Remember the Persecution of Christians and Those Who Celebrate Oct. 7

Tim Graham on Oct 1, 2025

As we approach the second anniversary of Hamas mercilessly slaughtering 1,200 human beings on Oct. 7, 2023, our media remind us daily of the death toll of Palestinians, according to the "Gaza Health Ministry," which is run by Hamas.

It's outrageous that these media outlets are such receptive publicists for mass-murdering terrorists. But they have effectively reversed the polarity, and the people of Israel are painted as the most horrible ghouls on Earth.

On the latest "Real Time with Bill Maher," the stridently atheist host said something surprising. "I'm not a Christian, but they are systematically killing the Christians in Nigeria. They've killed over 100,000 since 2009. They've burned 18,000 churches," Maher said, referring to violent Islamists in Nigeria such as Boko Haram.

"This is so much more of a genocide attempt than what is going on in Gaza," he added. "They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?"

That is wokeness at work. The Palestinians are the "marginalized" brown people that need to be "centered" in the media. We know how overwhelmingly anti-Israel our most prestigious campuses are. Meanwhile, African Christians who are black aren't newsworthy.

Maher began by acknowledging, "If you don't know what's going on in Nigeria, your media sources suck, you are in a bubble." That would be the vast majority of the American media. Nobody's hearing the "health ministry" statistics from Nigeria about the 100,000 killed since 2009.

We've known for decades that most of our national media outlets don't have reporters based in Africa, let alone Nigeria. African nations aren't considered as important as Middle Eastern nations, and it feels like the entire United Nations has the "Free Palestine" virus that would end Israel's existence.

Maher's discussion began because Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) brought up the U.N. General Assembly: "We had the president of Syria, prime minister of Syria and while he's there speaking at the U.N., there were Christian villages in Syria that were being burned down."

Since the tyrant Bashar Assad was removed by Islamist forces, Christians have suffered increasing persecution under Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, as well as Alawite Muslims and Druze. The Christian population of Syria has declined by about two-thirds since that country's civil war began.

These stories are not front-page material, or network-newscast fodder. Among the global political and media elites, Christianity and Judaism are not favored religions, whereas Islam is clearly favored, starting with Palestine. You're a bigoted "Christian nationalist" if you worry about the impact of mass Muslim migration into Western countries, including on campuses.

Earlier this year, the media celebrated as some kind of free-speech hero pro-Hamas activist Mahmoud Khalil, whose radical group at Columbia University openly celebrated the Oct. 7 massacre. They also openly declared "We are Westerners fighting for the total eradication of Western civilization."

It's comical that liberal journalists consider themselves as the guardians of democracy -- a major part of Western civilization -- but appear so supportive of this kind of tyrannical Islamism. They couldn't find their verbiage in plain sight. The New York Times brought the gooey testimony of Khalil's friends, who were "describing him as kind, expressive, and gentle."

So when journalists pose as the righteous enemies of "genocide," remember the persecution of Christians and those who celebrate Oct. 7 as a great day for their cause. Journalists love taking sides. They're so blinded by ideology that they're blinded to the reality that they chose the wrong side.

========

Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.