Conflict is nothing new in the Middle East. Perhaps it's the relentlessness of the 24-hour news cycle or the pervasive reach of social media that keeps the world literally at our fingertips, but events of the last few weeks give the impression that the troubled region of my birth has never been more bloody or violent.
As an Arab-Australian it's difficult to watch the events in Syria, Iraq and Gaza without a sense of guilt and shame. To outside eyes, it must appear that the Middle East is driven by hatred and bloodlust. One popular Egyptian blogger took to his Facebook page to proclaim that he is 'actually bored with the insanity of the Middle East. Israel has gone insane, Assad was always insane, ISIS is making a state out of insanity, and Egypt, well, I am not really sure how to even describe it anymore.'
Speaking of ISIS, in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, a single letter — the Arabic nun for 'Nazarene', an Islamic reference to Christians — was painted in red on the front doors of local Christians, leaving the small but long-established community reeling. Informed by the self-appointed theocrats ISIS that they could either leave, convert to Islam, or pay the heavy tax once imposed on religious minorities in Muslim states, the vast majority of Christians chose to flee.
And with that single act of intolerant cruelty, a 2000-year connection to the land was broken. As hundreds of Muslims rallied alongside Christians in Baghdad, declaring 'I am Iraqi, I am Christian', many of the refugees headed south and were able to find safe havens both in the homes of Muslims and in some of the holiest shrines of Shia Islam, including the shrine of Imam Ali.
Ali was the fourth caliph, the prophet Mohammed's son-in-law, and the founding namesake of the Shia strain of Islam, adherents of whom regard him as the true successor to the prophet. As well as at least 100 Christian families, the shrines are offering to house any others fleeing from ISIS violence, including Sunnis and Kurds.
Even as this tragedy was unfolding in Iraq, Israeli forces began targeting mosques in that country's ongoing pounding of the Gaza Strip. Like most Palestinian buildings it has struck, Israel claims they were being used by Hamas, either to store weapons or as hideouts.
One by one they were razed to the ground just as Ramadan was drawing to a