Syria and the Levant - ethnicity and religious groups

Comment

Comment by Tony Nuspl on September 10, 2013 at 6:45pm

Arab Christians come out strongly against US strike in Syria

Opposition to Western intervention on behalf of beleaguered Christian minorities emerged as a key theme of a regional Arab Christian conference hosted by Jordan this week.

By Christa Case Bryant, Staff writer / September 6, 2013

The largest Christian community in the Middle East is found in Egypt, with approximately 9 million Coptic Christians, while the country with the highest percentage of Christians is Lebanon, where they constitute an estimated one-third of the country's 4 million residents. Iraq, Syria, Israel, and the Palestinian territories have traditionally had significant Christian populations as well, but political and economic troubles as well as military conflict has caused many to leave.

Many Christian minorities are afraid that their communities will suffer a similar fate to Iraq's, where the US-led war and subsequent sectarian fighting pushed roughly half of the country’s 1 million Christians into exile, many for good.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2013/0906/Arab-Christian...