And, surprise, no mention of this that I can see at the UNHCR website.   The persecution and murder of Christians in Iraq goes on while the UN High Commissioner for Refugees continues news story after news story about the “persecuted” Iraqi Palestinians.

This is from the Asia News:

Mosul (AsiaNews) – Mosul Christians have been attacked again today. A group of armed men stormed a house in the Alqahira neighbourhood where they killed two sisters in what amounts to targeting killing. After entering the building the gunmen shot the two young women in cold blood and wounded their mother with a knife. At present she is in hospital but her conditions are not serious. The husband and the son were able to escape at the start of the attack.

[…] 

A source told AsiaNews that “youth gangs from poor families” were involved in the incident but that behind them there is “a criminal organisation” that is doing everything to drive Christians out of the city.

However, the UNHCR puts out international press releases about the rain in Palestinian camps on the Iraq Syria border.  And, the death of one Palestinian child accidentally run over by a truck “highlights” the tragedy of the Iraqi Palestinians.

What about the tragedy when Muslim terrorists kill girls in their homes?   Doesn’t that warrant an international press release?   Urghhhh!

Asia News wraps up its story with this:

In recent days more than 700 families had decided to come back to Mosul after local authorities promised to provide them with greater protection. This targeted killing “will push Christians to flee again” and threats of new attacks and violence will continue to hang over the few who remain.

Mark Tooley has a story about the Iraqi Christians at FrontPage Magazine today. He takes to task the World Council of Churches for their reluctance to blame Muslims for murder.

At least 14 Christians were targeted for killing in Mosul, about 260 miles north of Baghdad, earlier this month, prompting more than 1,300 Christian families to flee what had previously been a safe haven. The Geneva-based World Council of Churches has declared it is against the killings…but cannot bring itself to identify the killers.

“Of course, al Qaeda elements are behind this campaign against Christians,” said Nineveh provincial governor Mohammed Kashmoula, who relayed the obvious to the Associated Press. But the World Council of Churches (WCC), in a nearly 500-word public statement, seemed to imply the Christians were slaughtered by anonymous forces. “We have heard that people are being killed, houses bombed, thousands are fleeing their homes, and churches and church properties are being destroyed,” fretted the WCC, pronouncing all of this news in the passive voice, unwilling to add a noun to such verbs as “killed,” “bombed,” and “destroyed.”

Oh yes, that good old passive voice. No surprise there. We’ve commented before on the reluctance of the liberal media to portray Muslims in a negative light. Tooley goes on:

For the WCC to express specific concern about persecuted Christians is progress of sorts. But naming radical Islam as a persecutor remains taboo for the politically correct and highly multiculturalist WCC, for whom interfaith dialogue is more important than solidarity with besieged Christians.

He goes on to point out the absurdity of the WCC’s stand — that the U.S. should withdraw from Iraq, and that the U.S. has a special responsibility to protect Iraq’s Christians.

The indispensable Ken Timmerman reports in the Washington Times today:

Assyrian Christians are fleeing Iraq in record numbers, following a spate of recent bombing attacks and targeted killings of Christian families in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Over the last month, 13 Assyrian Christians have been murdered in targeted killings in Mosul. A week ago, three Assyrian homes were fire-bombed. Al Jazeera reported last Monday that 15,000 Assyrian Christians have been driven out of Mosul in the last two weeks, some 2,500 families in all.

Failure to prevent the mass exodus of Christians from Iraq will lead to an Islamicized Iraq, a tragic legacy for the presidency of George W. Bush. This can only be averted by taking urgent steps aimed at “anchoring” the Assyrian Christian population in their historic homeland.

We reported on the murder of Father Rahho, Archbishop of Mosul, a Chaldean Christian, in March. There has been no good news for Iraqi Christians since then — and there wasn’t really any before then either, but things have gotten worse since then. Here are our posts on Iraqi Christians.  Many of the Christians fled to the Kurdish area when things got bad for them in other parts of the country, thinking they would be safer there. They were for a while, but they do not appear to be now.

On Oct. 17, Iraqi security forces arrested six men in connection with the most recent targeted killings of Christians, and found four of them had ties back to the KRG [Kurdish Regional Government] militia, not al Qaeda.

Prime Minister Maliki has promised to do something for the Christians. He even discussed their plight with Pope Benedict XVI and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in July. But I haven’t seen anything about measures taken to help them or to protect them. Timmerman’s recommends these steps to help the Christians:

1) Pressure the Iraqi government, and especially the KRG, to uphold their commitment to allow the recruitment and training of 770 Christians into the national police force. For nearly two years, the Kurdish deputy general of the Mosul governerate has blocked this program. Without immediate security, the Assyrian population in northern Iraq will simply flee.

2) Support efforts by Assyrian lay leaders, the Chaldean Patriarch and others to convene a meeting in Washington, D.C., of Iraqi minorities, to forge a consensus on how best to anchor and protect Iraq’s Christian population, whether through an autonomous region in the Nineveh Plain, firm guarantees of minority rights under the federal constitution or some combination of the two.

3) Fulfill the pledge made in July by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to Mr. al-Maliki to transfer $100 million in development aid to the Nineveh Plain. Until now, the United States has delayed the transfer over concerns that the KRG will pocket the money, as in the past. Instead of transferring fresh funds to Erbil, the United States should make the money available directly to local town councils through US AID, without Kurdish control.

4) Pressure the Iraqi national government to guarantee representation of minorities in the upcoming parliamentary and regional elections, under Article 50 of the constitution, which was recently suspended.

But instead of these useful steps, look at what is happening:

Christian leaders learned recently that the State Department has been secretly planning to hold a “summit” meeting on Nov. 19 at George Washington University to decide their fate, in tandem with Muslim groups whose motives remain suspect.

WHAT???? I’m so speechless at this I can only quote Ken Timmerman’s reaction:

Have we become so politically correct that we will protect Muslims in Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq but allow one of the world’s first Christian populations to be snuffed out because we are afraid to come to their aid?

I’m afraid the answer to that question is yes.  And I don’t think this attitude will change very much no matter who is elected president.