Our Front Line?

Whose front line, exactly? The front line of what?

The Latin Catholics, Melkite Catholics, Maronite Catholics, Syrian Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenians, Anglicans and Lutherans are the front line, in the Holy Land, of Western civilisation, which is nothing other than the recapitulation in Jesus Christ and His Church of all three of the Old Israel, Hellenism and the Roman Empire. None of those three, as such, now exists apart from that recapitulation.

Ask those front line communities about the IDF, and indeed about Zionism in general. Ask their brethren to the north, where the Presidency and half the parliamentary seats are reserved for Christians, where one of the official languages is a European tongue, and where bombardment by Israel is the constant reality. Ask their brethren to the north east, where there are Christian majorities in some provinces, and where Christian festivals are public holidays.

Ask their Assyrian brethren in Iraq how "liberated" they feel at Israel's (and the Gulf monarchies') command. Ask their Armenian brethren in Turkey how "free" they are in a member of NATO and putatively of the EU, and at least until today an ally of Israel's. Ask their Assyrian and Armenian brethren in Iran how "liberated" they would feel if a system which guarantees them parliamentary representation, as it also does for Jews, were overthrown and replaced with something acceptable to Israel (and to the Gulf monarchies).

Our civilisation certainly does have front lines in the Middle East. But the very last claim to be one, precisely equal to any such claim by the Gulf monarchies, is that of Israel.