“I wonder if the time has come for the United States to offer political asylum to the Jews of Canada, Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe?”I believe we should make that offer. If one reads blogs from Europe one gets the impression that things are not all that safe across the Atlantic if you can be identified as Jewish.
For sure we should not repeat the mistakes of the the late 1930s. That is embarrassing to remember, even now. In the years just before I was born we here in the US excluded Jews who were fleeing Germany and anti-Semitism. That anti-Semitism included barring Jews from certain employment and confiscation of property. It included "Kristalnacht." And then it was too late for six million Jews.
Sure, 90% of them will vote Democrat once they become citizens, but some things are above politics.
Regards -- Cliff
Canada? Really??? C'mon now. (And ironic we should hear this while thousands of Palestinians are enduring privation, mutilation and death at the hands of another branch of the diaspora right there in front of the satellite cameras).
ReplyDeleteAnecdotes of isolated incidents in places like Canada (we have them here in this country, too) should hardly be the basis of US immigration and asylum policy, no matter how guilty we might feel about past mistakes.
One could argue with equal stridency, observing, for example, Israeli legislation to bar ethnic Arab citizens from holding public office in their so-called "democracy", that we bear little in common with a people who believe they are "chosen" as opposed to created equal, and justified in killing 1300 to avenge 13.
Which is not to say that the persecuted Jews of Europe and elsewhere shouldn't be welcomed. Just to say that this world is FULL of people deserving of our welcome, and we should be far less exclusive on the religions and nationalities on whom we lavish it, while far more rigorous on the individuals.