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We Arab-American Christians have felt
discriminated against many times in the past and present by our Christian
brothers in America and namely by the Christian Evangelicals and
Zionists. If we, as
Christians, are that mistreated then, we wonder, what are they doing
to our brothers and sisters, the Arab-American Muslims?
SEE:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-
US:official&hs=7HY&ei=a_dySr3eHpKyswP42qHNCA&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&
cd=1&q=discrimination+against+Arabs+in+America&spell=1
We, Arab-Christians are proud to be the descendants of the first
Christians, Acts 3:11. Our Fathers were the ones who started to
preach first in the Middle East and then all over the world. They were the first
martyrs; they were the first translators of the Bible; they were the
first anchorites, the first members of religious orders and
congregations in the Palestinian, Egyptian and Syria and Iraqi
deserts, the first Fathers of the Church …We are proud to say that
we were Christians before any other American of any different
country or ethnicity or origin.
We, Arab-Christians have suffered greatly to keep our Christian
faith in these our countries of the Middle East where we remained
the little flock of Christ in a world that changed to Islam. We
worked hard to maintain a balance between our faith and the
newcomers, the Muslims, with whom we tried to live in peace and
harmony, with ups and downs that made our numbers fewer because of
many unfortunate circumstances.
We, Arab-Christians have been considered many times traitors because
of our faith that collided with the faith of the people who came,
under different pretexts, to colonize our home countries. Because of
that same faith our brothers were disseminated, our churches burned,
our bishops, priests, and people killed as it is happening today in
Iraq. History is repeating itself. Considered strangers in our
beloved countries of the Middle East, we were then obliged to
emigrate.
When we Arab-Christians came to the USA, people forgot that we were
brother Christians; instead they looked on us only as Arabs, I mean
people of a lesser God. We were forced to join our beloved
Arab-Muslims in their fate of being frequently discriminated
against, misunderstood, bigoted, killed, and hated.
We have succeeded to show as Arabs that we are good people, good
citizens, loyal to USA and its Constitution, and many of our people
have distinguished themselves in various sectors of American life: politics,
science, economics, education, artistic, sports …
Still, our brothers, many Christians of the US, in their support of
Israel and misunderstanding of the situation, abuse us, mistreat us,
hate us, and gossip against our Christian faith, and they mistreat
our brothers, the Arab-Muslims, urging Congress and the Senate to
create laws that cannot be interpreted as anything less than
racism against our culture and our people.
This must stop and must stop forever. We deserve better. We are
not less American than any other American in this country.
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