Father Gabriel Nadaf. Photo: YouTube screenshot.

A controversial Israeli-Arab Greek Orthodox Priest recently told an Israeli television host that “a Christian is being killed every five minutes in the Middle East,” and that Israel is their safest refuge.

Father Gabriel Nadaf, in a live feed late last week with the host of the popular late night program, “Tzinor Layla” (“Night Tubes”), described his recent address before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, in which he called on the world to stand by Israel in its fight against Islamic terrorism.

“Israel is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are safe,” declared Nadaf, who has been sharply criticized by many Israeli Arabs for his staunch public calls for enlistment of Israeli Christian Arabs into the IDF.

In 2012, he created The Forum for the Enlistment of the Christian Community group, a move which has earned him the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but scorn and even death threats from some Israeli Arabs.

“Every year in the last decade a hundred thousand Christians were killed throughout the Middle East, meaning that every five minutes a Christian was killed because of his faith … those who could escape persecution by Muslim extremists, fled, and those that remained are second- if not third-class citizens, under Muslim rulers,” Nadaf said.

“In the societies of the Middle East, there is one country where Christianity is not persecuted,” he said, referring to Israel. “Moreover, there is freedom of speech, worship and security warmly bestowed by Israel, the Jewish State.

In August, Nadaf took his case to a group of influential American pastors.

Nadaf told the 51-member group that it was their “responsibility” to help end the slaughter of Mideast Christians. “The silence [in the West] to what is happening in the Middle East to Christians is an enormous sin,” Nadaf said at the time.

Watch a video report on Israel’s Channel 1 News, in which Nadaf shares his understanding of the status and fate of Christians throughout the Middle East, and in Israel:

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