What would the result have been if instead of Russia the title had said 'Israel' or 'some Jews'?

History repeats itself. It does so again and again, and since I am very stubborn (a flaw I'm not ashamed of), I will repeat myself too.

Russia attacked two Orthodox Christian churches in Ukraine on Good Friday
Reactions in Spain to the Russian attack on a Catholic monastery in Ukraine

Yesterday I reported here on Russia's attack on two Orthodox Christian churches in Ukraine. My article, as is my custom, linked to the most direct source I could find for this information: the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, to which the two attacked churches belong. I also included eleven photos of the attacked churches, because they are proof of what happened.

This morning, when I went to check the reach of that information, I found that the article had 208 views. On Twitter, the Spanish version of the post was shared 54 times, with 1,112 views. This is a ridiculously low reach compared to the dissemination of much less serious incidents involving different people. Palm Sunday provided a clear example of this.

This lack of interest in the attacks on two churches could be due to widespread public weariness with such frequent incidents. After all, Russia has already attacked some 600 churches in Ukraine. However, these attacks don't usually make the news. In fact, they have very little dissemination even among Christians, whether for ideological reasons or because many, for whatever reason, do not perceive Putin's dictatorship as an enemy of Christianity, despite the facts mentioned and its being a great ally with some of the dictatorships that most persecute Christians in the world, such as North Korea, communist China, Iran, Cuba, or Nicaragua.

The situation changes when we talk about Israel or the Jews. They are certainly not enemies of Christians: the Jewish state is, in fact, the country that most respects the religious freedom of Christians in the Middle East. Likewise, Jews are a religious minority that coexists peacefully with Christians in many countries, without the attacks perpetrated by them that we have frequently witnessed from Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, it is the Jews who are suffering the greatest wave of religiously motivated hatred in Europe, just as they suffered in the last century, with the terrible result of the Holocaust.

In the last few hours, I've wondered: what would have been the outcome of that article if, instead of Russia, the title had said "Israel" or "some Jews" as the subjects of the attack? You don't need to be very imaginative to know the answer, do you? On social media, it's already common to find accounts that amplify any bad thing done by someone in the Jewish community, whether real or imagined (or that attribute the bad actions of a few to all Jews, a generalization they would consider intolerable if made about Christians) at the same time show absolute indifference to Russia's crimes against Christians in Ukraine. A double standard that also affects priests and some bishops, unfortunately.

How many more churches must be attacked by Russia before some people pay attention to these attacks? 1,000, 2,000, 5,000? Every day I see people and organizations that claim to be defenders of Christians but remain completely silent in the face of these Russian attacks, as if the attacked churches were less important or didn't matter at all. What kind of defense of Christianity is that? How can some try to convince us that they are "anti-Zionist" and not anti-Semitic, while they cry out against the Jews with the same intensity with which they remain silent in the face of the Russian invaders for far more serious acts? This double standard is making it abundantly clear what some are disguising as "anti-Zionism": the same old antisemitism.

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Photo: Tiia Monto.