Except in Israel, Christians across the Middle East suffer from lack of religious liberty, increasing persecution, and, in many places, expulsions and mass slaughter. Over the past century, their proportion of the population has plummeted from 20 to 4 percent, and many communities are on the verge of extinction. Gabriel Nadaf, the spiritual leader of Israel’s Aramean Christian community, writes:
Bethlehem, the birthplace of Christ, [once] had a clear Christian majority. Since 1995, when Israel handed the city to the Palestinian Authority, Christians have been leaving in droves. Today, Christians are only 15 percent of the population, and some say even less. Elsewhere in Palestinian-run areas, Christians are also leaving, and in Hamas-run Gaza, the situation is even worse. . . . Christians in Arab countries live on the margins, without rights, with their property stolen, their honor trampled, their children sacrificed, and the slaughter ongoing.
Within this chaos, only one island of sanity can be found where the Christians are not persecuted, where they enjoy freedom of religion and ritual, freedom of expression, and where they can live in peace without fear of genocide. That island is the state of Israel. The state in which I and my Christian brothers were born allows Christians complete freedom. Jews and Christians live in Israel in peace and as good neighbors.
Read more on Mida: http://mida.org.il/2014/12/24/thanks-israel-can-merry-christmas/