Hate is hate, be it toward Muslim immigrants, or be it from Muslim nations.
“No Place for Hate” is the ADL slogan for countering hate in such arenas as classrooms. In fact, we have a front page story just this week on one such admirable effort.
Alas, hate stretches into arenas far larger than classrooms and similar spaces. Hate stretches into entire countries.
Take six of the seven countries from which President Trump wishes temporarily to ban immigrants to the US. Courts have put a stop to Trump’s executive order while it is examined. Whatever that examination turns up with respect to individuals citizens from these Muslim-majority countries, the countries themselves are the very opposite of “No Place for Hate.” In fact, they are “Places for Hate.”
Trump has targeted these seven countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.
The first six do not allow Israelis to enter their country. They hate Israelis. Some of these countries will not even admit non-Israelis who have been to Israel and have an Israeli visa on their passport! It’s an old problem, going back to the Arab nations who invaded Israel in 1948 with the express purpose of annihilating its Jewish population and preventing the State of Israel from surviving.
The one exception on Trump’s list of seven countries is Somalia.
All of these countries are Muslim-majority.
It is not right to ban a class of immigrants from entering this country. It is right to vet them with sufficient rigor so as to prevent terrorists from entering the US. Whether the US already does this, or whether more stringent methods are needed, as Trump believes, is an issue beyond our present purview. What is undeniable is that however free of hate the individual emigrant from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, Syria and Yemen may be, hate is vigorously taught in their countries.
“Places for Hate” is what they are.
Their hatred of Israel and Israelis has had dire consequences for the citizens of Israel, via wars or terrorist attacks or both, in the cases of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria. What Sudan’s role as a nest of terror against Israel may be, we do not know. We do know that its policy of excluding Israelis is inherently hateful and dangerous. Ideas count. Hateful ideas inspire hateful action. That is the best we can say for Sudan.
We also note 10 other countries, not on Trump’s list of banned countries, whose hatred of Israel extends to banning Israelis: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Kuwait, Lebanon, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates.
These 16 countries are not “No Places for Hate.” Just the opposite.
We shall not judge individual citizens from these 16 countries, including Trump’s seven banned countries. Sometimes, citizens who seek to leave countries like these do so precisely to escape the officially preached hate all around them. We know it is all around them; we know how irrational and sustained the hatred of Israel is in these countries.
That said, we are not naive. We know that, taken strictly as a matter of percentages, the great bulk of terrorist attacks around the world are committed by adherents of radical Islam. We know that radical Islam is strong in Trump’s banned seven countries (including Somalia). We know that this philosophy, if such be the word, will and does influence a certain number of the citizens of these countries to kill innocent people.
We know, in other words, one simple equation: Just as it is wrong to hate the potential immigrant from Trump’s list of banned countries, it is wrong for their countries to hate Israelis.
Hate is hate.
“No Place for Hate” must mean no place at all, or it means nothing at all. No exceptions for Muslim-majority countries.
Hate cannot be wrong for one group — Americans in their attitude toward a class, Muslim immigrants — but OK for another group —Muslim-majority nations in their attitude toward Israelis.
Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News
For the sake of my post here, I am presuming that the IJN Editorial Staff – authors of this article – all lock the doors of their homes at night and when they are not at home. Do they do this because they hate the people who might wish to enter their home and cause harm? Or do they lock their homes out of a reasonable concern for the safety and well-being of themselves and their families?