Ed West is an author, journalist and blogger, Deputy Editor of the The Catholic Herald. In June 2013 he began blogging and writing for The Spectator.

In December 2013, Ed West published an e-book “The Silence of Our Friends”, which focuses on the persecution of Christians and other minorities in the Middle East.

“The 20th century was a disaster for Christians in the Middle East.  A century ago they comprised 30 % of the region’s population, but starting with 1915 genocide against Armenians, that figure has declined to a low 5 %. The most optimistic forecasts suggest the Christian population of 12 million today will fall to 6 million by mid-century”, Ed West wrote in his book.

- Do you keep track of the events in Syria, and in particular the events taking place in the Armenian-populated town of Kessab? Can we say it was a clearly worked out plan to attack local Christian Armenians?

- I dont think it would be wise to talk about the specifics, as in this war (as in all wars, I suppose) both sides have not told the whole truth. I think we’ll have to wait until it settles down to find out.

- Egypt, Iraq, and now Syria. Considering the goal of Syrian rebels to assume power in Syria, what future awaits Christians residing in Syria?

- It depends entirely on who wins power. I opposed Western intervention last year because it seemed like a gamble with other people’s lives to overthrow Assad and hope a democratic or even beningly autocratic leader takes over.

Iraq was a catastrophe for the Christians there, and there are many similarities with Syria. If the same vacuum were to arise there it would be terrible for them.

- How many Christians used to live in Syria before the crisis and how many were killed or had to leave the country?

- Patriarch Gregory says a third of Christians are displaced, from a pre-war population of 2.75m. Most would be inside the country but there are considerable numbers in Lebanon. As far as I know, it is impossible to talk about exact figures because lots of Christians are sheltering with other Christians, in Lebanon especially, and not with the UN.

- In your publications, you continuously call on the superpowers to take practical and sustainable measures to protect Middle East Christians. Why does the West remain passive and why does it limit itself to only making statements?

- Ignorance mainly. Lots of people don’t even know that there are such things as Christian Arabs, nor that even a century ago Christians were something like 30 per cent of the population in the region; this is strange really when parts of Iraq were heavily Christian by the 2nd century and England wasnt even converted until the 7th century.

Politicians see little benefit in talking about the issue as Christianity is unfashionable here, and because of domestic religious relations they are keen to downplay Islamic violence (where the opposite has occured, as in Central African Republic, one left-wing paper lead with the headline 'Christians attack Muslims', when they would never use the reverse, ever). I also quote the French philosopher Regis Debray, who said “The victims are “too Christian” to excite the Left, and “too foreign” to excite the Right”. Finally there is the problem that, once we admit this problem, what can we do? We’re not going to launch a crusade and start WW3 and ultimately we cant really protect them with military force.

- The presence of Christians in the Middle East has always served a significant bridge for the dialog between Christianity and Islam. What will the West lose if the Christian communities in the Middle East are exterminated?

- The East will lose most; Christians in this part of the world are mostly market-dominant minorities, and when those groups are forced out a country inevitably goes backward. Obviously Armenians are aware of this, as they are a typical market-dominant minority and have suffered appalling persecution. I've always said that if the West lets in Christians from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, it would probably benefit them, but in the longer term it will seriously damage relations between East and West. Middle Eastern Christians have always been a bridge who have imparted Western ideas, from the Greek classics which were transcribed by Syriac speakers into Arabic to the modern UN Declaration of Human Rights, which was drafted by a Lebanese Christian. If they disappear it will be a disaster for those left.

Yekaterina Poghosyan talked to Ed West.