Should Europe take in a million Muslim refugees?

Should Europe take in about a million Syrian and other Muslim refugees? Should America take in tens of thousands? 

In a recent column in the British newspaper The Guardian, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the distinguished former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, argued passionately in favor of Europe doing so, comparing the situation to that of Europe’s Jews 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.”

It is emotionally difficult to differ with this argument. How can the argument not tug at the heart and conscience of anyone, especially a Jew? 

Little seems more obviously moral than to allow these benighted Syrians, Iraqis and others to flee from hell into what is comparatively heaven. And, as a Jew, one is particularly sensitive to any parallels to the Holocaust. 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, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, how can a Jew not think back to a time when Jews sought to escape the Nazi monster devouring them?

How, then, does an ethical person — Jew or non-Jew — deal with the emotionally powerful Holocaust argument?

Here are some ways:

First, every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe — man, woman, child, baby — was targeted for death. The Syrian nation is not targeted for extermination. 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. 

Second, the majority of the Jews of Germany and many other European countries were assimilated citizens of their respective countries, who — more importantly — thoroughly embraced Western culture and values. In contrast, many 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. 

Third, 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 religious Muslims from Muslim cultures are bad at assimilating into non-Muslim cultures. Many Muslim immigrants in the U.K., France and Sweden live in Muslim ghettos.

Fourth, and of particular importance, children of the immigrants — the ones born and raised in European countries — are usually the most radical and anti-Western. Many of the children of these immigrants will not remember Bashar Assad or ISIS, but they will resent their likely inferior socioeconomic status and lack of full integration into European society. Some of them will then undoubtedly cause havoc in Europe.

It is worth recalling that the 9/11 terror attack on America was planned by young 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. And Bahaji was born in Germany. 

Fifth — and of particular interest to Jews — just about all Syrian and other Middle East Muslims seek Israel’s destruction. Why would any decent person, let alone any Jew who cares about the Jews of Europe and Israel’s survival, want to import into Europe hundreds of thousands of people carrying the world’s greatest hatred?

And if one denies that these Syrians and other Middle East Muslims seek Israel’s annihilation, why not argue that Israel offer to take in its proportional share of Syrians? Israel, after all, is richer than some European countries and one doesn’t have to cross a sea to get from Syria to Israel.

Sixth, on what moral basis can the European Union object to bringing in the million and a half mostly non-Muslim Nigerians who have fled their homes because of Boko Haram terror and the Islamist government war in that country? 

Seventh, the economic growth and unemployment rates of the EU countries — Germany included — are not robust enough to handle a vast number of destitute newcomers. And as the British writer Janet Daley pointed out in The Telegraph, what about “the pressures on their hospitals and GPs’ surgeries, and of shortages of housing and school places …”?

Eighth, it is as certain as night follows day that the Islamic State and other terror groups will place terrorists among the refugees coming into Europe.

Ninth, as a result of all of these factors, some European countries will be threatened by far-right political movements that will arise in opposition to the threat to their national identity, values and economy.

So, then, why does any European leader assume that things will turn out better with a million or more new Muslim immigrants from the Middle East? Or assume that the number will stop at 800,000? 

Europe means well in taking in a million refugees from the Middle East. But when good intentions trump experience and wisdom, you’re asking for trouble — in this case, civilization-threatening trouble. 

None of this means Europe and America should do nothing. Indeed, it was precisely Europe and America doing nothing about Assad that helped to create this horror. The West should supply the good guys in the Muslim Middle East — the Kurds — with the military hardware they need. And we should spend — and demand rich Arab states spend — upward of a billion dollars to help feed and clothe Syrians who flee to neighboring countries. One day, after all, the Syrian civil war will end, and they can again be financially aided to return home. Then real good will be done. And Europe will be spared the choice of Islamization or civil war.

Finally, as always, some will label this outlook racist. But that would be a libel designed to avoid confronting the real issue — values, not race. America welcomed — and was right in welcoming — the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese boat people and other Vietnamese escaping communist totalitarianism. Ultimately, America took in well over 1 million Vietnamese — people of another race. Why? Because the Vietnamese refugees share our values. Too many Syrians and others from the Arab world do not. That, not race, is all this is about. 

Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio talk-show host (AM 870 in Los Angeles) and founder of PragerUniversity.com.