Jews in 1938 are not a parallel case of the Middle East refugees looking for a homeland today. Dennis Prager explains why not:
Allowing millions of Syrians and others from the Muslim Middle East into Europe will end up a catastrophe for Europe, and therefore for the West.
This may be the most difficult sentence I have ever written. Little seems more obviously moral than to allow these benighted Syrians, Iraqis and others to flee from hell into heaven. Therefore, arguing against allowing large numbers of them into Europe (and the United States) seems to be advocating for something that is heartless and just morally wrong.
Also, as a Jew, I am particularly sensitive to any parallels to the Holocaust. And looking at photos and videos of families trying to escape Syria, where two monsters — the Assad regime and the Islamic State — are devouring each other and hundreds of thousands in their way, how can I not think back to a time when Jews sought to escape the Nazi monster devouring them?
It was precisely this thinking that led the distinguished former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, to write a moving column for The Guardian, comparing the Syrian refugees to the Jews of Europe before and during the Holocaust:
"One of the dark moments in that history occurred in July 1938, when representatives of 32 countries gathered in the French spa town of Evian to discuss the humanitarian disaster that everyone knew was about to overtake the Jews of Europe wherever Hitler's Germany held sway. Jews were desperate to leave. ... Yet country after country shut its doors. Nation after nation in effect said it wasn't their problem."
How does an ethically motivated person — Jew or non-Jew — deal with the emotionally powerful Holocaust argument?
For one thing, the parallels are far from precise.
Every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe — man, woman, child, baby — was targeted for death. The Syrian people are not targeted for death. The only such targets in the Middle East — aside from the Jews of Israel — are Christians and Yazidis, every one of whom should most definitely be allowed into Europe and the United States.
The parallel is also imprecise because the vast majority of the Jews of Germany and many other European countries were assimilated citizens of their respective countries, who thoroughly embraced Western culture and values. In contrast, most of the Muslims of the Middle East — and the largely Muslim population (from non-Arab countries) already in Europe — hold values that are not merely different from, but opposed to, those of Europe.
It is not as if Europe has no experience with large numbers of Muslim immigrants. And the experience has been largely negative. Most European countries are bad at assimilating people from other cultures, especially from Muslim cultures. And large numbers of people from Muslim cultures are bad at assimilating into non-Muslim cultures.
Many Muslim immigrants in the UK, France and Sweden live in Muslim ghettoes and have not assimilated. Moreover, and of particular importance, children of the immigrants — the ones born and raised in European countries — are usually the most radical and anti-Western. It is worth recalling that the 9/11 terror attack on America was planned by Muslim immigrants living in Germany. Muhammad Atta, the leader, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ziad Jarrah, Said Bahaji and Marwan al-Shehhi had lived in Germany for between five and eight years respectively. Bahaji was born in Germany.