Coptic Christians have gone "to earn their money to live, but have been under a lot of persecution, a lot of difficulties."
"We are praying in Egypt for these people so they can be released but it sounds like there's no end for this very difficult time," Ishak said.
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