ICC Note: Bishop Francis Kalabat has explained how ISIS exploited Muslims in the territories they overtook by turning them against their Christian neighbors further fueling the genocide against religious minorities.  Kalabat was speaking at Catholic University in Washington D.C. when he explained the vast persecution and destruction brought by the Arab Springs and Islamic groups that took advantage of the unrest.

11/22/2016 Iraq (Christian Post): Bishop Francis Y. Kalabat of the Eparchy of St. Thomas the Apostle said that the Islamic State terror group pressured some Muslims in the Middle East to turn on their Christian neighbors, fueling the genocide against believers and destroying previously friendly relations.

Catholic News Service reported that Kalabat was speaking last week at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., when he said that Chaldean Catholics, who are a minority in Iraq and Syria, are trying to maintain who they are despite the ongoing slaughter at the hands of IS and other elements of radical terror.

“Christianity in the Middle East has had so much life, but it is now being destroyed in Iraq, Syria and the other countries of the ‘Arab Spring,'” he said, referring to the major uprising in several Middle Eatern countries in 2011 that led to political power changes, but was also exploited by extremist groups such as IS.

“If that is the spring, I’d hate to see the winter,” Kalabat said, noting that Christians have suffered in various ways, most notably in IS-held territory where they are forced to choose between their faith, their lives, and ancestral homes their communities have lived in for thousands of years.

The bishop argued that IS “not only destroyed buildings, but they destroyed relations between neighbors. Many (Iraqi Muslims intimidated by Islamic State) turned in their Christian neighbors and that has built up a lot of mistrust.”

Kalabat also noted that there are Muslims who are fighting for peace and to protect Christians, calling them “heroes” and “friends.”

He called the persecution of Christians in the Middle East a crime that constitutes “the purposeful destruction of a culture, a faith, a human history and a human person.”

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