The fact is Christians have been persecuted in the Middle East for 100s of years. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians (and any non Muslims) had to pay a Jizya tax - which is persecution (unless you believe it is okay to tax people for being another religion), moreover you had numerous massacres of Christian populations by the Ottoman Empire (one example of this is the Armenian genocide, but you also had cases of Greek, Maronites and other Christian group being murdered at a large scale). Now with that said, Europe was no better, and often worse when it came to its treatment of minorities at that time.

Regardless, the fact that historically Christians (and other minorities) were treated relatively well in the Middle East does not change the reality that for the past 100 years Christians and other minorities are facing massive persecution in the Middle East and in some cases genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Some examples of persecution Christians currently face (by no means complete)

- In Egypt, Copts can not perform any repairs on their churches without government approval, moreover in the past 10 years alone 100s have been killed by mobs attacking them.

- In Saudi Arabia, Christians can not practice their religion in public.

- In Iran Christians that converted from Islam face the death penalty

- Turkey two Byzantine Era churches, Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Saviour, were just converted to mosques.

- In Gaza Christian business and places of worship are regularly attacked by Islamic extremists, often with tacit approval of the ruling Hamas.

And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.

Now let’s for a second talk about Jews of the Middle East. A 100 years ago the Jewish population in the Middle East (outside of Israel/Palestine) was nearly 1 million and yet today it numbers maybe a few 100.

Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).

The reality is, one of the few countries in the Middle East where religious minorities do not face any major persecution is Israel. Yes, you have had individual cases of extremists attacking minorities - but this is true for every country in the world, and when it does happen they are usually caught and brought to justice. This is why the fastest growing religious community in Israel is Islam and this is also why the Christian population in Israel is continuing to grow (unlike in the areas in the Westbank under the Palestinian Authority rule and Gaza under Hamas rule, where the Christian population is decreasing at an alarming rate). Does it mean Israel is perfect when it comes to how it treats minorities? Nope. But, when it comes to its treatment of minorities it is no where near as bad as the rest of the Middle East and is not much worse (and in some cases better) than the EU and the US.