Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64 Page 65 Page 66 Page 67 Page 68 Page 69 Page 70 Page 71 Page 72 Page 73 Page 74 Page 75 Page 76 Page 77 Page 78 Page 79 Page 80 Page 81 Page 82 Page 83 Page 8418 Plough Quarterly • Spring 2016 Can the winner of a peace prize call for war? I am not calling for war. I am simply pointing out that there is a war – and that we too, as its close neighbors, must respond to it, possibly by military means, yes, but above all with far more determina- tion than has so far been shown either by diplomats or by civil society. For this war can no longer be ended only in Syria and Iraq. It can be ended only by the powers behind the warring armies and militias: Iran, Turkey, the Gulf states, Russia, and (not least) the West. And only when our societies no longer accept the madness will governments make a move. Whatever we do at this point, we will prob- ably make mistakes. But our greatest mistake would be to do nothing or too little against the mass murder being carried out by ISIS and the Assad regime at Europe’s doorstep. “I have just returned from Aleppo,” Father Jacques continued in the email he wrote a few days before his abduction on May 21, “this city that sleeps by the river of pride, which lies at the center of the Orient. It is now like a woman who is consumed by cancer. Everyone is fleeing from Aleppo, especially the poor Christians. Yet these massacres don’t only harm the Christians; they harm the entire Syrian people. Our vocation is hard to live out, especially in these days after the disappearance of Father Paolo, the twenty-first century’s preeminent teacher and initiator of dialogue. Right now, the kind of dialogue we’re experiencing is our shared suffering as a community. We are sorrowing in this unjust world, which bears a share of the responsibility for the victims of the war, this world of the dollar and the euro, which cares only for its own citizens, its own wealth, and its own safety while the rest of the world dies of hunger, sickness, and war. It seems that its only aim is to find regions where it can wage wars and further increase its sales of armaments and airplanes. How do these governments justify themselves when they could end the massacres but do nothing, nothing? I do not fear for my faith, but I fear for the world. The question we ask ourselves is this: do we have the right to live or not? The answer has already been given, for this war is a clear answer, as clear as the sun’s light. So the true dialogue we are living today is the dialogue of compassion. Courage, my dear, I am with you and hold you tight, Jacques.” On July 28, 2015, two months after the abduction of Father Jacques, ISIS captured the small town of Qaryatain. The majority of the population managed to escape at the last moment, but two hundred Christians were kidnapped. A month later, on August 21, the monastery of Mar Elian was destroyed by bulldozers. From the pictures that ISIS posted online, it seems that not one of the 1,700-year- old stones was left standing. Another two weeks later, on September 3, an ISIS-affiliated website posted photos showing some of the Christians from Qaryatain sitting in the front rows of a school auditorium or event hall, their heads shaven, some of them barely more than skin and bones, with empty gazes, all of them marked by their captivity. Father Jacques can also be identified on the photos, wearing plain clothes, likewise gaunt and with a shaved head, the distress clearly visible in his eyes. He is covering his mouth with his hand, as if unwilling to believe what he is seeing. On the stage of the hall one sees a broad-shouldered, long-bearded man in combat gear signing a contract. It is what is known as a dhimmi contract, which subjects Christians to Muslim rule. Christians are forbidden to build churches or monasteries or to carry a cross or Bible with them. Their priests cannot wear