Monday, February 13, 2017

Travel Ban Musings



72 convicted in U.S. terror cases came from nations targeted for vetting
- Stephen Dinan

At least 72 convicted terrorists came from the seven countries President Trump targeted in his extreme vetting executive order, according to a new report this weekend that directly undercut part of the courts’ rulings halting the program.

Seventeen of those entered the U.S. under the refugee program that Mr. Trump has said is of special concern to him, according to the data compiled by the Senate Judiciary Committee and analyzed by the Center for Immigration Studies.

The convictions came in terrorism-related investigations since the Sept. 11 attacks, but some were for relatively minor crimes such as identity fraud. Nevertheless, more than 30 of the convicts served at least three years in prison because of their terrorism-related crimes, the CIS report said.

Judge James L. Robart, who first blocked Mr. Trump’s executive order on Feb. 3, insisted in court that there were no such terrorists at all.
[Washington Times]


Travel Ban Is About Anti-Semitism, For Some - Jonathan Mark

Mort Klein, the president of the Zionist Organization of America, declared the ZOA’s unequivocal support of the president, support based as much on Jewish safety as on national security.
Mort Klein, ZOA President


Why,” he asked us, when we know the Arab Middle East is overwhelmingly anti-Semitic, “would Jews want to welcome those anti-Semites into the United States?”
 
According to the FBI, in every year since 2001, Jews have been the leading victims of religious-oriented hate crimes. In 2014, the Anti-Defamation League conducted a global survey of anti-Semitism and found “the highest concentration of respondents holding anti-Semitic attitudes was found in the Middle East and North African countries,” and of the seven countries named by Trump, three were at the top of the ADL’s list: Iraq, 92 percent anti-Semitic; Yemen, 88 percent; and Libya, 87 percent. Of the listed countries, Iran had the lowest percentage of anti-Semitism, 56 percent, but Klein pointed out that Iran is also a country that regularly threatens Israel with a nuclear attack. Syria’s ongoing civil war has made it impenetrable for pollsters, but bordering countries have anti-Semitic attitudes ranging from 78-93 percent, making it reasonable to place Syrians in a similar range.

A 2015 ADL survey found that 55 percent of Muslim migrants to Western Europe continued to hold anti-Semitic attitudes, far above the 12-15 percent among the general population of France, Germany and the U.K.

With ongoing reports of a surge in American anti-Semitism, from the left and the right, Klein told us, “It is dangerous and immoral to bring anti-Semites into America; Jew-haters who will advocate anti-Israel boycotts, join anti-Semitic activities on campus and support the anti-Israel politicians in Congress.”

Peggy Noonan recently wrote in The Wall Street Journal, “Battle lines are sharply drawn. … Everyone’s political views are now emotions and everyone now wears their emotions on their faces. People are speaking more loudly and quickly than usual.

Fred Ehrman, a national vice president of the Orthodox Union, speaking only for himself, told The Jewish Week, “The phrase ‘extreme vetting,’ which makes absolute sense, is characterized as xenophobic, only because [Trump] is proposing these measures. Coming from the mouth of a Barack Obama or a Hillary Clinton, it would seem undeniably reasonable.

“We’re getting to the point,” said Klein, “where almost every major synagogue has security guards on Shabbos, and the reason is fear of [radical Islamic] terrorists.”
[The Jewish Week]


Radical Muslim Cleric Caught Being Smuggled into U.S. at Mexican Border     

U.S. border guards found a hardline Muslim cleric - banned from France and Canada - curled up in the trunk of a BMW crossing from Mexico into California.
  

Said Jaziri, who led protests calling for the death of a Danish cartoonist that drew pictures of the prophet Mohammed, was deported from Canada to Tunisia in 2007. 
(Daily Mail-UK, Jan 2011)
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