The Last Supper

The Plight of Christians in Arab Lands

Klaus Wivel

• Publisher: New Vessel Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781939931368
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Human Rights
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"A compelling story of the ethnic cleansing of Christian communities caught in the crossfire of the Middle East at war... Urgent and passionate" ( Kirkus Reviews ). In 2013, alarmed by scant attention paid to the hardships endured by the 7.5 million Christians in the Middle East, journalist Klaus Wivel—who practices no religion himself—traveled to Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories on a quest to learn more about their fate. He found an oppressed minority, constantly under threat of death and humiliation, increasingly desperate in the face of rising Islamic extremism and without hope that their situation would improve, or anyone would come to their aid. Wivel spoke with priests whose churches have been burned, citizens who feel like strangers in their own countries, and entire communities whose only hope for survival may be fleeing into exile. With the increase of religious violence in recent years, The Last Supper is a prescient and unsettling account of a severely beleaguered religious group living, so it seems, on borrowed time. In this book, Wivel recounts this humanitarian crisis in detail and asks why we have we not done more to protect these people.