Word: arab
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Christians, who once constituted 20% of the population, but whose numbers have fallen to just 2% now. The presence of Christians in the Holy Land is both an important symbol of continuity with the origins of the faith, and a reminder of the multisectarian and tolerant history of Arab and Islamic culture. That culture of tolerance is today under threat from the rise of religious extremism. But clash-of-civilizations pundits and Western leaders like the Pope often ignore how the West helped spark such intolerance, especially through its one-sided support of Israel. (Check out a story...
...Christians, a populist former general named Michel Aoun, is betting that the only way to secure a Christian future in Lebanon is to look east toward the rising power of Shi'a Islam. It may seem far-fetched now, but there may come a day when Christians hit the Arab streets to welcome not a Pope from Rome, but an ayatullah from Iran...
...tour of the Middle East. The Pontiff arrived in Tel Aviv Monday, but so far Gaza's Christians haven't heard if their permit applications - and prayers - have been answered. "The Pope is an inspiration for us, and we want to tell him how difficult it is for us Arab Christians living in Gaza," says Kamran, a young Christian student. (See pictures of the Pope in Africa...
...Given that the Pope is German, much of the emphasis of his "pilgrimage" to the Holy Land has been to improve ties with the Jews and the state of Israel, which the Vatican only recognized in 1993. Arab Christians say that have no objection to the Vatican reaching out to Jews, but at the same time, they don't want the Pontiff's visit to gloss over their own troubles with the Israelis. Says George Said, a Bethlehem property dealer: "If the Pope continues to keep quiet about the suffering of Christians from Israelis, a day will come when...
...wargames. "You can look at Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia and you can see that lines are drawn completely arbitrary of ethnic lines." The Kurds, for example, live in four different countries while even a large, apparently homogeneous country like Iran has a large Arab minority...