 We're delighted to host Jeanine Giovanni for her new book The Twilight of Christianity in the land of the prophets. The vanishing is the main title. It's received some very nice reviews in Kirkus, her latest poignant book, published this weekly. It's very informative work of journalism on book list. She writes with poignant authenticity and many others. Beautiful, you have vocations of the power of faith and trying times, the Wall Street Journal. So, Jeanine, thanks for being here. You're a fellow senior fellow at the Jackson School at Yale, former Guggenheim fellow, also fellow at New America, won multiple awards have written multiple books. So we're really pleased that you can talk to us about this book, which is, is this your sixth book? It's my ninth, which is terrifying. Yes. This means how old I'm getting. Okay, well, maybe it's your sixth book since I've known you. Yes. But yeah, so, Jeanine, over to you if you can kind of tell us what the book. Peter, thank you so much for having me. First of all, it's a pleasure to be here. And, and so this book, The Vanishing, has a kind of long history for me. I began working in the Middle East, really the work in the Middle East was my very, very first assignment back in 1990. I mean, literally straight out of graduate school and I was then working in, in Israel, Palestine, and I came across groups of ancient Christians, as well as Samaritans, biblical ancient people, groups of people that had been in this part of the world for for thousands and thousands of years, and it somehow maintained their culture, their tradition. But really when I was in Iraq in 2002 to 2003, in the time of Saddam was when I first discovered the Christians of Iraq. At that time, it was remarkable really I don't know if you remember those days of the Saddam days but they were very heavily enforced if you were a reporter, or a humanitarian anyone who managed to get inside Iraq, you were, you were heavily monitored by the Christians and you, you, you were watched everywhere it was very difficult to move around, but somehow, and I still can't believe my luck. I got permission to travel. It was right before the invasion in 2003 to basically travel the entire length and width of Iraq. To, to meet different people, I was doing an assignment, I think for National Geographic on the Shias of Iraq, and I realized even while I was getting in my car with my driver with my fixer, that this was probably the last time in my lifetime anyway I would see Iraq before the invasion the old Iraq the way that Iraq had been. And it was very true because, as from April 2003 when the American invasion and the coalition occurred, nothing was ever the same. But some of the people I met were the Christians in Mosul and the Nineveh Plain, the biblical Nineveh Plain where which was of course the land of the prophets, where the Apostles had gone to preach to bear witness to gain people to follow them were Jonah and the whale of course the the tale of Jonah and the whale were St. Thomas where all of these ancient preachers went to build monasteries and to gather, gather people. And the more time I spent with these people who are largely Culledians, Assyrians, there were some Syriac, some Eastern Orthodox, many different sects, the more fascinated I was by how ancient people cling to the roots. They speak Aramaic, which is the language of Jesus Christ so one of my most poignant memories right before the invasion was going to a mass and a Syrian mass and a beautiful church in Mosul and hearing them praying and singing and this kind of collective fear they had because you know what would happen. Saddam had protected the Christians in many ways which is also what happens in Syria Bashar al-Assad protects the Christians there in Egypt Mubarak had protected the Christian cops. So these Iraqi Christians in 2003 were terrified about what what would happen in the days, weeks, months, years after the invasion occurred. After that I basically spent years going back to these places, and I decided to focus in my book on four communities, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Egyptians, and the Gazans, because there are 800 Christians left in Gaza. And even for me and I'd been working in Gaza for since 1990 so a long time. I never realized that there was this very small, but very determined and very devout group of Christians who had been left behind from the fourth century when all of Gaza was Christian. So today they are sandwiched between Hamas, who of course control Gaza, and the Israeli you know very fierce restrictions of movement, and the siege the siege of Gaza which is horrific. So the book I basically all of my years of field work within for intent, excuse me intensive years of going back and forth between Syria, Iraq, Egypt and Gaza to do my field work to focus on these specific communities, and then to write this which, when I got the Guggenheim Award, which helped me fund the trip, the trips back and forth. They said to me, this is a document of people who might not exist in 100 years. Really, that's what I'm trying to do. I wanted to document people who, for many reasons, mainly the rise of various extremist groups in Iraq, for instance, Iranian back militias, Turkish backed militias who want to exterminate them. Most recently, of course, the Islamic State. So this this vast persecution, but also Peter other other factors climate change, climate change is really, really drastic in the region Iraq is I think the fifth. Fifth on the list of the UN's most worrying and most vulnerable places. The neighborhood is threatened when ISIS rolled through the Nineveh plain. Many of the Christians had farms, and they destroyed their irrigation. They burnt their farmland they killed their cattle. They basically just laid waste because they wanted to exterminate these Christians these these last of the Christians. So basically, that's what I do. I look at each of these four groups, and I try to examine how they survive what keeps them so rooted to their ancestral lands, which is ultimately their faith, their faith and their resilience. As I was writing it, as I actually sat down with all my notebooks and you know this process very well with your notebooks and your interviews and your tapes and COVID struck. And I was, I was basically, I took shelter in a village where my, the father of my son, Luca, comes from his family has lived in this village in the Alps for 400 years. And there's only about 20 people in the village. It's a farming village. But I was sheltered in their ancient house with four of my French cousins who are devout devout devout Catholics. And so, in the midst of all this of this terrible uncertainty of COVID. I was living with these four, you know, young Christians who literally their faith was getting them through this very drastic time so in a way it became the book became a document about these disappearing people. But it also became a testament to faith and and to my own faith because I had been brought up as a Catholic as a Roman Catholic. A lapsed Catholic probably not a very good Catholic in some ways but I always maintained a very deep faith and wherever I was in the world, whatever conflict I was reporting on. I always found churches, largely because, let's say during the siege of Sarajevo. In Sarajevo, going to the cathedral in the worst of the bombing, I felt a kind of peace, and also a sort of strength and, and a unity with with other people in the community. So it was a very interesting process writing this book probably more than any other book I've written it was, it's very personal. It's also tremendously rewarding to feel like I've gotten down on paper and in a book and it will never disappear the oral history the stories of these people. So that's basically it. I mentioned that you're focusing on on Egypt, Syria and Iraq, because my understanding is Christians make up about 10% of the Egyptian population did make up about 10% of the Iraqi population I'm not sure what the percentage is on the Syrian. But of course all these people have been protected by essentially secular dictators. Yeah, so what, what does that say, and, and, you know, now that Saddam has gone, what is the state of play for Christians in Iraq and now that, you know, that Assad is sort of seems like he's here to stay. What is the state of play in Syria, and now we have Sisi in Egypt who in many ways is more extreme the Mubarak. How does it, how does it all playing out right now. Well, one thing I also wanted to add, I didn't include Lebanon in this very deliberately, because Christian Christian Christians and Lebanon of course are vital to the demographic and to the population. They're very assimilated into the landscape into the political system into the social system the economic system. The Christians I focused on are not. So, let's look at the Iraqis first when Saddam fell. I mean, there was this unofficial deal with the devil that Saddam protected the minorities to Rika Zee's of course his, his former Foreign Minister and his close advisor had been a Christian, and they could live more or less. I wouldn't say peacefully because no one lived in the Saddam time peacefully but they, they felt protected which is why they were terrified. When the American invasion was very close and with the, with the, what happened after with the rise of radical groups. Al Qaeda who of course hadn't existed in Iraq before then. And the insurgency took on such a brutal and bloody form and their churches started being attacked. I remember the bombing of St. Mary's Caldian church and Baghdad and numerous others and direct attacks upon them, which then led to 2014 and the Islamic State basically rolling into Mosul and subjugating the Christians either destroying them. And I say that with a kind of sarcasm because they basically either could convert. They could pay a tax, or they'd be killed. So, and many of them had to give up their factories their farms. The women were taken away to Raka as sex slaves, their churches were burnt destroyed. The crucifixes literally ripped from the steeples trampled the art trampled. And then many of them fled. They took to the road as the villages the Christian villages which are kind of like a sequence going north of Mosul into the Nineveh plain. They, they fled to monasteries there were some monasteries, ancient monasteries, fourth century monasteries in the mountains where they would, where they sought refuge but many of them went to Kurdistan, and to Urbil. And there is a suburb of Urbil called Ein Kawa, where they, I will never forget it there's a statue of our lady in the middle of it and they just, you know, slept hundreds and hundreds of people just slept under. Her statue like looking for protection for weeks and on the steps of churches and inside the churches really desperately frightened. And of course, ISIS rained for a little bit more than two years. And now they are slowly going back to their towns. There's no real fear in Iraq, but in all of these countries, Peter is them leaving migration, because if they leave, then these these ancestral lands will basically, they will no longer the Christians of Iraq the Christians of Syria the Christians they will no longer exist. And it's very difficult with numbers like we can never really get it accurate because their senses aren't taken but like roughly we think in the time of Saddam there was about 1.5 million Christians in Iraq now. The numbers I get are like between anywhere between 150,000 and 500,000 and I'd probably go more with 150,000. They're radically shrinking dwindling. And where are they going they're trying to go to America. They're trying to where many have families they're trying to go to Canada they want to go to Sweden, Germany. Countries with they feel they can pray and worship without any kind of persecution. But they're torn, because their priests their bishops say to them, I remember having this conversation with one of the Caldian bishops in Baghdad and he said, and it was right, it was literally June 2014 this ISIS was rolling across the mountain in of a plane. I was in Baghdad, and I immediately went to see him. And he said, I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do they're, they're begging me for answers they they say should we leave should we leave but if they go. We will not have Christians in Iraq anymore. And without the Christians in Iraq. It's the same as without the Jews of Baghdad who are such a vital part of the fabric of Iraq who disappeared in the 50s, and then the community and the few that were left in the 70s. And basically, I mean, I remember tracing one final family who are in hiding this was in the days of sedan. So to lose this really important component of society is just absolutely devastating for for Iraq for Syria for Gaza for Egypt for the whole region. Egypt is a very different situation. Well, I would say they are discriminated rather than persecuted of course there's many attacks upon them at the monasteries. Christians riding in buses attacked by suicide bombers by the radical groups on in in the in the Sinai, but it is built into the laws of Egypt that Christians cannot build churches. They can't serve in high level army positions or government positions and of course you know that the army is a mechanism an arm of the state so they're they're really excluded. Although I would say, if you said to me who are the most endangered, I would say probably the Gazans and the, and the Iraqis. So, these are really ancient vital people who are in danger of being wiped off the face of the earth. What do you think. I mean you mentioned earlier these sheer militants in Iraq are they targeting Christians or they don't really care. They're targeting them. I mean that the big fear for the for the Christians is is the Turkish militias militias further north, and, and the Iranian backed militias and of course the elections in Iraq a few weeks back. There was, you know, there was great fears amongst the Christian community that the Iraq, the Iranian led parties would would do better than they actually did but it as it turned out very few people went to the polls, which shows, they're their faith their confidence or lack of confidence in, in voting in government. I think right now what people are trying to do is to survive. And I was in Egypt, right before literally right for COVID hit and and and locked it down. And I managed to go to Minya, which is in Upper Egypt and that's really where many of the Christians live but not the, not the wealthier Christians in in Cairo, who live in Heliopolis and who go to the French schools and who who whose lives I think are. They feel like they are others as they told me but they're they're not endangered. But when you go to the countryside, there you see the persecution. So I would see these churches that were literally locked up and people had nowhere to pray. I heard stories of people who had, you know, the churches were burnt down. I heard stories of their homes being burnt down of them not being able to get any work. It's a real sense of, of fierce persecution in Egypt in Gaza. It's, it's really desperate and after the 11 day bombing, which was terrible in May, the Israeli attacks in Gaza. Many of the tiny community who are largely Greek Orthodox, but some Roman Catholics as well Eastern Eastern Catholics. If they want it to leave. It's now got gotten increasingly harder for any Gazans to get visas and papers to get out. And even for holidays like Christmas or Easter when they want to go to Bethlehem, which is in the West Bank to to see the relatives that they're not being granted permits to go. Or they'll get one permit for one member of the family and of course they don't want to they have these large families they don't want to leave, they don't want to celebrate Christmas alone or Easter alone. And so several of the bookstore or one bookstore in particular Baptist bookstore was burnt down a few years back. And so there, there is this fear that while Hamas claims to tolerate them and protect them that more radical fringes want to see the end of this this tiny but hugely important and historic community in Gaza. Actually, I was in Gaza in July and August I managed to get in. And I was really surprised it was the first time after all my years of being there that I went to an ancient monastery outside of the ruins of a monastery I should say I mean there was archaeological ruins that I had never, I had never been to before. And I was reading about the saints that had gone there to, and who had lived there and the myths and the, and it was, it was really for me as someone you know that felt like I knew the region and knew the history of it. This whole other dimension of Christians in Gaza was was very new to me. And the anti Christian violence in Egypt began in this really in the 70s, I think with the Gemma of the Islamic group and shaker, I am a Abdul Rukman. That's sort of issuing fatwa saying it was okay to kill Christians and of course he was the, you know, you went on to become the intellectual guide to the trade center bombers in 1993 in New York City so I mean this this, the violence against Christians in the long standing whereas in places like Iraq and, and maybe Gaza, it's more recent is that correct. Absolutely. And I think a lot of the people I talked to because I tried to get a sort of cross section of ages of young people but I spoke to a lot of people who told me that in this, it was the 70s when they first felt at university, or in their jobs that they were being targeted. And there would be some of them had minor incidents such as you know they, their homes were ransacked but others felt directly threatened and then in the 80s and 90s with the rise of more of more radical groups in Egypt. There were direct attacks on them. You know you remember the buses of the pilgrims that were that were attacked and people trying to go to the monastery of St. Catherine's in the desert ancient monastery. And also, there's a new factor, which you'll appreciate Peter which is with the Taliban being so emboldened with their victory. This has this sends a really clear message throughout the region throughout the world that, you know, radical groups can actually, you know, can can take over governments can, you know that they, it, I think it really when I spoke to Christian friends after after August after the fall of Kabul. I, you know, it was amazing that they kept referring back to the Taliban victory and like what that would mean how that would affect them, even though of course you know they're, they're not on the doorstep of Afghanistan. They did feel like this is going to send a direct message to our tormentors, who will feel like now ISIS didn't wipe out the Christians here, but now, now maybe they will re regroup re brand, there'll be another attempt at this so real feelings of vulnerability of extreme vulnerability of fear. And in some ways, I mean, what really strikes me is the ones who don't leave and who stay and even the ones who post June 10 2014 when when ISIS took over who did not leave their villages immediately. And it, it always strikes me why people stay it was almost like the scene at Kabul airport, you know, why did you stay to the last minute I always ask people this and it's always the same response they never think that their village their town their house, their community is going to be directly targeted. And by the time they realize that and they try to get out. It's too late. So, yeah, I think that the Taliban, the Taliban effect will definitely affect these people. Let me turn to some questions and if you have a question and the audience please add it to the to the questions and I which I'm will then ask Janine so let me let me start with what has been a Iran's approach to Christian religious communities in Syria and Iraq as it asserts its influence in those countries and their wars on ISIS and in serious case the rebel movement more broadly. Is that for me. Yeah. So, what is Iran's view on Christianity. Yeah, what's, what's the approach of these communities in Syria and Iraq. Well, of course, Iran has an enormous influence in Iraq now. And, you know, some of my Iraqi friends will like me saying this but you know, and increasingly from, I'm just like, I'm trying to remember a specific I did and I think it was, it was post it was 2015 2016 right after ISIS had taken over and the rise of the Shia militias, which you know the Iraqi army essentially is almost entirely has a huge Shia population or, you know, within it. And I think that this is for these Christians they see it as a threat. The influence itself I also remember going to like in in 2016, right after ISIS fell, going to cataclysm one of the villages and seeing hearing Farsi spoken. And then I didn't see you know most people had not yet come out of their houses and the, the, you know most of the houses were destroyed. And then I saw a few women who had come from Iran, and I remember thinking, are they doing here. And then seeing the, the Iranian backed militias. Same in in Syria, I think this is one of the biggest fears for them. In some ways it's existential, and some ways it's absolutely physical, because they are there, but there's also the greater threat of, you know, will in the coming years, because they really don't have protection. I mean there are mechanisms within within the Iraqi government to protect religious freedom. But they don't feel protected, and you have to think if you sustain a trauma such as that one. I'm not talking about the recent ISIS, and they're only just coming back. I had a report from someone in Syria because I haven't been able to get there since, since COVID since lockdown. That the churches are full that the churches in, in Northeast Syria are full again. In Damascus of course it's a very different situation so the Christians in Damascus, by and large the ones that and the regime side. The ones that I met supported Assad and their whether or not they tell me that out of fear. Whether they genuinely feel that he will protect them or whether they felt, especially during the time when the war in Syria was much more. Now I could say Assad won the war right we pretty much know that there's very small part of Idlib that still in the hands of the opposition who have been really terribly fractured. But, but I would say the people then the Christians I met in Damascus and Maloula within the regime side, all supported Assad. I think that was partially fear but partially they truly believed he would protect them and they did not want a radical Sunni government coming in, which they saw would be detrimental to their interest entirely. So I hope that answered it was kind of a long answer on my part. I was going to ask you about Syria because we hadn't touched on it as much as Iraq and Egypt. And so in terms of percentages what's the Christian population in Syria. I don't know now because of course the massive exodus and the displacement so you know we've had 7 million refugees and 12 million 12 million IDPs internally displace people and that includes like for instance I read a lot about this town which is an extraordinary place. It, it's an ancient it's I'd say about not far from Damascus and it had an ancient monastery there which had been the sign of sync sync tocla. And in pre war times that have been a center for women who had fertility problems to go and to pray and to make a pilgrimage there. And during the war at the beginning of the war it basically shifted hands, it went from the nuns there and again it was quite shocking for me when I first went there at the very beginning of the war in 2012 2011 2012. And I went out with these nuns who literally said, you know we love Bashar we love Bashar. And I was trying to, you know, say look, you know, you don't have to be frightened I won't write but do you actually love Bashar you know what he's doing right now and in Duma and in, in homes and in Aleppo you know do you know he's using tactics of starvation or surrender and you know he's chemically gassing his people. And he did it later in 2013, but they literally they loved him they saw him as a savior and Bashar of course is a Shia, and I'll we to sorry and I'll we to which is a branch of Shia kind of mystical branch of Shia. So perhaps it was that they felt closer in terms of, of faith, perhaps they felt that he could protect them but for whatever reason, Malula then shifted hands so many times it went into the Free Syrian Army hands it went to ISIS overran it. And then went back to government hands and many of the people that I spoke to their fled. So they got out and because of course that side of Syria the regime side is so close to Lebanon. And there were there were roads you could take but also there were smugglers roots. So people could, could get in and out quite not easily of course but they could get out that way and many of the Christians, I met and spoke to early on in Malua Malula fled. So numbers Peter really hard to determine. In the United States, amongst a lot by a number of Christians I mean Vice President pants apparently the only foreign policy issue really cared about was in the Middle East. But I mean more broadly, clearly this is an issue for you know, also Christians that want to do something about this issue I mean a is there anything that can be really done sounds like from what you're saying not much. But to what extent is this an issue that is amongst a observant or fundamentalist Christians. Is it a big issue or small issue or what. Really good point and you know one thing I was so worried about whilst I was writing it. The Muslim ban came into effect. 2017 2016 2017 and 2016 2016. It came into effect immediately after Trump assumed office so January 30 of 2017 I think is the date 17. What really worried me was that of course Christians were excluded from that that. So I, my immediate thought was great. This means we're going to have good refugees and bad refugees. And because I've worked for the UN refugee agency during the Syrian war in Lebanon, Turkey and Egypt. You know, I know how no one wants to be a refugee. No one I've never met in my 35 years of reporting conflict from refugees and the former Yugoslavia all over Africa. I've never met anyone that said yeah I'm leaving my country because I really want to go to Sweden or Germany or the US it's always an act of sheer desperation. So by Trump, creating the Muslim ban I was terribly worried it would create this, you know, stigma of good, good refugees who would be the Christians that would come here and be taken up by evangelical communities, and the bad refugees the Muslim. Evangelical Christians strangely enough, I thought there'd be much more support for Christians in the Middle East I mean there are obviously evangelical groups that do go there, of course, you find that everywhere, even in Gaza, I came across Baptists, Baptists and Lutherans Lutheran less evangelical, but Baptist communities of fundamentalist Baptists. So, you know this goes back to the ancient traditions of conversion and and proselytizing. So, there was a point to your question so this is about the. So for Pence, and I'm using him to example, I mean, this was a big issue. To what extent is it an issue amongst fundamentalist Christians in the United States, and what if anything can be done about it and what, if anything is the Vatican doing about any of this. Another point, by the way, is that Bush, who invaded a Muslim country isn't isn't a born again Christian. And he actually used if you remember quite unfortunately the term crusades you remember that many retracted it. But so, and this is your area really but you know, after the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, there was massive bad tidings throughout the Middle East that Christian countries were invading Muslim countries and, of course this wasn't completely accurate it at all I don't think the logic behind it was that we're on a second crusades or a fifth crusades. It was, it was simply that. This is how they took it. You know these are Christian presidents, and they are coming to Muslim countries and subjugating us. So, Pence is an interesting case because I remember coming back from one of my trips and going to his office to brief his his chief of staff about the situation there and how desperate it was. And I think he genuinely, he's a Catholic I believe but evangelical Catholic isn't he or he was a Catholic and he's now evangelical. I don't think he's a Catholic but he's so many fundamentalist person. He had a great I mean he's spoken at in defense of Christians which is the big one of the big advocacy groups in Washington DC who has have a massive conference every year. He had been keynote keynote speaker he he genuinely I think had a concern for it. But I think largely most churches in America don't even know these people exist. I think they really you know they read the Bible they know about the land of the Holy Land and they know about that Jesus Christ was brought to Egypt when he was a child with with Mary. They know about Christians in Galilee they know about. I know about Assyrians and Chaldeans and that our maya is still spoken, but they don't know their plight. So, what could be done. I think the first thing is solidarity and the Pope Pope Francis is visit last March at the height of coven. I respect that man so much. I mean I know that the Catholic Church has taken a terrible battering and horrific horrific sex sexual scandals against children pedophilia I mean it just it's heartbreaking. But he, I think, to go to Iraq at that time, and that was that was a bad time people were dying vaccines weren't available. And to say mass brought such a message of hope to those people and I know that sounds cliche a message of hope but it truly truly did. It was because they feel so isolated and they feel so cut off and they feel so absolutely forgotten. And what he did was basically say, we're watching you, you know, we've got your back that. And I do think and I don't mean a massive you know 100,000 boots on the ground but I think American policy should continue to have some kind of engagement in northeastern Syria. And the fabric of Iraq and you know, I remember a very high ranking Iraqi official saying to me without Christians in Iraq, there is no Iraq. Without the this kind of multicultural mix. So much not just the culture itself, but the the entire demographic and to have a homogenized society is not something anyone wants not in Iraq, not in Egypt, not in Israel Palestine, not in Bahrain. So I mean, it's a question of whether or not a society is going to become completely homogenized, or whether it will have these diverse distinct communities that brings so much to the table. Peter you just disappeared. There you are now you're at the bottom of the screen instead of the top. Can you hear me. Yeah, so I just reconnected because I think it was a problem. So, the broader question was, you know, obviously, this is all kind of happening in the context. If you go back to the 70s of the sour the Islamic awakening in the Middle East, it kind of swept the region. And you know, you mentioned the Taliban being in power in Afghanistan obviously you have a sheer fundamentalist state in Iran and now the Sunni fundamentalist state in in Afghanistan. At the same time you have, you know, Mohammed bin Salman essentially creating a more secularized Wahhabi state so it's not like there's completely static but I mean the broad picture is of an Islamist awakening. And, you know, one of the big changes since 911 I think is the rise of sectarianism. And do you think that kind of is that related in a way to the rise of this sort of anti Christian, you know, obviously there's always been sectarianism in the Middle East or one form another. There's probably been anti Christian elements in the Middle East at one point, you know, or another depending on when you select your historical period but is there something different about the present era, the post 911 era of the post sour era, that is creating all these conditions which is making the Middle East in a sense, much more of a monoculture, whether it's a Sunni monoculture or sheer monoculture. Getting the Christians leaving the Jews have already left the Middle East in a way the Ottoman Empire you could make the argument, it was did pretty well on the issue of kind of at least allowing everybody to practice their own religions more or less as they chose. So what, what are the big historical forces here that have created this situation that you were exploring in each of these individual countries. Well, I mean, the one thing I would say though because I'm very wary of pitting this in a sense which is what this would fall into the hands of the evangelicals and of the Trumpist and of, you know that Christians cannot live alongside Muslims. I don't think that's true because I think for centuries they have. And there are plenty of Muslim, you know, communities in Baghdad, where Christians lived alongside she is Sunnis and they were neighbors they were friends they it worked. I think there's always been tensions but for me. 911 changed everything. I even look at the way I reported wars the wars I covered in the 90s and the wars post 911 were entirely different. And they, they were led by much more of a radicalization, a kind of call to action, and you know I lived in France for many many years until very recently. And there I studied radicalization and how, how easily, but also how believably a young person could become radicalized because they felt so detached from French society French or British. Same if you're, you know, a Pakistani living in the north of England or I am by the way, saying this I am in no way condoning any kind of violence or any kind of violent non state actor I'm not doing that I'm just trying to see how these things emerge and 911. Basically, changed the way the world looks the way we view the lens through which we view the Middle East. It then gave rise to forces of these various insurgency groups but also radicalism, which is fueled by social social media and the internet. Because if you look back pre 911. I mean I remember going to Afghanistan with a, you know, one of those big cell phones and you couldn't, you know, you didn't have internet on it there was no. It's very hard it's interesting my students a hell, we're all born, you know, during 911 or right after 911 and they literally don't understand that we didn't have internet in the 90s in 1995, or that we, we, you know might have had I got my first cell phone I think in in 2000, but you know you couldn't. We didn't know what was going on we weren't connected to the world well radicalization post 911 as internet and as technology grew enabled people, the ease at which someone sitting in a suburb of Paris, could connect with the head of a cell and to lose who could then connect him with Turkey to get him a lift into Syria. So it's it's so it's so easy to become more radicalized now and I think that is what happened with ISIS you know one of the many forces that happened with ISIS and and that led to the latest I don't say attack because it was much more of an attack wave of an attempt to exterminate Christianity in Iraq and Syria. Gaza a different story, because of course there we've got Hamas and and Israel, both responsible for this absolute oppression, persecution discrimination of this tiny community and Egypt as you say you know with the rise and rise of radical groups. Christians aren't wanted. I mean they're, I think in Egypt they're tolerated amongst a certain level of society, but they're not wanted. And I think to live amongst people increasingly who do not want you to be there is a terrible position to raise your to stay it's to stay in lands that that essentially are historically Christian. Going back in time a little bit, I mean you covered the Bosnian war. In a sense that was a reverse of the situation where Serbian Christian, I think they saw themselves as Christian. Yeah, power militaries, you know massacre Muslims and that works, they called them Turks. So they, you know that war went on for many years and was very bloody. Did that help spark some of this kind of mutual amnesties. I mean certainly we saw veterans of the Afghan war showing up in Bosnia to to kind of defend their fellow Muslims against the attacks of the Serb so was this part of the pre history of all this. It's really interesting you say this because I'm teaching my Yale students now I teach a course which is called for conflicts and it's some Bosnia Rwanda Sierra Leone and Kosovo and it's all linked by humanitarian intervention or the lack of it. And we're on Kosovo now. And I told them yesterday that the first time I really met foreign fighters was in northern Bosnia near Zenica, I'd say around 1994 1995 there were Afghan fighters there small, small units of Mujahideen that had that had come overland, and we're fighting with the Bosnian Muslims but remember that Sarajevo had been completely multicultural. Of course there were pious Muslims there but the majority, I'm speaking about my friends personally, were Muslims who didn't really pray, they had been converted in the 15th century by the Turks. They were more I'd say culturally Muslim but they absolutely were not in any way religious. Post war Bosnia Saudi money of course there was an arms embargo to which, which kind of alerted other Muslim countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Saudi to rush to their aid. If you go to Sarajevo today. It is a very different city than the Sarajevo pre war. There are more mosques. There is an enormous Saudi built mosque. There are women wearing hijabs. I mean Sarajevo was women in miniskirts and you know now it's much more pious. There is much more control. I have friends who called me in tears Muslim friends because their children. Santa Claus wasn't allowed to come to their school, because the, you know, more religious Muslims took offense at that these are Muslim friends that called me in tears saying you know, if this is what the future of Bosnia is like it's I want to be so the Bosnian war fueled absolutely, you know, religious tensions that I think didn't exist before there were other tensions there there were, you know, more ethnic tensions, tribal tensions, resentment and vengeance from the two historical remnants that hadn't been settled land issues. But it wasn't about. It wasn't about being a Muslim or Christian until the Serbs took up this mantle of of the Orthodox Church and of course got back by Russia, who are Orthodox as well. So it became Christian versus the Turks, as they called them as they called the Bosnian Muslims. Yeah I mean and as you say that of course you know Putin has really married himself to the Orthodox church. And the sort of aid. And the war in Chechnya was certainly conceived. I mean, if not dissimilar to the Bosnian war where Afghanistan was your dean showed up. There was, it was certainly a conflict that the both sides saw as a civilizational religious conflict. And you know it's funny and I was telling my students this Kosovo so Kosovo was 99 the Bosnia war ended in 95 Kosovo started in 99 it was of course a 78 day NATO led campaign. It was the first time in my many years of working in Muslim countries that I went to sleep in a tent with I was I was attached to a unit of KLA, the Kosovo Liberation Army fighters, and I went to take my sleeping bag and crawl on a tent. And the men complained and they were, they, they were foreign fighters from Saudi Chechnya. And I think one was from Afghanistan, but I've never that has never happened to me up until that point, you know no one had ever said she's a woman she can't stay and they were like, you can't, you know, go sleep outside. You can't be here. And then, interestingly enough, I remember in Aleppo in 20 Aleppo fell in 2016 so it must have been about 2014 2013 2014. Again, the foreign fighters the rise of the Free Syrian Army being hijacked by various extremist groups, and staying in a house full of fighters, and they wouldn't let myself and the female photographers working with come out of the room. While they were there they brought our food and they left it outside the door and they knocked on the door and we could take our food and we, we weren't allowed to go in the room with them even covered with he jobs and dressed appropriately. And I remember thinking on a personal level as a reporter, how difficult it was going to be for me to work in these situations. And of course Afghanistan now will revert back to what I remember from the pre, you know the pre pre 2001 how difficult it was to work amongst the, when the Taliban were in power at that stage. Yeah. And I mean, as we have the final closing minutes here. I mean what can be done. I mean is this just something that's just a force of nature which is because I mean what you're describing is sort of decades of the situation just never getting any better in fact getting worse and worse and worse. So, is there anything. Well, first of all, I wish I really truly wish and it's not just for book sales but I wish every church would read my book so that they could get the pop the parishioners to to not just take up collections but we do need industry to be built in in the communities because we want the young people to stay. The biggest worry amongst the elders there is that the young people graduate from college, or even high school and there is no industry. So we need to kind of support them economically in the way not giving the money, but giving them factories building factories, educating, you know, making sure there's more universities specifically in the Christian areas. So we need to support them in that way so that they have livelihoods, especially with climate change. So the farmlands drought, the people who live off livelihoods from the rivers the great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates of course like the fishermen, the fishing communities there have been greatly affected by climate change. So, you know, climate change is supporting industry and education and awareness and solidarity. So knowing trying to keep them in these lands. And again, each country is unique, Egypt is different from Gaza Gaza is different from Syria and Iraq, but I think basically we need solidarity and and to have a solid American policy, not just a tiny religious freedom, but really, you know, actively engaged in the region having fact finding missions, sending people like me to do reports about what is needed where the gaps what do these people need how can we keep them in their in the lands that they have lived in for 2000 years since the time of Christ. It really is vital and it's really urgent. So on that note, Janine's new book, The Vanishing, the Twilight of Christianity and the Lands of the Prophets. Thank you very much Janine for the brilliant presentation and please go and buy her book. And thanks for tuning in. Thank you Janine for sharing some of your all the many years of work that went into doing, you know, doing this book. So thank you. Thank you.