A few days ago I read a post in a news forum that is supposedly Christian, by a Catholic living in Jerusalem. He said that things are very hard and that frankly the ultra Orthodox Israelis are pretty vocal and sometimes physical about their hatred of Christians. The comments were depressing. There was not one word of support for the Catholics. It was obvious that most of the people who commented believe in the Scofield Bible and were of the John Hagee persuasion. They accused the Catholics of lying or of being anti-Semitic or of not being helpful. I've noticed that many American Christians are either ignorant of the plight of Christians in the Middle East or find the Christians to be inconvenient and embarrassing because the Christians of the Middle East don't fit into their political world view.
I've said it before and I'll say it again now. It's shameful that with the exceptions of the Franciscans, (the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher--I originally forgot about them) and the Knights of Columbus, most of the concern and assistance to Christians in the Middle East seems to be coming from the Eastern Orthodox. I rarely see Western Catholics say a word about their suffering brethren.