ZOA President Morton A. Klein released the following statement: The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly opposes bringing more Syrian Muslim “refugees” into the United States. Syrian immigrants pose a grave danger to all Americans – and an even greater danger to American Jews, for a host of reasons. Obama’s own FBI director and numerous other top administration and bipartisan U.S. officials openly state that Syrian “refugees” cannot be properly vetted – and that there is no information to vet them with to determine any criminal or terrorist background or dangerous ideological background. A top Lebanese minister warned that two in every 100 Syrian migrants are ISIS fighters, and an ISIS operative has admitted that 4,000 ISIS fighters have been smuggled into Western nations, hidden among the refugees. As the San Bernardino massacre demonstrates, innocent American citizens – especially including innocent American Jews – are at risk of more San Bernardino and Paris-style attacks. Our security services are already stretched too thin – Colorado law enforcement officials revealed that the FBI has nearly 1,000 active ISIS probes inside the U.S.
In addition, Hamas supporters and trainees infiltrating with Syrian refugees are another major danger, even more so to American Jews. American women are likely to be at greater risk of sexual assaults, including rapes, as has occurred in Europe. In addition, the UN High Commissioner on Refugees – who selects the refugees brought into the United States – favors Syrian Sunni Muslims (who are the least “at risk” from ISIS, which is also Sunni), and discriminates against the Syrian Christians and other minorities who are most at risk from ISIS. Some 98% of the Syrian “refugees” admitted to the U.S. to date are Sunni Muslim.
Notably, some organizations (including HIAS, Inc.) that are lobbying to admit more Syrian refugees are in the “refugee resettlement” business – and stand to receive multi-million-dollar refugee resettlement contracts from the U.S. government.
Appallingly, HIAS (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) and Jewish groups such as ADL, AJC, Reform movement, and others have joined forces with Muslim anti-Israel organizations and groups that promote anti-Israel boycotts to oppose additional restrictions and security measures on Syrian refugees. Despite the fact that U.S. government officials admit that no Syrian databases exist with which to vet Syrian refugees, this unholy consortium of Jewish and anti-Israel groups falsely claims that Syrian refugees should be admitted without further security restrictions because the refugees’ background information is all “checked against government databases.”
As ZOA previously wrote, there are far less risky ways to compassionately help legitimate Syrian refugees. Humanitarian help can be best achieved without endangering American citizens, by establishing no-fly zone safe havens for Syrian refugees in neighboring Muslim areas in the Middle East.
Even before the recent San Bernardino massacre, a Bloomberg poll showed that most Americans oppose bringing Syrian refugees here: 53% of Americans want to completely stop accepting Syrian refugees; plus 11% want to only accept Christian Syrian refugees. Only 28% favor continuing resettlement here. ZOA implores American Jews, other Jewish organizations, and the pro-Israel community to join with ZOA in opposing bringing more ISIS-infiltrated Syrian refugees here.
It is wrong and absolutely inaccurate for President Obama to portray objections to bringing in more Syrian Muslims as Islamaphobia, or as religious bigotry. People do not oppose Syrian Muslims coming into this country because they are members of a certain religion – but rather, because of the dangers described here.
Below is a comprehensive discussion of this issue:
