He didn’t mention Sen. Ted Cruz or Jeb Bush by name, but on Monday when President Obama trashed the idea of a “religious test” imposed on refugees, Cruz, Bush and those who agree with them were the obvious targets. Cruz said Sunday that only Christian refugees from Syria should be admitted to the United States. Obama said:
“When I hear folks say that well maybe we should just admit the Christians but not the Muslims, when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who is fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution, that’s shameful,” Obama said. “That’s not American. That’s not who we are.”
Shameful, indeed, although America’s record on letting in war refugees is hardly spotless, and the proscription Cruz has proposed will undoubtedly play big among a certain segment of the electorate.
Cruz and his ilk ignore the fact that most of the victims of ISIS have been Muslims, either civilians or combatants who have been fighting the extremist group’s jihadis for months:
Cruz did not say how he would determine that refugees were Christian or Muslim. He reiterated his assertion that it is "lunacy" to allow Muslim refugees into the United States, asserting that there is no way to know if they are aligned with the Islamic State. [...]
"We need to be working to provide a safe haven for those Christians who are being persecuted and facing genocide, and at the same time we shouldn't be letting terrorists into America," he said.
If Cruz’s policy were to be implemented, just one of the outrages likely to be encountered would put fleeing Syrians from mixed families in the same situation encountered by what are said to be the last Jews escaping the Syria conflict. Karla Dieseldorff reports that the refugees were a family of eight. They were smuggled from Aleppo aboard a minibus headed for Tel Aviv using fake Syrian passports:
Moti Kahana, the wealthy Jewish-American man who helped them was awaiting their arrival in Istanbul. “We have taken the last Jewish woman from Aleppo and I feel very emotional,” he was quoted as saying.
However, the story did not have a happy ending. When the Jewish Agency NGO arrived in Istanbul to consider granting access to the Jewish family into Tel Aviv, only Mariam and Sarah were allowed to enter Israel.
Mariam’s daughter Gilda who converted to Islam, her Muslim husband Khalid and their children were refused entrance, according to Kahana’s statement to Gulf News.
Under Israeli Law of Return, Jews who voluntarily convert to another religion cannot be admitted on an Aliyah visa. Consequently, Gilda, her husband Khaled, and their three children are back in Syria. If Ted Cruz were running the show in the United States, that’s where they would remain. Shameful indeed, as the president said.
