Update (Sept. 11, 5:45 p.m.): IDC president Toufic Baaklini released another statement that reads in part, “In last night’s Solidarity Gala Dinner, Senator Cruz chose to stand against the small and vocal minority of attendees who disagree with his views on Israel rather than standing with the vast majority of those who attended the gala and support both Israel and the Middle East’s Christians.” He added that there were “more people shouting down the hecklers than there were hecklers” and that the latter were removed by security. He also said that Cruz's statement that some in the audience were “consumed with hate…was as unfortunate” as what the hecklers did.
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At a Wednesday night event in Washington, D.C. that publicized the persecution by Islamists of Arab Christians, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a Southern Baptist, excoriated a segment of the Christian crowd for not supporting Israel and the Jews. And then he walked off stage in protest.
Only in America, right?
As originally reported by the Daily Caller, and observable in the video clip below, at a summit for a new group called “In Defense of Christians”, or IDC, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) was booed by a segment of the crowd when he said that “Christians have no greater ally than Israel.”
Wednesday night’s fiasco at the dinner is notable not because of what Cruz said and did—his pro-Israel credentials are not questioned, but because of the fault line that it may have revealed within the Christian Arab-American community and thus, presumably, among Christians who live in the Middle East.
If Christians in the United States, particularly ones of Arab origin or heritage, want to make the plight of their “brothers and sisters” in the Middle East known, they will have to decide whether or not they want to ally themselves with American Jews and therefore with Israel.
After all, few American groups, if any, know more about how to increase the profile of humanitarian causes than American Jews. Part of that is a result of widespread Holocaust education and awareness and part of it is because Jews are simply addicted to macro causes. IDC would likely benefit by allying themselves with Jewish groups and leaders in the United States, even if only through sharing information and lobbying tactics.
Even more, though, if IDC wants to succeed as a political advocacy group on behalf of Christians in the Middle East, it will need to be in good standing with politicians. The debacle Wednesday evening highlighted that if the group cannot purge itself of members who are vocally anti-Israel, it may have a hard time gaining traction on Capitol Hill. That may be one reason why the group’s president swiftly criticized the hecklers at the event and blamed them for the fiasco in his follow-up statement.