I just wanted to add one more thing to Judy’s good post yesterday about the disappointing Washington Post Outlook article on Iraqi refugees. Increasingly I’ve noticed that those seeking to beat us up over the Iraqi refugees we supposedly created singlehandedly are making parallels to the Israeli/Palestinian sixty-year-old open sore. Refugee activists (and that is what they are) Jennifer and Jonathan, authors of this Post opinion piece do the same thing here:
The countries best positioned to help are paralyzed by petty politics and legitimate alarm at the daunting scope of the problem and are allowing the crisis to fester. Much of the Middle East — including Jordan, which once welcomed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis — has now closed its borders, concerned that, like the Palestinians who 60 years ago fled what is now Israel, the Iraqis might never leave.
As we have pointed out on many previous occasions, the Palestinian “crisis” continues because Arab countries wish it to continue. It keeps the hatred towards Israel alive. Since that strategy has worked so well for Muslim supremacists, is it not possible that the same strategy is in the works right now with the Iraqi refugees? I don’t know about Jordan, the weathly Saudis have never opened their border nor lifted a finger to help, and I wouldn’t put it past Syria (“petty politics”, I doubt it) who see the suffering of Iraqis in their midst, to allow the “crisis to fester” as a way to continue to make America the whipping boy. Nevermind the facts, Middle Eastern victimhood is a strategy that works.
We then are only too glad to oblige thanks to people like Jennifer and Jonathan ready and willing to report that America is to blame. And, the Bush Administration says, whip me harder, instead of standing up and making the case publically for going slow on importing tens of thousands of Muslim Iraqis to a town near you.
A couple of refugee activists are sent to Syria, paid by someone (who?), and come back the experts. I bet Judy and I (about as qualified as these two authors) could go and come back with a completely differant story about what is going on and we wouldn’t be featured in the WaPo.