Genocide

Clinton breaks with Obama over 'genocide' of Middle East Christians

'I will because we now have enough evidence,' Clinton said.

By Hanna Trudo

Hillary Clinton broke with President Barack Obama over the plight of Christians and other ethnic and religious minority groups in the Middle East, telling a New Hampshire crowd that the Islamic State's persecution of them should be labeled a "genocide."

Her comments, which came during town hall meeting on Tuesday night in Berlin, in the state's far north, came in response to a voter's question, according to the Associated Press.

"Will you join those leaders, faith leaders and secular leaders and political leaders from both the right and the left, in calling what is happening by its proper name: Genocide?" the voter asked.

"I will because we now have enough evidence," Clinton said, acknowledging that she had been reluctant to do so because the term has "broad implications."

It's clear, Clinton said, that there is a brutally violent campaign "deliberately aimed at destroying not only the lives, but wiping out the existence of Christians and other religious minorities in the Middle East in territory controlled by ISIS."

Clinton's remarks come as the Obama administration faces growing calls to declare that the Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians, a move that could increase pressure on the president to take action to protect victims of the terrorist group.

The State Department has spent months debating whether to label the Islamic State’s attacks against members of a different religious minority, the Yazidis, a "genocide," a designation that carries significant legal, political and historical implications. Christian groups and Republicans have urged Secretary of State John Kerry to include Iraqi and Syrian Christians as well.

Last week, Obama nodded to those concerns as he highlighted the plight of the region's Christians in an unusually somber Christmas Day message. “In some areas of the Middle East where church bells have rung for centuries on Christmas Day, this year they will be silent; this silence bears tragic witness to the brutal atrocities committed against these communities by ISIL,” he said.

The president's statement came hours after more than two dozen House members from both parties sent Kerry a letter noting their worry that the State Department might omit Christians and other religious minorities from the genocide designation. The letter, spearheaded by Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-Calif.), noted a finding by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom that Christian communities in ISIL-controlled areas are facing genocide along with Yazidi, Shia, Turkmen, and Shabak minority groups.

A genocide designation comes with legal ramifications for the United States, and Congress should be consulted, the members wrote. “We will continue to insist that any genocide finding must reflect the actual experience of all minorities whose communities are being erased and whose families are being slaughtered because of their faith,” the letter concludes.