🚨 FROM CHRISTIAN HEARTLAND TO ISLAMIC RULE: THE STORY OF THE LEVANT A new IDI Center report traces the religious and demographic transformation of the Levant, arguing that centuries of conquest, occupation, persecution and displacement drastically reduced ancient Christian and Jewish communities. The report examines: 🇸🇾 SYRIA — Once a major center of early Christianity under Byzantine rule; conquered by Arab Muslim armies after Yarmouk in 636. The report highlights modern persecution of Christians, Druze and Alawites. 🇱🇧 LEBANON — Once majority-Christian, later transformed by civil war, Palestinian armed groups, Syrian occupation, demographic change and the rise of Iran-backed Hezbollah. 🇮🇱 ISRAEL — Presented as the Levant’s exceptional case of an indigenous non-Muslim people regaining sovereignty in their ancestral homeland after centuries of foreign rule. 🇮🇱 JUDEA & SAMARIA — The biblical heartland of ancient Israel and Judah, later ruled by successive empires. The report highlights the decline of its Christian population and restrictions faced by Jews under PA rule. 🇮🇱 GAZA — Once part of the Byzantine Christian world and home to ancient Jewish communities. The report traces Arab conquest, Egyptian rule, Israel’s 2005 withdrawal and Hamas’s subsequent takeover. 🇨🇾 CYPRUS — The report focuses on Turkey’s 1974 invasion and continuing occupation of roughly 36% of the Republic of Cyprus, including the destruction, conversion and looting of Christian heritage sites. 🇹🇷 ANTIOCH/HATAY — One of Christianity’s earliest centers, where followers of Jesus were first called “Christians.” The report traces Byzantine, Arab, Ottoman and Turkish rule and the decline of its historic Christian communities. 🇯🇴 JORDAN — Once part of the Christian Byzantine world and home to major biblical sites. The report documents restrictions and discrimination affecting Christians and converts from Islam today. 🇮🇱 IN SUMMARY: Israel remains “the only case in which an indigenous people, persecuted for millennia, has achieved self-rule on its ancestral homeland in the Levant.” The authors call for the region’s indigenous and persecuted communities to achieve self-determination and freedom from Islamic oppressors. 🕊️ 📝 Learn from those who lived under this persecution. Listen to their first-hand experience. Ask yourself what you’re doing to ensure your free society is safe. Ask yourself if your community is at risk. And, join the mission of spreading awareness to keep this from happening to your community. Follow @infidelaware Check out InfidelAwareness.com