Trump signals new foreign policy priority: Combat the persecution of Christians



The Biden-Harris administration has prioritized the advancement of the LGBT agenda and climate alarmism in its foreign policy. President Donald Trump has identified a different priority for his future administration: Combat the brutal persecution of Christians around the globe.

Trump noted Wednesday on Truth Social, "Kamala Harris did NOTHING as 120,000 Armenian Christians were horrifically persecuted and forcibly displaced in Artsakh. Christians around the World will not be safe if Kamala Harris is President of the United States."

"When I am President, I will protect persecuted Christians, I will work to stop the violence and ethnic cleansing, and we will restore PEACE between Armenia and Azerbaijan," added Trump.

The Republic of Artsakh, which is also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, is a region in the Caucasus Mountains that lies within Azerbaijan's borders.

While internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan — whose close ally Turkey, formerly the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.5 million Armenians in what is regarded as the first genocide of the 20th century — the region was, at least up until September 2023, home to over 100,000 Armenian Christians who contested Azerbaijan's territorial claims.

The region became autonomous in 1923 while Armenia, the world's oldest Christian country, and Azerbaijan, whose population is 97.3% Muslim, were both still members of the former Soviet Union.

Two bloody wars were fought over the area in the last 30 years — the first in 1988 and the second in 2020.

Azerbaijan — given military assistance by the Biden-Harris administration despite its war crimes and torture of Armenian prisoners — launched a blitzkrieg on the region on Sept. 19, 2023, and saw to the dissolution of the Armenian enclave by Jan. 1.

Azerbaijani forces killed hundreds of ethnic Armenians and added insult to injury by destroying churches and cemeteries. Hundreds of thousands of ethnic Armenians were forced to flee.

'Vice President Harris — whose Administration armed Azerbaijan's genocidal blockade and attack on Artsakh — did not lift a finger or even raise her voice against Azerbaijan’s 2023 aggression.'

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been engaged in peace talks in the months since.

While there has been some grumbling in recent years from the State Department — an official claimed in a September 2023 Senate hearing that the U.S. would not "countenance any action or effort, short-term or long-term, to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh" — the Biden-Harris administration was less than helpful where Armenian Christians were concerned.

The Armenian National Committee of America blasted the Democratic administration in July over its "two-faced policy."

The ANCA said in a statement:

There is no clearer example of the Biden-Harris administration’s two-faced policy towards Armenia than the spineless inaction of USAID Administrator Samantha Power during Azerbaijan’s blockade and ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. As Azerbaijan deprived Artsakh’s 120,000 Armenians of access to food, fuel, medicine, and humanitarian goods in a brazen violation of international law — Administrator Power refused to acknowledge the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding. The genocidal ethnic cleansing of Artsakh’s entire Armenian population was a humanitarian catastrophe the United States had every opportunity to prevent but instead chose to enable — sacrificing the existence of the region’s indigenous Christian Armenian population for misguided geopolitical interests.

The ANCA noted further that the administration's inaction "will weigh heavily on the minds of Armenian American voters this November — including those in the key swing states of Nevada and Michigan as well as in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

As of 2021, there were more than 2 million Americans with Armenian heritage.

In late September, Harris signaled support for Armenian Christians' return to Artsakh.

ANCA executive director Aram Hamparian said in response, "As Vice President, Kamala Harris has had a full year to act on Artsakh's right to return — via a U.S.-led resolution at the U.N. Security Council — yet she has only started talking (to Armenian Americans, not U.N. member states) about this right 40 days before an election in which Armenian voters across key swing states may prove decisive."

"Notably, Vice President Harris — whose Administration armed Azerbaijan's genocidal blockade and attack on Artsakh — did not lift a finger or even raise her voice against Azerbaijan's 2023 aggression. Even at the level of campaign rhetoric, she has not said a word about cutting U.S. military arms and aid to Azerbaijan, or otherwise holding Baku accountable for its crimes," added Hamparian.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) echoed Trump Wednesday, writing, "The United States should fight against the persecution of Christians all over the world, and it will when President Trump is back in the White House. Kamala Harris has done nothing."

Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy wrote, "Very gratified to see President Trump speak out about the persecution & displacement of Armenian Christians in Artsakh. It’s our job to call out the hypocrisy of the foreign policy establishment & we refuse to simply sweep this issue under the rug."

Artsakh is hardly the only place where brutal regimes and radicals have sought to crush Christians and their faith.

According to the persecution watchdog Open Doors, 317 million Christians around the world face very high or extreme levels of persecution. Last year, 4,998 Christians were reportedly slaughtered for faith-related reasons; 14,766 churches and Christian properties were attacked; and over 295,000 Christians were displaced.

The top 10 worst countries for Christians in terms of persecution were, in this order: North Korea, Somalia, Libya, Eritrea, Yemen, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Supposedly developed nations farther up the list aren't a great deal better. China, for instance, subjects Christians to routine torture, detentions, and executions.

Persecution and attacks have also been on the rise in Western nations, including the U.S., Canada, France, and the United Kingdom.

Arielle Del Turco, director of the Family Research Council's Center for Religious Liberty, indicated in a report earlier this year that between 2018 and 2023, there were nearly 1,000 acts of hostility against American churches.

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There's ANOTHER genocide in the Middle East that you probably didn't know about



While the horrors committed by Hamas in Israel are tragic, there’s yet another genocide occuring under our noses.

In Azerbaijan, there’s a liquidation going on of the Armenian people. They happen to make up the first Christian nation on earth.

“It’s just getting precious little play, and more people need to know about it,” Samuel Brownback, former international religious freedom ambassador at large, tells Glenn Beck of what’s happening.

Brownback explains that Turkey is the "puppetmaster" in this situation, “pushing, and allowing, and giving military armament to Azerbaijan,” while “the Biden administration is looking another way.”

According to Brownback, Azerbaijan has wanted Armenia and its Christian enclaves “out of there,” as it’s a “bone in their throat.”

The Armenians trapped in Azerbaijan have been starved and cut off from resources. About 100,000 have escaped, but Brownback says there are probably 20,000 still there.

“This is yet another ancient Christian population being driven out of this Middle East ... extended region,” he explains. "What will happen, they’ll go to Armenia, they’ll be absorbed into Europe, into the United States, Australia, Canada, but it’ll be another one gone.”

Brownback believes that what’s happening in Azerbaijan is very similar to what’s happening between Israel and Palestine.

“Armenia is to Christendom what Israel is to Judaism. It’s kind of the first, and now Israel is the only Jewish nation, and Armenia is the first, and you’ve got Muslim population surrounding both, trying to kick them out,” Brownback tells Glenn.

Brownback describes how what’s happening is due to the “axis of evil” between Iran, Russia, and China.

“They’re out to take over the world, and they’ve been losing ground, but now they’re out there pushing to gain back ground. So Russia goes after Ukraine, Iran is behind Hamas and Hezbollah and pushing on Israel,” he explains.

Turkey, which has wanted to do this for a thousand years, is choosing to do this now because “we have an administration in Washington that won’t fight back.”

Glenn is outraged.

“This is going to get much, much worse. These are Christians that just want to be left alone. They are the oldest Christian nation, and they are being liquidated,” he says.


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Second Armenian genocide? Ancient Christian population TARGETED in Middle East

Second Armenian genocide? Ancient Christian population TARGETED in Middle East

Mel Gibson condemns media silence over 'ethnic cleansing' of Armenian Christians amid dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh



"Passion of the Christ" director Mel Gibson has made an impassioned appeal on behalf of the ethnically Armenian Christians fleeing the breakaway Republic of Artsakh after being routed in recent days by Azerbaijani troops.

"History tragically repeats itself as we witness a modern-day genocide unfolding, yet the media's silence on this issue is deafening," said Gibson. "The Armenian people who have endured centuries of persecution due to their faith find themselves once again subjected to a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing."

What's the background?

The Republic of Artsakh, also known as Nagorno-Karabakh, is a region in the Caucasus Mountains that lies within Azerbaijan's borders. While internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan — whose close ally Turkey, formerly the Ottoman Empire, killed 1.5 million Armenians in what is regarded to be the first genocide of the 20th century — the region's largely Armenian population does not recognize Azerbaijan's territorial claims.

The region became autonomous in 1923 while Armenia, whose population is over 93% Christian, and Azerbaijan, whose population is 97.3% Muslim, were still both members of the former Soviet Union, reported CNN.

Over the past 30 years, two wars have been fought over the area.

The first of those wars kicked off amid the breakdown of the USSR, when in 1988, Artsakh officials passed a resolution to join Armenia. Roughly 30,000 people died in the ensuing conflict.

The second war, which took place in 2020, saw Turkey help crush the Armenian separatists in 44 days. Reuters indicated that at least 6,500 were killed in the fighting.

In the years since, 2,000 Russian peacekeepers have attempted to keep the peace and prevent Azerbaijan from making further incursions.

Deteriorating relations between Armenia, the world's oldest official Christian country, and Russia, its protector over three decades, appear to have provided Azerbaijani nationalists with a window of opportunity.

CNN noted that in December 2022, Azerbaijan-backed militants blockaded the Lachin corridor, the only road connecting the enclave to Armenia, preventing food, fuel, and medicine from getting in.

This and other provocative measures brought tensions to a boiling point this year.

Azerbaijan's blitzkrieg

Claiming that a mine had killed two Azerbaijani soldiers without specifying precisely where, the Muslim nation launched a blitzkrieg on Artsakh on Sept. 19.

Hikmet Hajiyev, a foreign adviser to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, told Reuters last week that the Turkey-backed nation wanted to reestablish its full sovereignty and that negotiation would be contingent on total surrender.

Whereas Azerbaijan's military is 64,000 strong, with access to 300,000 reserves, the Armenian force in Artsakh was no greater than 5,000 souls.

Two hundred ethnic Armenians and 192 Azerbaijani soldiers reportedly died before Russia ultimately brokered a ceasefire, requiring the ethnic Armenians to disband their armed forces.

The Associated Press indicated that the Artsakh government indicated Thursday it would dissolve itself and abandon its decades-long fight for independence.

"The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence" as of Jan. 1, 2024, according to a decree from Artsakh President Samvel Shakhramanyan.

Exodus

Shakhramanyan noted that per the terms of a Sept. 20 agreement, Azerbaijan would permit the "free, voluntary and unhindered movement" of ethnic Armenians back to Armenia.

Ethnic Armenians began their exodus Sunday, some 50 miles from the city of Stepanakert, Artsakh, to Armenia.

— (@)

As of Thursday, over 78,300 people had fled to Armenia, accounting for over 65% of Arsakh's population. KABC-TV indicated Friday that an Armenian border town had witnessed the influx of closer to 100,000 migrants.

The journey was punctuated for some by blood and fire.

During the evacuation, a fuel storage facility near Stepanakert exploded, wounding 200 people and killing over 68 civilians.

Rev. David, an Armenian priest who had ventured to Kornidzor to administer spiritual support to those now fleeing, told Reuters, "This is one of the darkest pages of Armenian history. The whole of Armenian history is full of hardships[. ...] The blow we are receiving now is one of the heaviest."

The priest indicated the last time Azerbaijani forces invaded, they desecrated and/or destroyed hundreds of Armenian holy sites.

"The monasteries are under threat of destruction," said Rev. David. "We had cases of this in the 44-day war."

Azerbaijan has reportedly indicated that ethnic Armenians who remain in the area will be able to practice their faith; however, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted that "in the coming days, there will be no Armenians left in Nagorno-Karabakh," reported the Associated Press.

"This is a direct act of an ethnic cleansing and depriving people of their motherland, exactly what we've [been] telling the international community about," said Pashinyan.

Azerbaijani officials rejected Pashinyan's suggestion, claiming that "the current departure of Armenians from Azerbaijan's Karabakh region is their personal and individual decision and has nothing to do with forced relocation."

Christian Solidarity International, a group critical of anti-Christian aggression committed by Azerbaijan, Sudan, and Egypt, claimed on X that "people are leaving not because they want to, but because #Azerbaijan is refusing to let them return to their homes or to move past the siege lines, and refusing to guarantee their security. These are de facto deportations."

Gibson's plea

"In the grip of Azerbaijan and Turkey, countless Armenians are enduring unspeakable horrors: loss of life, forced displacement, starvation, and isolation from essential supplies," said Gibson. "These are the same Armenians whose roots run deep in a land they've called home for generations."

The actor and director called upon the international community to "take swift action, extend a helping hand to the Armenian population, offer them the protection they desperately need, and create a humanitarian corridor for their safe passage."

Gibson concluded by imploring Armenians not to lose heart, stressing, "God is with you."

Mel Gibson condemns Azerbaijan's genocide of #Artsakh Christian Armenians, calling out media silence and demanding swift international action to protect and save Armenians\n\nTo the Armenian people who still suffer, I say: "Don't lose heart, God is with you"\n\n#120000Reasons
— ANCA (@ANCA) 1695858627

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