The flight this month of Christians from Mosul in Iraq is only the latest chapter in the ongoing religious cleansing of the Middle East — a cleansing that has accelerated, in nation after nation, under the prodding of Islamic extremism.
Still, the edict imposed on Christians in Mosul by the Islamic State militants who have taken over portions of northwestern Iraq was especially brutal: convert, pay a tax or be killed.
Naturally, those who could packed up and fled — or, more accurately, just fled, , news reports said.
There is obviously no room for a meeting of the minds with zealots determined to impose a pre-modern form of religious hierarchy in a land. But if the reactionary Islamic State survives, it won’t just be the fleeing Christians who will suffer, but also the Muslims who are left behind.
