WASHINGTON (CNS) — A Dec. 9 congressional hearing sought a State Department determination of ongoing Christian genocide by the Islamic State, a designation that could produce considerable pressure for additional U.S. military intervention in the region, not just humanitarian aid.

Such a designation also has policy implications for U.S. efforts to restore property and lands taken from the minority groups and for offers of aid and asylum to the victims.

Many hope that when the State Department soon declares, as expected, that the Yezidis, a religious minority in Iraq targeted by the Islamic State since 2014, are facing genocide, it also will produce something stronger than reserving judgment about the militants’ treatment of Christians.

On Dec. 4, 30 Christian leaders, including Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl of Washington, asked for a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry in advance of that declaration. The meeting has yet to be scheduled.

The current push is the result of a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum report, issued in November, that detailed attacks against the Yezidi in the Ninevah province in Iraq. It also concluded that Islamic State militants “perpetrated crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes” against Christians as well as the Yezidi, Turkmen, Shabak, Sabean-Mandean and Kaka’i peoples.

At the hearing of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organizations, Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, chairman, said of the exclusion of Christians from the declaration, “That’s absurd! Such an indication would be contrary to the facts and tragically wrong.”

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California, citing a House resolution under consideration, said he thought the United States should recognize the situation as genocide “just as we should have recognized the Jews in 1939.”

Read the article “Witnesses at Congressional Hearing Insist ISIS Killing of Mideast Christians is Genocide” on cnstopstories.com.