The Politics of Persecution

Dr. Mitri Raheb is the Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Dr. Raheb is the author of more than twenty books.

Introduction 1. Under Ottoman Rule 2. Religious Mobility 3. A Massacre on Mount Lebanon 4. Agents of Renaissance 5. Christian Zionism 6. The Road to Genocide 7. Minorities in Nation-States 8. A Catastrophe 9. Arab and Christian 10. A Turning Point 11. Petrodollars 12. Challenging Times Epilogue

This is an important book. The history of the region's Christian population is clearly and compellinglyrecounted. The importance of a continuing Christian presence is stressed. The final Epilogue needs to beread and pondered by Christians in the West. --Derek Tovey "Stimulus" The Politics of Persecution is a much-needed analysis on the representation of Middle Eastern Christians by the West and a necessary argument advocating for a renewed look at their agency. Mitri Raheb seeks to refocus attention on the potentialities for abundant Christian life in the region rather than on ruin, marginalization, and death. --Candace Lukasik "Journal of Church and State" Mitri Raheb offers a trove of information and analysis, written in lucid and approachable terms, both for Christians fascinated by the Holy Land and for anyone interested in the emergence of the modern Middle East. --Philip Jenkins "The Christian Century" Lutheran pastor and Palestinian civic leader Mitri Raheb has written an important work that counters much of the literature written in the past decades that predicts the disappearance of Middle Eastern Christians, presenting them as a persecuted minority in a hostile Muslim Arab world. Rejecting the category of victimhood, Raheb insists that he and his community are ever-resilient actors in the events that unfold in the Middle East today. Raheb's insider perspective provides historical context, contemporary analysis and critical reflection in contrast with the discourse of gloom and doom. --David M. Neuhaus SJ "Mission Studies" Raheb gives an insider's perspective on Middle Eastern Christians that provides historical context, contemporary analysis, and critical reflection standing in sharp contrast to much of the discourse on Middle Eastern Christians heard in the West. Raheb uncovers the genealogy of much of that discourse, which describes Christians as victims and Muslims as persecutors.... Raheb convincingly demonstrates how European powers used discourse about Christian persecution to further their own interests, a prefiguring of the discourse and practice of right-wing politicians in the United States in our own time. --David Neuhaus "Commonweal"