Christians are not like Muslims. They have no record of acting for persecuted flock. They’ll pray, perhaps. But picket embassies, occupy piazzas, marshal the media into battle, take the UN by storm: never. Instead he prayed. Lord, he prayed hard. And then implored Christians the world over to pray. Turn the other cheek and seek forgiveness for your killers. The stoicism has begun to look like timidity. Reporting on violence against Christian minorities avoids the active case and favors the passive.  Some bodiless ghoul, inexplicably did the killing. Blame-shifting and resort to euphemism are the rule.  The following AI overview is typical. The examples are underscored. Iraqi Christians have faced a severe decline in their population due to persecution, particularly from extremist groups like ISIS, as well as increased sectarian violence, displacement, and economic hardship since the 2003 invasion. The Christian community has been reduced from over 1.4 million in 2003 to an estimated 150,000–250,000 today. After the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, violence including bombings, abductions, and killings surged. Testimony is censored as a matter of principle. For example: “When Christians take the risk of reaching out to local authorities, police sometimes rebuke them with, ‘you should not be in Iraq because it is Muslim territory.'” Or, “The government passed a law forcing Christian and other non-Muslim children to become Muslim.” Or, “Government school curricula present indigenous Christians as unwanted ‘foreigners,’ although Iraq was Christian land centuries before Muslims conquered it in the seventh century.” Or, “There’s almost nothing about Christians in our history books.” Or, “If Christian pupils in school say they believe in Jesus, they face beatings and scorn from teachers.” Or, “If he is Christian he has three choices: either convert to Islam or, if he refuses and wishes to remain Christian, then pay the jizya. But if they still refuse, then we fight them, and we abduct their women, and destroy their churches — this is Islam! … This is the word of Allah!” Tucker Carlson, a proudly aggressive Christian when he climbs into Israel and the “hummus eaters” who killed Christ, turned up his face at his MAGA President’s impulsive threat, headlined “Trump threatens to go into Nigeria ‘guns-a-blazing’ if slaughter of Christians doesn’t stop.”  He belittled Senator Ted Cruz for simplifying the murderous chaos in Africa’s largest Christian country. The cause, said Carlson, was probably more tribal than religion. More tribal? ISIS crucified his beloved brethren! “It’s tough to tell Nigerian Christians this isn’t a religious conflict since what they see are Fulani fighters clad entirely in black chanting ‘Allahu Akbar!’ and screaming ‘Death to Christians,” said Sister Monica Chikwe, who could have been thinking of Tucker Carlson, or Reuters for that matter. Open Doors USA lists countries that are bad news for Christians. Nigeria, home to some 107 million of that faith, is the 7th worst country on earth to be a Christian entreating God for peace and longevity. That prayer is unlikely to be answered if you live in Nigeria, where “very high or extreme levels of persecution” prevail. To hell with report stylistics — “persecution” too frequently ends in maiming or murder. And always Muslims do the maiming and murder while mostly Christians succumb to them. Since 2009 Nigeria’s Boko Haram Jihad group has murdered 125,000 Christians and destroyed 19,000 churches. The International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law discloses that Nigeria head-quarters and gives safe haven to no fewer than 22 Islamic terror groups seeking to obliterate or wipe out an estimated 112 million Christians and 13 million indigenous tribes people. The groups intend to obliterate Nigeria’s ethnic minorities which include the Igbo people whose record dates to 1450 B.C. Nigeria is but a microcosm of the global picture. No faith is more threatened than Christianity. Historian Tom Holland predicts its total extinction in the Middle East. He might equally have warned about the Indian sub-continent. In Lahore Easter celebrants in a play park were blasted to kingdom come. “Everyone is ignoring the growing danger to Christians in Muslim countries,” bewailed Bishop Mano Rumalshah of Peshawar. “European countries don’t give a damn about us.” Not quite. The disgraced head of the Anglican Church gave a damn. Though his words brought cold comfort to the bereaved and afflicted, they underscored cowardice and PC. Here’s what Archbishop Justin Welby had to say after paying his respects to the mass graves of latter day martyrs in Iraq. I have no illusions about this. But historically the right response of Christians to persecution and attack is — it’s the hardest thing we can ever say to people, but Jesus tells us to love our enemies. It’s the hardest thing when you’re violently attacked. It’s an indescribable challenge. But God gives grace so often for that — to love our enemies. And Pope Leo? He uttered hardly a peep. Instead he prayed. Lord, he prayed hard. And then implored Christians the world over to pray. Turn the other cheek and seek forgiveness for your killers. The previous Pope Francis was even more misguided. “I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty. I think of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty!” The Pontiff coaxed a kangaroo court to waste no time and pronounce a guilty verdict on Israel. The Jews, a mere two generations after the Holocaust, had committed genocide. The only Woke Pope in 2,000 years could have settled the case for himself by demanding “discovery” papers, to use attorney lingo. He’d only to Google, “Plight of Christianity,” zoom onto the Middle East and click on, The Last Supper: The Plight of Christians in Arab Lands.  His Holiness directed “genocide” at the wrong actor, and wasted his time. All he had to do was consult normally anti-Zionist Wikipedia. Gallingly he would have discovered that, “Christians are on the verge of extinction in the Middle East,” though not in Israel, where the Christian population grew by 2 percent in 2022 and 0.6 percent in 2023.  The papal gut — and Carlson’s — would  have rebelled at this prickly sample of truth. Is the Muslim-shyness of Christian clerics and big podcasters like Tucker Carlson driven by self-preservation or by antisemitism? Definitely to save face for Muslims one can’t avoid hanging Christians out to dry. For now put aside popes and such while they console their flocks with prayer, to ask a  simple question. When last did a Jew kill a Christian for being one? Has a single Christian been converted to Judaism under pain of death? Yet churchmen aim their missiles where? The Rev David Kim, head of the World Evangelical Alliance, takes aim at the “impossible people.” “How to Deal with the Impossible People — A Biblical Perspective,” was the title of Kim’s paper at a Bethlehem conference. Ha — Muslims are pulling up two thousand years of Christian roots, you’d think. Think again. A banner in the hall elaborated. It had a church and a cross imposed over a menacing part of Israel’s “wall” against terror. Kim’s paper was about how to deal with Jews. Now that’s odd. In that one slick of land in a vast Christian graveyard, Christianity prospers mightily. In 1949 Israel had 34,000 people of that faith. Today they number some 180,000.  In this awkward Christian haven, freedom to practice religion is guaranteed. Access to holy sites has the force of law. And what draws more tourists than Holy Land tourism? Tiberius and Nazareth and Jerusalem practically live off pilgrim tours. Under the “impossible people” Christianity is alive and well. Men of the cloth, praying with Godly grace for your murderous enemy have you no love leftover for a friend? Only heed your imperiled flock, in “Palestine” and Nigeria, and save some Christian love for them. Can clerics square the circle of attacking Jews while having no time for Christendom exploding on their doorstep? Yes they can, by leaning back to a St. Augustine doctrine and forward to a modern trio. Put together, the modern doctrines do not measure up to St. Augustine’s. Actually they are more blind faith than doctrine, which is not to say they are treated less reverently than the Gospels. One doctrine is called Human Rights. A second doctrine goes by the trendy name, “Multiculturalism,” and the third and most inventive, turns Jesus into a Palestinian. READ MORE from Steve Apfel: Trump Puts the Squeeze on Antisemites. Don’t Let S. Africa Slide. Will the Crazies of Gaza Beat Swords Into Ploughshares? The Day Arafat Invented the Palestinians Steve Apfel is the author of several works and a contributor to a booklet on why and how some Christian denominations and clerics attack Israel the friend while protecting Islamists the enemy.