MY SAY: A PERSPECTIVE ON REFUGEES

FROM THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE OF MIDEAST OUTPOST

http://www.mideastoutpost.com/archives/a-perspective-on-refugees-ruth-king.html
In 1924, after decades of free immigration from Europe, America enacted the Johnson-Reed Immigration Law which limited groups considered racially and ethnically “undesirable.” These were code words for Jews, Southern and Eastern Europeans, Africans, Arabs and Asians. When President Coolidge signed the law, his words were “America must remain American.”

It was scrupulously enforced on July 6, 1938 when an international conference convened in Evian, France to deal with Jewish refugees desperate to flee the racial laws of Germany and Austria which sought to make their nations judenrein— free of all Jews. But Jewish refugees found no succor from Western nations. With the British blockade of Palestine, Europe’s Jews were trapped and one of every three Jews in the world died during the Nazi genocide.

After World War II millions of people fled or were expelled from Eastern Europe. Many fled the Soviet controlled Communist tyrannies. Others, such as the displaced surviving Jews, found no welcome when they returned to their previous homes. Millions of Germans–even those that had lived in Hungary, Poland, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Czechoslovakia long before the war–were expelled. It has been estimated that in the peak year of 1946, about 14,000 people per day became stateless refugees.

Europe was devastated by the death and destruction wrought by the war. Food and housing were scarce and throughout the continent refugees and survivors were kept in displaced persons camps. American policy in the immediate post-war period limited immigration to those who had friends or relatives who could sponsor them and guarantee they would not become dependent on government assistance. This policy changed in 1948 when restrictions were eased by the Displaced Persons Act which offered sanctuary to refugees from Communist nations of Eastern Europe.

Restrictions were further relaxed in The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 and The Refugee Relief Act of 1953. By 1959 one million European refugees had been absorbed by free European countries, 476,000 had been accepted by the U.S. and another half million by Latin America and Asia. The bulk of Jewish refugees found a home in a liberated and independent Israel.

World Refugee Year, in 1959-1960, was designed as a ‘clear the camps’ drive. By the end of 1960, all the refugee camps of Europe were closed.

The only exceptions were the squalid “Arab refugee” camps established in 1948. In them 500,000 Arabs and their descendants, courtesy of the UN and their so-called “Arab brethren”, have been kept in sorry conditions for the last 68 years.

What made the Jewish refugees “undesirable” in 1924 is a question to ponder, particularly now that the word “refugee” is flagrantly abused by those prepared to destroy Western civilization through immigration.

From 1880 until 1924 approximately four million Jews arrived in America. Their contributions to every aspect of American culture–science, medicine, theater, music, cultural and philanthropic institutions– was outsize in every way. And if a well-known Jew committed a felony or murder, the shame and outrage was also disproportionate.

Although clustered in crowded and poor neighborhoods, Jews demanded no charity and depended on the help of Jewish organizations for settlement, schooling and medical care. They created the garment industry and pioneered in trade, retail and wholesale manufacturing and construction. Indeed it’s hard to think of any aspect of American life to which American Jews did not make a significant contribution. They attended night schools, learned English, participated in politics and gave their children anglicized names. Malka became Marilyn, Moshe became Marvin, Shmuel became Scott. They delighted in entertainment, told self-deprecating Jewish jokes and were pioneers in the labor union movement.

AUGUST: THE MONTH THAT WAS: SYDNEY WILLIAMS

The “dog days” of August were awash with news: The Brazilian Olympics; floods in Louisiana; fires in California; an earthquake in Italy; riots in Milwaukee; the Presidential campaign; Islamic jihadist attacks in Pakistan, Turkey, London and Paris; Russian bombers flew over Syria out of Iranian airbases; Aetna became the third insurer to reduce its role in ObamaCare; Rookie Gary Sanchez hit eleven homeruns in August; and for the first time in 16 years the Dow Jones Industrials, the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ all made highs on the same day – August 11th… And two news articles reflective of our times.

Both appeared in The New York Times, the “house organ” for the far-left. The paper is worth reading because where else can conservatives find out so inexpensively what, if anything, goes on inside the minds of vacuous, supercilious elites. The first, on August 7th, written by by Jim Rutenberg, was headlined “Trump is Testing the Norms of Objectivity in Journalism.” It was a condescending justification for the fact that the Times has lost all detachment when it comes to reporting political news. The second, “Push to Alter Constitution Via the States,” was written by Michael Wines on August 11th. The claim was that conservatives were circumventing Congress in an attempt to amend the Constitution by going directly to the States, which are largely controlled by Republicans. Article Five of the Constitution provides two means by which a convention can be called for its amendment. One is via Congress, but the second is by application of two thirds of States’ Legislatures. To suggest that Republicans are evading Congress may be true, but the move is legal and the accusation is presumptuous. It helps explain why liberal elites don’t understand why so many are upset with the direction the country is headed.

The Olympics dominated the first half of the month, with several contestants who had medaled in previous Olympics participating. While the professionalization of the Olympics is a turn-off (I did not watch Andy Murray or the American basketball team), it was fun to see Michael Phelps win again…and again. Twenty-three gold medals is a record likely to hold for a while. Nineteen-year old Katie Ledecky was exciting to watch. She is likely to add to her five gold medals four years from now in Tokyo. American gymnast Simone Biles won three golds. The American women’s “eight” had the stamina and determination to come from behind and cross the finish line a half boat length ahead of Great Britain. An unsung star, American Kim Rhode won a bronze in skeet shooting – the sixth consecutive Olympics in which she medaled. In prior Olympics she won three golds, one silver and one bronze. No woman has ever before medaled in six Olympics. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt lived up to his name at the Olympics, and in nightclubs! There were other extraordinary athletes that space does not allow me to acknowledge. Back home A-Rod will be leaving the Yankees. Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy winner who played three seasons with the Broncos and Jets, was offered a spot with the Atlantic League Bridgeport Bluefish to play baseball. Given his eleven home runs in August, Yankee Gary Sanchez is the most exciting rookie since Joe DiMaggio in 1936.

University Censors Students Who Question Man-Made Climate Change By Austin Yack

The University of Chicago’s recent decision to not condone “safe spaces” on campus earned a round of applause from First Amendment advocates. “Free speech is at risk at the very institution where it should be assured: the university,” University of Chicago president Robert Zimmer said. But as the University of Chicago has made substantial strides toward freedom of speech on campus, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs has opted to narrow the scope of what can be discussed in the classroom.

Last week, three professors co-teaching a course titled “Medical Humanities in the Digital Age” released a statement that addressed students who question man-made climate change. “We will not, at any time, debate the science of climate change, nor will the ‘other side’ of the climate change debate be taught or discussed in this course,” the professors said in a statement obtained by The College Fix. And if you disagree? The professors “respectfully ask that you do not take this course.”

One wonders: If the professors are positive that man-made climate change is occurring exactly in the manner they suggest, then why are they worried about a few students questioning their narrative? Universities are supposed to be places where students can improve themselves and others by debating openly. How does suppressing contradictory views aid that?

University Communications Director Tom Hutton backed the professors’ decision to limit students rather than to encourage free inquiry. “By clearly stating the class focus,” Hutton told The College Fix, “the faculty are allowing students to choose if they wish to enroll in the course or seek an alternative.” On the face of it, this sounds reasonable. And yet, if Hutton’s rationale were to be taken seriously, no student would ever enroll in a course that taught beliefs contrary to his own.

The Virtue-Mongers If you playact being shot by the police, cry “racist!” on Twitter, or denounce capitalism, you, too, can feel good about your capitalist’s privilege. By Victor Davis Hanson

In an affluent postmodern society of nearly unlimited freedom and opportunity, elite celebrities, pampered athletes, comfortable academics, conniving politicians, and careerist journalists find it hard to prove that they are still relevant in a revolutionary or rather cool sense.

In medieval times, privileged sinners found absolution for their guilt through more formal contractual penance. Churchmen consulted books of penitentials that prescribed precise medicinal doses — donations, pilgrimages, fasting, and a host of other sacrificial acts — to offset particular sins to get them right again with God. The key was to find a way to keep enjoying sinning and still get to heaven on the cheap.

In our atheistic and agnostic society, inexpensive, loud, and public virtue-mongering has replaced church penance — with Black Lives Matter, La Raza, Al Sharpton, network anchor people, NPR, the New York Times, and such acting as the new bishops who can dispense exemptions.

The wealthy, the influential, the intelligentsia, and the cultural elite all broadcast their virtues — usually at a cut-rate rhetorical price — to offset their own sense of sin (as defined by feelings of guilt), or in fear that their own lives are antithetical to the ideologies they espouse, or sometimes simply as a wise career move. Sin these days is mostly defined as race/class/gender thought crimes.

Wearing a mask of virtue is done not to save one’s soul for eternity but to still feel good about enjoying privilege. The sneakers, jeans, and T-shirts or mafia-black outfits of Silicon Valley billionaires can compensate for their robber-baron sins of outsourcing, offshoring, and tax avoidance or simply their preference for apartheid existence with the fellow rich; for George Soros (currency manipulator and European financial outlaw), it is funding leftists who hate capitalists and rank financial speculators like him. All that beats lashings and haircloth.

Superstar singer Beyoncé, along with her husband Jay-Z, is reportedly worth $1 billion, with a reported annual income that exceeds $100 million.

Not long ago the popular criticism of Beyoncé by her fans was that she seemed in appearance too eager to culturally appropriate “whiteness.” Her routines were akin to reactionary striptease and crassly sexually reductive — hardly the image of a bold black female entrepreneur espousing values consistent with hip feminism.

We do not hear so much flak these days. Beyoncé is just as privileged, probably wealthier, and on her way to multibillionaire Oprah status. But she has suddenly metamorphosized into a social-justice warrior, at least in theory.

Yes, Congress Has the Power to Impeach Hillary Clinton By Andrew C. McCarthy

For months, I have been arguing that Hillary Clinton should be impeached. It is all well and good to prosecute a former government official for any crimes she has committed. Indeed, the Constitution expressly provides for criminal prosecution in addition to impeachment. Nevertheless, for the Framers — and, if we had common sense, for us — the imperative was to deprive a corrupt person of any further opportunity to abuse government power. Whether the official should also be convicted and sent to prison was not unimportant but, in the greater scheme of things, decidedly secondary.

Interestingly, the main pushback I received upon positing this argument was not that Mrs. Clinton is undeserving of impeachment. That, of course, is a measure of the seriousness of her high crimes and misdemeanors: the e-mail scandal; the reckless mishandling of classified information that has surely exposed our national-defense secrets to hostile powers; the mass destruction of thousands of government records after Congress asked for them; the obstruction of government investigations; the serial lies to Congress and the public; the shocking failure to provide security for Americans stationed in Benghazi and the failure to attempt to rescue them during a terrorist siege; the lies to the American people and to the families of murdered American officials about the cause of the attack; the trumping up of a prosecution against the video producer scapegoated for the Benghazi attack; the Clinton Foundation corruption involving the sale of influence for donations, the favors done for shady benefactors at the expense of national security, and the use of the State Department as an arm of the Clinton pay-to-play enterprise.

No, the main objection to impeachment is the claim that, because the former secretary of state does not currently hold public office, there is nothing from which to remove her. Hence, as a non-incumbent who merely seeks the nation’s highest office — after proving herself manifestly unfit in a subordinate office — she is said to be immune from impeachment. How could she be impeached from the presidency, the question is posed, if she is not president? How could she be removed from an office she does not hold based on offenses not committed while wielding presidential power?

These questions and the non-incumbency theory behind them fundamentally misconstrue the constitutional remedy of impeachment, which is not limited to removal from power but includes disqualification from future office. Moreover, their premise is wrong: The proceeding against Clinton would not be a presidential impeachment; it would be an impeachment based on her abuses of power as secretary of state, which would have the constitutional effect of disqualifying her for the presidency.

The Constitution does not limit impeachment to incumbent officials. Article I endows the House of Representatives with the “sole Power of Impeachment” — i.e., the power to file articles of impeachment. It further empowers the Senate with “the sole Power to try all Impeachments.” Significantly, in prescribing the standard for conviction in the Senate, Article I, Section 3 states that “no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two-thirds of the Members present” (emphasis added).

Clinton Scandals: Who Can Keep Up? One corruption update slimes into the next. By Deroy Murdock

It literally is impossible to write quickly enough to stay abreast of the scandals engulfing Hillary Rodham Clinton.

After a delightful visit with my family and friends in southern California, I sat down at Los Angeles International Airport late Thursday night to await my flight back to New York City. I planned to write a recap of just last week’s news regarding Hillary’s e-mails, the Clinton Foundation, and several of President Obama’s policies that Clinton backs.

I jotted down a simple outline, to which I since have added a few details:

1. Gilbert Chagoury: The Lebanese/Nigerian businessman gave $1 million to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation and pledged $1 billion more. The foundation’s Doug Band contacted Hillary’s top aide, Huma Abedin, to arrange a meeting for Chagoury with the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon. The Los Angeles Times now reports that Chagoury “was pulled off a private jet in Teterboro, N.J., and questioned for four hours because he was on the Department of Homeland Security’s no-fly list. He was subsequently removed from the list and categorized as a ‘selectee,’ meaning he can fly but receives extra scrutiny.” Why? A “Homeland Security document shows agents citing unspecified suspicions of links to terrorism, which can include financing extremist organizations.” He later was denied entry visas because “the U.S. put Chagoury in its database used to screen travelers for possible links to terrorism.”

2. Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, which Hillary Clinton supports, reportedly includes secret side agreements that permit the ayatollahs to cheat on how much enriched uranium they can produce and how many radiation “hot rooms” they can operate. Codifying Tehran’s violations of this agreement made it easier for Obama to end sanctions, unfreeze Iran’s assets, and surge billions of dollars into the hands of Earth’s biggest state sponsor of radical Islamic terrorism.

Trump, Conservatives, and the ‘Principles’ Question Never Trumpers need to admit that the Left and Hillary Clinton pose a threat to America’s survival as the country it was founded to be. By Dennis Prager

All Never Trump conservatives maintain that their decision to never vote for Donald Trump is guided by their principles. I have no doubt that this is true.

But some of them — though by no means all — seem to imply, or at least may think, that conservatives who vote for Trump have abandoned their principles. Indeed, the charge of compromising on principle is explicitly leveled at Republican politicians and members of the Republican “establishment” who support Trump.

I cannot speak for all conservatives who are voting for Trump, but I can speak for many in making this assertion:

We have the same principles as the Never Trumpers — especially those of us who strongly opposed nominating Trump; that’s why we opposed him, after all. So almost everything that prevents Never Trumpers from voting for Trump also troubled us about the candidate. (I should note that some are less troubled today.)

So where do we differ?

We differ on this: We hold that defeating Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, and the Left is also a principle. And that it is the greater principle.

Obviously, the Never Trumpers do not believe that. On the contrary, some of the most thoughtful Never Trumpers repeatedly tell us that the nation can survive four years of Hillary Clinton–Democrat rule. And then, they say, conservatism will have cleansed itself and be able to take back the nation after four calamitous years of a Hillary Clinton presidency — whereas if Trump wins, he will be the de facto face of conservatism, and then conservatism will have been dealt a potentially fatal setback.

This argument assumes that America can survive another four years of Democratic rule.

So, it really depends on what “survive” means. If it means that there will be a country called the United States of America after another four years of a Democratic presidency and a left-wing Supreme Court for quite possibly another four decades (as well as dozens of lifetime appointments to the equally important lower federal courts), the country will surely survive.

But I do not believe that the country will surely survive as the country it was founded to be. In that regard we are at the most perilous tipping point of American history.

It is true that the country’s survival was threatened in the 1860s, and only a terrible civil war kept it whole. But, with the colossal and awful exception of slavery, neither side challenged the founding principles of America.

Why It’s Mostly Quiet on the Eastern Front Eastern Europeans’ clear-eyed view of jihad. Hugh Fitzgerald

Sometimes life sends along something to cheer us up. It did so for me, when I came across a stemwinder of a speech made in the Czech Parliament a few months ago by one of its members, Klara Samkova. Samkova is a left-of-center — not “far-right,” even if the Western press would like to label her as such — politician mainly known as a defender of minorities, especially the Roma. In the past, she was even prepared to collaborate with the Union of Czech Muslims, though after being mugged by Muslim reality, that collaboration has stopped. Her speech was part of a parliamentary hearing on the topic “Should We Be Afraid Of Islam?” (Imagine any Congressman in Washington daring to frame a debate in that way, given that in this country, whatever explanation we give for terrorist acts committed by Muslims, It Has Nothing To Do With Islam).

There are two alternative answers to that parliamentary question.

Either:

1) No, Islam is being maligned by Islamophobes using scare tactics, so don’t be worried.

2) Yes, Islam is definitely a danger wherever it spreads – be worried!

The first is what we keep being told by political and media elites all over Western Europe and North America, who are willing to mislead because they don’t know how, at this point, to handle the truth about the ideology of Islam. The second is what you are more likely find in countries whose recent history has taught their people, and governments, some tough lessons; in Europe, those countries were formerly under Communist rule.

After the Brussels attack, the head of Poland’s largest party announced that “after recent events connected with acts of terror, [Poland] will not accept refugees, because there is no mechanism that would ensure security.” Victor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, declared that “we do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries, and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see….” Robert Fico, Prime Minister of Slovakia, announced that “Islam has no place in Slovakia.” The Czech Republic, which had in the past taken in a few thousand Muslim migrants, regrets even that, to judge by the remark of its President, Milos Zeman, this January, that “it is practically impossible to integrate Islam into Europe,” and made clear that the Czechs will not be taking any more.

Trump and Putting America First The real significance of Trump’s immigration speech and his meeting with President Peña Nieto. Michael Cutler

Donald Trump demonstrated true chutzpah in accepting an invitation from Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to meet with him.

On August 31, 2016 Trump met Peña Nieto just hours before addressing an enthusiastic crowd of supporters in Arizona where he laid out his ten-point plan to address the immigration crisis that impacts so many of the challenges and threats that America faces today.

It was politically courageous for Trump to meet with the Mexican President. After nearly eight years of the feckless Obama administration, his demonstration of strength and focus at that meeting was refreshing.

Peña Nieto has compared Trump to Hitler and Mussolini, and Trump has, for the past year, made it clear that he opposed the policies of the Mexican government that have resulted in so many criminals, gangs and narcotics flowing from Mexico into the United States.

The meeting was a gamble but it paid off. As President John F. Kennedy said during his inaugural address,

“So let us begin anew–remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.”

While President Kennedy was referencing the ongoing tensions with the former Soviet Union and our relationship with Mexico is hardly as adversarial as was our relationship with the USSR, Mexico is separated from the United States by the longest border that divides the First World from the Third World, thus creating huge economic pressures on that border.

Mexico is an important trade partner of the United States. However, a huge component of that trade is illegal and involves illegal aliens, narcotics, weapons and money flowing across the border in violation of our laws.

The American Inquisition As a recent episode at Syracuse University demonstrates, the cancer of Jew hatred has taken over the body of US academia. Caroline Glick

The cancer of Jew hatred has taken over the body of US academia.

This week we caught a glimpse of the advanced state of the disease in an email sent by a Syracuse University professor to an Israeli filmmaker in June.

As The Atlantic reported, on June 24, Syracuse professor Gail Hamner disinvited Israeli filmmaker Shimon Dotan from screening his film at the university’s film festival, scheduled for March 2017.

Hamner’s decision had nothing to do with the quality of Dotan’s work. She admitted as much, writing, “Obviously, my decision here has nothing to do with you or your work.”

Dotan was disinvited because he is Israeli and because the title of his film, The Settlers, does not make it immediately apparent whether he reviles the half million Israeli Jews who live in Judea and Samaria sufficiently.

Hamner explained, “My SU colleagues, on hearing about my attempt to secure your presentation [at our upcoming film festival], have warned me that the BDS faction on campus will make matters very unpleasant for you and for me if you come.”

She then elaborated on the harm his participation would cause her, personally.

“My film colleague… who granted me affiliated faculty [status] in the film and screen studies program and who supported my proposal to the Humanities Council for this conference, told me point blank that if I have not myself seen your film and cannot myself vouch for it to the council, I will lose credibility with a number of film and women/ gender studies colleagues. Sadly, I have not had the chance to see your film and can only vouch for it through my friend and through published reviews.”

Hamner added, “I feel caught in an ideological matrix and by my own egoic needs to sustain certain institutional affiliations.”

Hamner’s letter to Dotan provides us with a rare opportunity to see something that people generally go to great lengths to hide. Hamner demonstrated how boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists have enmeshed Jew hatred into the fabric of academic life in America.