[quote]Captain Needa wrote:
[quote]Powerpuff wrote:
Yes, but he still didn’t need to go there, IMO. I know he has said his remarks do not apply to Muslims who are US citizens, and I heard the argument about how the idea is not unconstitutional since he’s not talking about people who’s freedoms are protected by the constitution as citizens.
BUT - I couldn’t help but think of the large Persian community we have in my area. Most of these families have been here since they fled the Revolution and Khomeini took over. These people tend to be very Westernized, love the US. Why do we want to send a message to them that conservatives are bigots? I have a conservative Jewish friend who posted a pic on his FB feed of numbers tattooed on forearms with the title something like “This is what happens when we register non-Christians.” He’s a Republican, and I took his post to mean he’s offended by Trump’s idea. That’s not what we need if we want to win the presidency.
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My understanding is that having a temporary hold on immigration from certain countries would not catch those coming by way of an intermediary country. I am certainly no expert, but I believe that I read that somewhere.
The fact is that the share of terrorism in the world by Muslims is fast approaching 100% ( Country Reports on Terrorism 2013 ). Looking at immigration from Syria since the Paris attacks, there was only one non-Muslim out of 237 people admitted ( 1 Christian: 236 of 237 Syrian Refugees Admitted Since Paris Attacks Are Muslims ). So if you ignore my previous point about immigrants coming from non-obvious countries, it seems almost the same to put a temporary halt on Muslim immigration as it does on that from Syria, Iran, etc. So if this is a distinction without a difference perhaps it is more honest to just call it like it is?
I am quite conflicted with regard to Trump. Much of the time I find myself agreeing with his core messages but cringing in how he delivers them. I can’t decide if I have been made too PC by the environment of our current culture. Personally I far prefer an intellectual, nuanced approach. That said, maybe we need the demagoguery of simple messages to try to claw back a bit of the insanity we have enacted as a people over the past decades. Almost like electing Clint Eastwood’s character in Gran Turino as leader to cut through the crap.
Trump is not my first choice. But I will take him over the dictator or socialist (another distinction without a difference?) that the Democrats are putting forth.
edited to fix quoting.
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Needa - This article written by two Rabbis about the plight of Christians in the Mideast is pertinent to what you were saying. Link only open to subscribers so here’s the article.
Mideast Christians Deserve U.S. Refuge - WSJ
Hunted by ISIS, afraid to enter refugee camps, they are undercounted and desperate for help.
The Article -
Donald Trump’s bizarre proposal to bar all Muslim immigrants from the U.S. has overshadowed a more legitimate concern regarding religion and immigration: Middle East Christians who are desperate to escape the genocidal campaign against them by Islamic State.
Islamist terror attacks like the ones in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have underlined the need for more and better vetting of refugees from the Middle East who seek safety in the U.S. But with tens of thousands pushing at the gate, who should to get first preference?
In our view, as rabbis, any immediate admissions should focus on providing a haven for the remnants of historic Christian communities of the Middle East. Christians in Iraq and Syria have been suffering longer than other groups, and are fleeing not just for safety but because they have been targeted for extinction. In a region strewn with desperate people, their situation is even more dire. Christians (and Yazidis, ethnic Kurds who follow a pre-Islamic religion) have long been targeted by Muslim groups not only Islamic State, or ISIS for ethnic cleansing. Churches have been burned, priests arrested.
In the worst cases, Christians have been tortured, raped and even crucified. Mosul, Iraq, which was home to a Christian population of 35,000 a decade ago, is now empty of Christians after an ISIS ultimatum that they either convert to Islam or be executed. In Syria, Gregorios III Laham, the Melkite Greek Catholic Patriarch of the Church of Antioch, said in 2013 that entire villages have been cleared of their Christian inhabitants.
Unlike some others, Middle East Christians have nowhere else to go. As a result of turmoil not of their making and beyond their control, these Christians are the regions ultimate homeless. Should some sort of peace ever return, the likelihood is that maps will be redrawn, carving up the pie among larger ethnic groups. There will be no place for Christians among hostile Muslim populations.
The animosity toward Christians is illustrated by a horrific incident earlier this year off the Italian coast. In April, Italian police investigating events on a boat that had departed from Libya said 12 Christian refugees who were attempting to cross the sea to Europe were thrown overboard by Muslim migrant passengers, and drowned.
The U.S. can do much good for Christian refugees. Their religious heritage establishes an important basis of commonality in the many Christian communities in our country.
When Secretary of State John Kerry announced in September that the U.S. will accept as many as 100,000 refugees by 2017, many of them Syrian, the State Department provided a list of more than 300 agencies in 190 locations that would assist on the local level. Of those agencies, no less than 215 are Christian. It makes sense to play to the strengths of those agencies.
Success in dealing with the first wave of immigrants will help build bipartisan support for other refugees from the Middle East to come to America.
Tragically, present policy does not take into account the uniquely precarious situation of displaced Christians. Instead of receiving priority treatment, Christians are profoundly disadvantaged. For instance, the State Department has accepted refugees primarily from lists prepared by the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees, which oversees the large camps to which refugees have flocked, and where they are registered. Yet endangered Christians do not dare enter those camps.
George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote in the Telegraph in Britain in September that a similar protocol in the U.K. inadvertently discriminates against the very Christian communities most victimised by the inhuman butchers of the so-called Islamic State. Christians are not to be found in the UN camps, because they have been attacked and targeted by Islamists and driven from them.
U.S. missteps and missed opportunities in the region contributed to the crises that disproportionately affected Christians. America’s policy should immediately be amended to include these refugees at the top of the list. Opening America’s doors to them first is the right thing to do."
Rabbi Cooper is the associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and Rabbi Adlerstein is the center.s director of interfaith affairs.
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