Anne Frank and her family were also denied entry as refugees to the U.S
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
The countries to which the bans apply are all majority Muslim, so the exemption would apply to non-Muslims.
I actually just tried to find out what the attitude towards jewish refugees was in the US and happened upon this eerily pertinent passage:
Out of fear that the Nazis could smuggle spies and
saboteurs in with refugees, immigration officials
tightened visa policies for immigrants and non-
immigrants. The State Department urged its diplomatic
consuls in Europe to screen potential immigrants
carefully, including those fleeing persecution,
"Trump's Refugee Plan Will Prioritize Christians Suffering Religious Persecution"
The precise wording of the order/legislation may not mention any specific religion, but the intent is clear. Specific countries will be targeted, and exceptions within those countries will be granted, to ensure that Muslims aren't able to get in but Christians can sail right through.
These were common during the inquisition to test convert Jews.
Looks like it works, but you simply force people to lie - be that via false confessions or going against halal/kosher practice.
Anusim are Jews who were coerced to convert: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anusim
All in all there isn't much need to do a bacon test for either Muslims or Jews, at least for men, just make them strip if they are circumcised you know exactly who they are.
Sadly this leads to some surreal events such as this: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3422000/Just-old-thi...
There's various ideologies of that, and some of that are aggressive (repressive) towards the others, which is exactly what is leading to refugee problems in Europe. Is the law going to paper over that difference?
But the British broke their mandate with "The White Paper" in 1939 which severely limited Jewish immigration to their land.
If America had run the mandate instead of the British there probably would not have been The Holocaust and many millions more Jews would be alive today in Israel including presumably Anne Frank.
We can go on in this silly vein all day...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936%E2%80%9339_Arab_revolt_...
> "...their land"
The sentence is unclear if you're referring to it as British land or Jewish land, but either way it's contentious to say the least!
I disagree wholeheartedly with the idea that the United States of America should ban people based on their country of origin. That is UnAmerican. But I do find the above illogical and very fishy.
And I do think that Western countries (such as the US and my own country of Australia) should take more refugees, including Syrian refugees.
However, I'd question the parallel the article tries to draw between between victims and survivors of the Holocaust and contemporary Syrian refugees – every Jew fleeing the Nazi regime was under a very serious risk of falling victim to genocide, whether or not they realised it at the time. By contrast, I don't think the vast majority of Syrian refugees are fleeing genocide. While genocide has been occurring in Syria (e.g. ISIS' genocide of Yazidis), the actual or potential victims of those genocides are a small minority of the total Syrian refugee population.
More soviets died there than Jews, and in fact more Non-Jews died there than Jews. Why does everyone ignore that?
Number of Deaths Jews: up to 6 million Soviet civilians: around 7 million Soviet prisoners of war: around 3 million Non-Jewish Polish civilians: around 1.8 million Serb civilians: 312,000 People with disabilities: up to 250,000 Roma (Gypsies): 196,000–220,000 Jehovah's Witnesses: Around 1,900 Repeat criminal offenders: at least 70,000
And it's right next door.
Tragically allowing refugees in is the sort of action that might convey the goodwill necessary for Israel to find a diplomatic home in the Middle East but alas; short-termism wins out.
Sweden and Israel both have populations of about 10 million. Sweden has taken in 200-300 THOUSAND. Israel promises to take in 100 and pats itself on the back.
All factors considered, Israel does more than its share to help the situation. Or perhaps they should take out Assad and bring this misery to an end. Or would that even end it?Perhaps you've heard of the many many Syrians who have sought and received medical assistance in Israel. Plenty of print on that.
Isn't it strange that 1000 American rabbis can call on the US to accept Syrian refugees? Are there 1000 Israeli rabbis doing the same? Don't they remember Anne Frank?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/...
http://time.com/4135445/american-rabbis-syrian-refugee-lette...
Shame on Israel (and all other not-my-issue countries).
The number of Syrian refugees fleeing to Israel is also nearly zero, 70 years of propaganda would do it for it as well as Israel not being a welfare state.
Overall you can say the same thing about most Gulf nations, only with one exception they have more cash than both Israel and Sweden and they are both culturally and ethnically more similar.
Considering that many of the Muslim refugees are Sunni, a better question would be why didn't Saudi Arabia and rest of the Oil club didn't take most if not all of them.
They run to Sweden for a lot of reasons geography isn't one of them, and it's not because all of the other countries are hell holes.
They don't go to Israel because 70 years of government propaganda makes them think they'll eat their babies.
It didn't stop Israel from treating 1000's of wounded and many of them are not reported because crossing to Israel is a death sentence to anyone who wants to return to Syria or their families.
of course we are human, but it's called "hacker news" and I guess people expect computer related news here. Just like when I visit soccer.com, I'm not expecting news about AI or Anne Frank :)
So it's not about being people too, it's about the subject focused (or at least implied) by this website.
I can also see the fact that HN is now more a community that an actual news site and people like to talk about more and more various subjects.
Therefore it's important that we talk about these things.
> The appeal of HN to me is that it's limited specifically to tech-related news.
...is wrong. The guidelines have said for years that on-topic is:
> Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
edit: Allow me to rephrase a bit. Our actions as technologists have real effects upon real people. It is incumbent upon us to consider how the tools we make may harm or help our fellow human beings.
In Canada, newly graduated engineers are given iron rings to remind them of the ethical obligations incumbent in their jobs. We should all be so fortunate as to have a physical token reminding us of this on a daily basis.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13489156
Something like: we are banning people again, history repeats itself... but I didn't actually read the article (comments first) so I might be wrong.
A multi-car pile-up isn't one 5 minutes before it happens either.
I agree that one shouldn't cry wolf and exaggerate too often, but it's equally ignorant to not take things seriously, whether it be a fact-opposing president, mass surveillence legislation or anti consumer net unneutrality, that are all just steps that are hard to reverse once in place, and are building towards something much worse.