It is common in our media and on Facebook to see analogies drawn between migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and other war-torn regions and Jewish refugees from Germany in the 1930s. Initially the analogy seems apt. After the National Socialists were elected to power, Germany became a dangerous place for Jews, though the full scope of the danger wasn’t clear until the 1940s. For at least the 500,000 Jews who lived in Germany prior to the electoral victories of Hitler (or the roughly 250,000 who were still there just prior to World War II), in retrospect it seems to at least some Americans that we should have accepted them as refugees. People who live in Syria today are also in danger. Therefore we should accept them as refugees because we might regret it 70 years later if we do not.
If we are going to look back to the World War II era in Europe, are Jews the correct group to serve as an analogy and talking point? Jews constituted just one percent of the German population and were a minority group elsewhere in Europe. They were being targeted for discrimination, random violence, and ultimately institutional death camps due to their ethnicity/religion. Most of the migrants seeking admission to Europe and the U.S., however, don’t fit this description. Perhaps Christians who have remained in Muslim countries would be analogous to the Jews of Europe circa 1935 or 1940 (depending on whether there is an active shooting war near their home), but a Muslim citizen of a Muslim country that has become a war zone? Wouldn’t the more appropriate analogy be to a Christian living in a war-torn part of France, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, or Russia? Or to a Christian living in London during the German bombing campaigns? Or even to a soldier in any of the armies fighting during World War II? The average soldier certainly did not choose to go to war and would have preferred to be resettled in Minnesota.
This doesn’t necessarily affect the question of whether or not it makes sense to offer U.S. or EU citizenship to anyone currently living in a war zone. Perhaps it would have made sense to bring 50, 75, or even 100 percent of the European and Russian population in the 1940s in order to protect them from World War II (i.e., potentially hundreds of millions of people). If there are only a handful of places on Planet Earth where people can live without killing each other, why not have everyone live in those places? However, people keep saying “Jews” and “Holocaust” in the context of “Should we accept a refugee who is of the same religion and ethnicity as most other people in a country having a civil war?” If the analogy is inapt then presumably the conclusions that people are drawing are wrong.
[Separately, if Americans are in fact enthusiastic about Jewish refugees, we could take in the entire population of Israel under the proposed new standards for migrants/refugees. The states of the Arab League declared war on Israel in 1948 and only Jordan and Egypt have subsequently agreed to peace treaties. Thus Israel is an official war zone and everyone there is theoretically subject to the risk of violent conflict at any time the Arab countries (plus Iran as a new belligerent) feel strong enough to initiate new battles. (Arab citizens of Israel and Arabs living in the adjacent territories are equally at risk from any conflict, so they would qualify as refugees entitled to U.S. residency as well.)]
Not really, as the problem to a certain extent lies elsewhere.
For it is a sad fact the problem lies with western governments and their political elites if truth be told, with regard to western foreign policy.
‘The Unstoppable Cause of Global Mass Migration and Where ‘OUR’ Western Political Leaders and ‘OUR’ Western Corporate Leaders have to Change their Fixation for Power and Wealth Mindsets BEFORE it is Too Late for Humanity to Have a Peaceful Future World Order – For Presently there is not one and if we continue using the Capitalist System as it is today, all Socio-Economic Systems will Collapse in the West and Humanity as we ‘Wish’ it to be, will Cease to even Exist’ – http://worldinnovationfoundation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-unstoppable-cause-of-global-mass.html
‘Islamic State and the Future Continuum of Islamic State Global Terrorist Organizations will Just Go On and On and On, and Not Go Away until the World’s Political and Economic Elites are ‘Seen’ for What they Really Are – a Manifestation of the Real ‘Root Causes’ of Terrorism, as Western Foreign Policy and Economic Superiority are Far More Important than the Preservation of the Human Experience’ – http://worldinnovationfoundation.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/islamic-state-and-future-continuum-of.html
Until we change our foreign policy in the West, peace is not an option based on modern history and what it tells us. And until that happens, mass migration will be with us forever using common sense.