In an interview with my friend Warren Cole Smith, Ted Cruz claims that critics of his recent remarks to the In Defense of Christians summit haven’t previously written on the topic. “What I find interesting is almost to a person, the people writing those columns have never or virtually never spoken of persecuted Christians in any other context.”
According to Cruz, his critics are motivated less by concern for Christians than by animus toward Israel. “I will say it does seem interesting that the only time at least some of these writers seem to care about persecuted Christians is when it furthers an anti-Israel narrative for them. That starts to suggest that maybe their motivation is not exactly what they’re saying.”
This is a red herring, of course, and it also demonstrably false. The Week’s Michael Brendan Dougherty, one of the prominent Cruz critics, wrote his inaugural column, “The World’s Most Ancient Christian Communities Are Being Destroyed—And No One Cares,” on the topic and returned to it on January 30 and on July 22. Mollie Hemingway, another Cruz critic, wrote on August 1 about why “Denial Is Not a Strategy: ISIS Persecution Should Not Be Met with Silence.” Others like Pascal-Emanual Gobry have also previously highlighted the plight of Christians.
Perhaps no critic of Cruz has written more on Mideast Christians than our own Mark Movsesian. Movsesian’s first article for First Things was a February, 2005 review of Orhan Pamuk’s Snow that addresses the long genocide of Mideast Christians. Between that and his article criticizing Cruz’s speech, Movsesian has written thirty-seven items on the subject. Here they are (I excluded those about general Christian persecution and about Christians in Nigeria battling Boko Haram—though the issues are far from unrelated):
9.2.14 U.S. Rescues Turkmen—Christians Still Waiting
9.2.14 Summit on Mideast Christians in Washington Next Week
8.20.14 Lecture in Houston on Mideast Christians
8.19.14 Pope Francis on the Crisis in Iraq
8.12.14 Forgetting the Christians
8.2.14 Iraq’s Christians Need Our Help
7.30.14 Why the U.S. Should Offer Asylum to Iraqi Christians
7.22.14 A Line Crossed in the Middle East
5.8.14 A Call for Help for Mideast Christians
4.23.14 Mideast Christians, Dhimmis Once More?
4.8.14 Report: Obama Administration to Increase Aid to Syrian Rebels
3.26.14 Two Updates on Syria’s Christians
3.18.14 In Syria, the Dhimma Returns
1.7.14 Helping Mideast Christians
12.25.13 The Massacre of the Innocents
12.24.13 Repairs Begin on Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity
12.11.13 Will the Hagia Sophia Again Become a Mosque?
10.11.13 Christians in Israel Complain of Mistreatment
9.5.13 Christians, American and Syrian
9.4.13 Interview with Samuel Tadros
8.29.13 Tadros: “Motherland Lost”
8.20.13 The Persecution of Egypt’s Christians
8.12.13 Coptic Pope Cancels Weekly Bible Study; Fears for Congregation’s Safety
8.2.13 The Economist on Christian Sorrows
7.3.13 Christians in America and the Middle East
6.26.13 House Hearing on Religious Minorities in Syria
5.29.13 Vatican to UN: More than 100,000 Christians Killed for Their Faith Each Year
5.10.13 Is the U.S. Selling out the Middle East’s Christians?
4.28.13 USCIRF Report on Religious Freedom in Syria
4.25.13 More on the Syrian Bishops
4.22.13 Egypt’s Copts and Persecution
1.26.13 On the Dual Role of Christian Leaders in the Middle East
12.13.12 What’s Next for Syria’s Christians?
12.7.12 Egypt’s Constitution: A Return to Classical Islam?
11.30.12 Egypt’s Coming Conflict Over Sharia
11.26.12 Lecture on Christians in the Middle East
2.26.07 Battles Ancient and New for the Armenian Church
Never or virtually never, eh?
Ted Cruz’s ongoing interventions in this debate pose two risks: one is that they will be taken seriously and harm the cause of Mideast Christians; the other is that they will be recognized as false and thus discredit the broad case for Israel, the good of which he is right to seek but seems incapable of seeking rightly. If we are to avoid either lamentable outcome it is perhaps best to ignore Cruz altogether.
Update: Cruz has now commendably walked back his claim. Via the Daily Caller:
It was a mistake to suggest that critics of my remarks at IDC had not spoken out previously concerning the persecution of Christians; many of them have done so, often quite eloquently. It was not my intent to impugn anyone’s integrity, and I apologize to any columnists who took offense. The systematic murder of Christians in the Middle East is a horrible atrocity, and all of us should be united against it. Likewise we should speak with one voice against the persecution of Jews, usually being carried out by the very same jihadist radicals.
More of this and less of what started this controversy, please.
